erasing clouds
 

Max Berry, Company

reviewed by dave heaton

Max Barry's new novel Company begins like a mild spoof of corporate life, a late addition to the Office Space/The Office line of art. Fresh out of school, Stephen Jones takes a job at a major corporation which everyone's heard of, even though no one, even its employees, really know what the company does. The company's mission statement is cloaked in vague corporatespeak, not helping matters. The building's floors are ordered from top to bottom in terms of the department's importance to the company, and numbered accordingly; the CEO is on the top floor, numbered "1" on the elevator panel. Jones' ID badge bears only his last name. His department is filled with co-workers who argue about trivial matters, attend meetings where nothing of substance is on the agenda, and go about their days without questioning what the company is all about.

Jones, the outsider, of course finds himself more curious than the others about what the company is really all about, and starts snooping around, asking questions, trying to turn up the truth. His quest, and what he discovers, is where the book really gets interesting, when it switches from mild entertainment into something more forceful.

Company ultimately becomes a rather pointed look at corporate life, one which examines many facets of the way the typical corporation operates. That it does so while remaining quite funny, entertaining, and involving is its chief success. It offers a complex, real-world look at the power machinations behind corporations, and the day-to-day ways that they manifest themselves, while also taking an almost science-fiction approach that takes logical next-steps and pushes them outward to an absurd extent. Barry pushes the envelope of believability while retaining the plot's relevance to life in today's world. Ultimately the book does more than just portray an office environment which readers will recognize (a la innocuous Dilbert comics) – it also asks big, important questions about corporations and their role in society, and does so in a humorous and entertaining way.

{www.doubleday.com, www.maxbarry.com}


this month's issue
archive
about erasing clouds
links
contact
     

Copyright (c) 2006 erasing clouds