The Circle - Dave Eggers

After almost a month, I finally finished The Circle. I didn't love it. 

Let me be clear. I get it. Its Orwellian nature, its cautionary tale of the erosion of privacy rights. It's all there. It all works. But it also tries to be cute. This is possibly a problem with the narration - for starters the male narrator has to work mostly in the voice of the female main character. Sometimes this isn't a problem, but the female characters came off as flippant or whiny. The male characters as stoned or whiny. But I found the dialogue strained and at attempting humor. 

It's not clear if Eggers wants us to be truly terrified, as in 1984, or if he merely wants us to be entertained. Or perhaps he wants us to laugh all the way to our destruction? Either way it sets the mood of the novel off kilter and it never recovers. 

So in a nutshell, the main character, Mae, gets hired at The Circle (think Google has a baby with Apple, Amazon, and Facebook). The Circle, in instituting an online profile that insists on transparency called TrueYou has eliminated trolling online as no one can hide behind anonymity. The Circle campus, made up mostly of millennial staffers is a haven for sand volleyball and outdoor barbecues, even going so far as to offer on campus temporary housing to Circlers who prefer to spend the night on campus after a campus event. 

Mae has a semi-rough transition into the Circle, trying to meet it's every growing demands. She's called into her boss' office when she fails to attend a party she didn't know she was invited to, an invitation she received because of a far past post on her social media profile. She is asked to participate in a survey at work wherein she's expected to answer up to 500 questions a day. 

In the beginning Mae spends time off campus with her parents and out kayaking alone by herself. These activities turn out to be disappointing to the Circle which insists on knowing, well basically everything. So she tries harder and becomes a model employee. Meanwhile she's introduced to a real drip of a guy, Frances, who she decides she does not want to become involved with romantically after he films their first sexual encounter without her knowledge. Instead she becomes attracted to an enigmatic gray haired fellow, Calden, who she meets TWICE. The third time he asks her to meet him in the bathroom (because cameras have now proliferated the campus) and they have sex in a bathroom stall, not saying more than two or three words to each other before he disappears again. 

In the meantime, Mae becomes more entrenched at the Circle, going "Transparent" meaning she wears a camera on her person at all times. She comes up with some slogans Eggers tries real hard to make sure we know are Orwellian, "sharing is caring" "privacy is theft" that are presented to an ever enthusiastic crowd of Circlers. People follow Mae around all day and insist on her engagement in their lives and minor questions.

So then there is this complete stretch of credibility at the end by a character that I won't bother putting down because of spoilers, but if you've read this you get it. And the end is very very predictable. 

So I'm not sure if I'm late to the party on this one or not, but it tries so hard to be 1984 wrapped in a Silicon skin it just fell pretty flat for me even if that whole idea should theoretically work.

3/5 Stars. 

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson

First things first, Erik Larson knows how to research an issue. Sometimes you forget that these things in his books happened to real people. Like Deadwake (you can read that review here), Thunderstruck involves ships and transatlantic crossings. But the similarities really end there.

Thunderstruck follows the progress of two seemingly unconnected events. First, the development of wireless telegraphy by inventor Guglielmo Marconi and the turbulent marriage of Hawley Harvey Crippen and Cora Crippen. 

As Marconi races against critics and arrogant scientists to achieve wireless transmissions across the Atlantic, Crippen and Cora move from New York to London to pursue Crippen's career in homeopathy and mail order pharmaceuticals. Cora, unable to accept her lack of talent, spends copious amounts of her husband's money in pursuing Opera and then local cabaret gigs to little result. She is presented as domineering and belittling of her husband, engaged in extramarital flirtations and affairs. Crippen, small and meek finally takes up with his secretary. And, well, then Cora goes missing, Crippen gets on a Marconi equipped vessel, and the gory remains of a body are found in his basement. 

Crippen and his secretary are pursued through wireless technology over the Atlantic Ocean and arrive, unwittingly, to be delivered in to the hands of the authorities, while a rapt public follows their 11 day journey through news reports made possible by the Marconi technology, thus cementing the use of Marconi's system into the hearts and minds of the once skeptical public. 

Thoroughly researched and well written, Larson does not disappoint.

4/5 Stars.