Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End

2007 • 416 pages

Ratings40

Average rating3.5

15

Is it too much to ask to have a great novel set in the cubicle farms I'm so familiar with? Maybe it's just too difficult to mine that otherwise dreary setting. Most seem immediately dated and overplayed like Aeron chairs and Segways. Maybe in a hundred years time they'll seem more relevant in a Dickensonian way.

Ferris doesn't exactly start strong with the use of the first person plural which loops in on itself at the end. It's distancing and jarring but maybe that's the point. I've read reviews that damn the whole story as obviously the product of a writer's workshop. It's just too clever by half. The middle section really clicked for me but then I'm just falling for the metaphor and enjoying at how it hints at a greater subtext.

See, now I'm talking like some writer workshop douche offering up my sincere meaning criticisms. OK read, still waiting for the great office novel.

April 10, 2011Report this review