Someone Make A Movie Based On This Book

Because they are so awful, some books should never become movies (The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld). Some books are great books, but are hosed up in the movie-making process (The Descent by Jeff Long). Then, there is that certain book that has “movie” written on every page (Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell).

Now, I fundamentally believe (as I said here) that graphic novels make the best movies, but I will have to make an exception. Company by Max Barry is a book just begging for a movie deal. Think Office Space meets The Firm. It would be hilarious, yet exiting and tempered with just the right amount of “romance”.

This Book Is As Tight As A Pilates Instructor

Some books don’t wrap it up well (The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve, Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean, A Certain Age by Tama Janowitz and many, many others) and they leave the divination to the book club.

The workplace novel Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris is the only book that I have ever read where the narrative is constructed so that one of the characters explains what the book is about to the reader (at the end of the book). The construct sort of works (and it is a surprise). Ultimately, it makes the book tight without a single loose end.

On the back cover it is called the “the Catch-22 of the business world”. I don’t think that is accurate. The book is mostly funny’ish, but mostly it is serious and only a little outlandish (but, here is the thing, not outlandish enough to be funny in a Joseph Heller sort of way).

I really did want to read a book about the workplace that would make me laugh so next up is Company by Max Berry.

Now, even though Ferris didn’t nail the humor throughout, one brilliant part of the book is that it is predominantly narrated by a collective “we” and that is cool and often funny.

Literally, almost all of the book is written in this voice:

Half the time we couldn’t remember three hours ago. Our memory in that place was not unlike that of goldfish. Goldfish who took a trip every night in a small clear bag of water and then returned in the morning to their bowl. What we recalled was that Karen didn’t let up on the story, day after day for an entire week, and when that week was over, we all had a better idea of Joe than we had gotten in his first three or four months. (63)

I like the collective “we” and was annoyed when he reverted perspective to the individual point of view. While I was reading it, I thought the author could have cut out the entire section titled “The Thing to Do and the Place to Be” (so boring it made my eyes bleed). But, then, at the end of book, one of the characters explains why it has to be there and I have to agree (I just don’t like it).