I enjoyed the prose and the weirdness but it didn't quite pull together for me. ( )

I can't remember much about this book, after all the years since I read it. ( )

I had no clear expectations about this book, since I had chosen it just by having a quick look at some "best books of the year" lists. In fact, I was partly expecting a tale related to being employed or unemployed. I was kind of disappointed in discovering this is a cliched dystopian story, starting like a Terry Gilliam idea and developing like a science fiction b movie. The story is just so predictable, filled with shallow and badly drawn characters and annoying wordplay. The ending - which I won't reveal here - is just partly redeeming the book (but just partly).
( )

What Lurks Behind Reality

If you are a cube dweller facing a computer every day entering data, like what may appear to be only random strings of numbers, letters, and symbols, governed by bosses who strike you as bland and colorless substitutes for human beings, who may wish for a more meaningful work life, perhaps more meaningful life in general, wondering if you are missing something, something that only a few people see--well then, not only will you enjoy Helen Phillips's new novel, you will probably also identify with her half-fleshed out character Josephine Newbury.

Josephine, married and childless, after considerable time unemployed, finally lands a job with a mysterious company called A/Z, a sort of Alpha/Omega concern (there you pretty much have it). At A/Z, she works in the Z department entering just a small bit of data into the files of people, the files containing pages dense with numbers, letters, and symbols. At night, she shares meager meals with her husband David, makes love, and frets. They move frequently, always encountering problems, always landing in a dank place. In their early thirties, they would like to have a child, but they can't seem to. If working in a giant gray block isn't enough, Josephine lives in a world that's often bland and out of kilter.

She does have something to fret about, when her husband begins disappearing for long stretches, which at times frightens her, at others enrages her, until finally she comes to understand why. Along with this, she also comes to comprehend what she's doing, along with maybe thousands of others, as she taps her keyboard.

Phillips writes the novel, at least at the outset, as a thriller set in a sort of Twilight Zone world, a fantasy with enough reality mixed in to make the whole thing feel bizarre but uncomfortably familiar. Unfortunately, the characters and landscape may be too sketchy for some and the ending too enigmatic for those seeking a resolution for their time invested. On the other hand, Phillips does intrigue your imagination enough to have you mulling over the structure of life, which, given the data entry sheets, you might conjure as a vast and indifferent mathematical construct.

An interesting effort that will not be for every one but satisfying for those who enjoy fantasy. ( )

What Lurks Behind Reality

If you are a cube dweller facing a computer every day entering data, like what may appear to be only random strings of numbers, letters, and symbols, governed by bosses who strike you as bland and colorless substitutes for human beings, who may wish for a more meaningful work life, perhaps more meaningful life in general, wondering if you are missing something, something that only a few people see--well then, not only will you enjoy Helen Phillips's new novel, you will probably also identify with her half-fleshed out character Josephine Newbury.

Josephine, married and childless, after considerable time unemployed, finally lands a job with a mysterious company called A/Z, a sort of Alpha/Omega concern (there you pretty much have it). At A/Z, she works in the Z department entering just a small bit of data into the files of people, the files containing pages dense with numbers, letters, and symbols. At night, she shares meager meals with her husband David, makes love, and frets. They move frequently, always encountering problems, always landing in a dank place. In their early thirties, they would like to have a child, but they can't seem to. If working in a giant gray block isn't enough, Josephine lives in a world that's often bland and out of kilter.

She does have something to fret about, when her husband begins disappearing for long stretches, which at times frightens her, at others enrages her, until finally she comes to understand why. Along with this, she also comes to comprehend what she's doing, along with maybe thousands of others, as she taps her keyboard.

Phillips writes the novel, at least at the outset, as a thriller set in a sort of Twilight Zone world, a fantasy with enough reality mixed in to make the whole thing feel bizarre but uncomfortably familiar. Unfortunately, the characters and landscape may be too sketchy for some and the ending too enigmatic for those seeking a resolution for their time invested. On the other hand, Phillips does intrigue your imagination enough to have you mulling over the structure of life, which, given the data entry sheets, you might conjure as a vast and indifferent mathematical construct.

An interesting effort that will not be for every one but satisfying for those who enjoy fantasy. ( )