Mr B's Reading Year - Part 3: And Then We Came To The End

We had these sudden revelations that employment, the daily nine-to-five, was driving us far from our better selves.

From sexy, smoky Guatemala to a Chicago advertising agency for the next instalment of my Reading Year: Joshua Ferris' And Then We Came to the End (2007). Mr B warned me in his recommendation that the novel, filled with wry observations like the one above about the soul-destroying nature of office life and Twenty-first Century Capitalism, can be "toxic", but this impressive début is nonetheless an incredibly engaging read.

The novel is told almost entirely in the first person plural, evoking the group who know and control everything. While individual characters do emerge, as in any office - the know-it-all, the clown, the desperate to be cool, the man on the edge of a mental breakdown - they are subsumed into the group, which will continue to exist regardless of how many individuals "walk Spanish down the hall". The one exception is brief introspective interludes from the agency's boss, Lynn, who is coming to terms with breast cancer; the contrast between the single and plural here accentuates the isolation resulting from such a deeply personal situation.

Ferris juxtaposes real tragedies, like Lynn's cancer and the murder of a co-worker's young daughter, with mundane concerns, highlighting how the tiny daily irritations come to dominate working life. Despite their objections, however, the group acknowledges the impossibility of living without work.

Yet for all the depression no one ever quit. When someone quit, we couldn't believe it. 'I'm becoming a rafting instructor on the Colorado River,' they said. 'I'm touring college towns with my garage band.' We were dumbfounded. It was like they were from another planet. Where had they found the derring-do? What would they do about car payments? We got together for going away drinks on their final day and tried to hide our envy while reminding ourselves that we still had the freedom and luxury to shop indiscriminately.

Ferris' catalogue of human failings could easily have been unbearably bleak, yet it is saved by a constant sardonic, incredibly dark humour, which makes it an unnervingly fun read. We shouldn't be laughing at people abandoning their individuality, their morality, to the desire for money, or the chronic depression resulting from the daily grind, or the terrible suffering of those dying or in mourning, but Ferris makes it impossible not to. Toxic is therefore a good word for And Then We Came To The End: like some kind of narcotic, it will leave you feeling spent and disturbed, but you will enjoy the ride.

Learn more about Mr B's Reading Year and how to get one for yourself here.

Mr B's Reading Year: Part 2 - The Polish Boxer

A story is nothing but a lie. An illusion. And that illusion only works if we trust in it. 

Between extensive travelling and a summer in the Social Programme Office, my Mr B's Reading Year blog has lost its way (though I have received and read five books now with the same enthusiasm as ever), but now I'm back to normality it's time to catch up. I was instantly struck by my second book, The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon, on the strength of the cover, the blurb and Mr B's personal recommendation. I remembered reading about Halfon's visit to the bookshop several months ago and being intrigued by this Guatemalan literature professor, especially as my knowledge of literature from his country only extended as far as Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias.

Halfon's stories are as addictive as the smoke that permeates through all of them. I rushed through the whole book in one afternoon desperate to know where the semi-fictional Eduardo's search for answers would take him next in this series of interconnected stories. The Polish Boxer has everything I look for in a book: an engaging, flawed  but likeable first person narrator, an eclectic mix of characters (including a girlfriend who draws graphs of her orgasms and a Serbian half-gypsy classical pianist), and observations of the beauty, sadness and absurdity of every day life.

As an aspiring literature teacher myself, I was particularly struck by Halfon's very honest reflections on the futility and vacuousness of academic conferences at times, the point of teaching literature to a class full of students who don't care, the moral implications of simply studying literature when there are people really suffering in the places we study, and his having to put this out of his mind to get on with his job and still appreciate the power of stories. The Polish Boxer is therefore quite a melancholy read, but the fleeting moments of unexpected human contact that proliferate through the stories are fascinating and oddly beautiful.

Learn more about Mr B's Reading Year and how to get one for yourself here.

Mr B's Reading Year: Part 1 - The Howling Miller

As a student in Bath for four years, I was always enticed by Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, an award-winning independent bookshop full of unusual treats. At the same time, as much as I love spending a large amount of every day with Venezuelan literature, I've found myself really missing books from other countries. So when my boyfriend asked what I'd like for Christmas, I immediately suggested Mr B's Reading Year. Due to moving house and other distractions, I have only just started my Reading Year, but it is well worth the wait.

The Reading Year is the ultimate gift for book lovers. The package begins with a session with a bibliotherapist (what an amazing job title!) to establish your reading tastes over a nice cup of tea. What do you like to read, and why, where and when? I found it quite challenging at times to actually formulate why I like the books I do - and remembering books that aren't obscure Venezuelan fiction! - but my therapist Becky was great at suggesting different aspects of books that might appeal to me, leaving me confident that by the end she understood my reading tastes better than I did. She also asked about my Mastermind specialist subject, my guilty pleasures, and favourite place in the world, to ensure that the books I receive will be tailored to my tastes. Which brings me to the best bit: armed with my literary likes and dislikes, Mr B's will send me a book at the start of each month for the next year (except January, when readers are expected to be too busy enjoying their Christmas presents).

It's the attention to detail that Mr B's put in to their deliveries that really turns the arrival of each book into an occasion. When the first book arrived, wrapped in brown paper, tied with string and sealed with wax, I was more excited than a kid at Christmas. Attached to the outside of the package is a note detailing why that particularly book has been chosen, without revealing its name, which only heightens the excitement. As Becky has since left to pursue her own writing, my bibliotherapist is now Mr B himself, so I feel like I'm in particularly safe hands. He mentioned in his note that he doesn't usually recommend this as a first book as the cover 'is just too awful', which made me extremely eager to see what it was. I instantly loved the bright, Dada-esque design. I know they say don't judge a book by its cover, but this one gave me very high hopes.

My first book, then, is The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna. While the original Finnish version was written in 1981, it was only translated into English in 2007 and so remains relatively unknown here. It is the story of a misunderstood miller, Gunnar Huttunen, who enjoys howling like a wolf and has occasional violent outbursts. It's a short novel with simple, straight-forward and unemotional language, yet the story of Gunnar facing the hypocrisy of a small-town who villainize this outsider while ignoring their own failings is oddly moving. I found myself really routing for Gunnar, which meant I sped through the book to discover how he fared. Having very little knowledge about Finland, I also enjoyed learning snippets about the country through the novel, from its involvement in WWII to some of its rural geography, and even the spelling of words (many place names looked Japanese to me).

I can't wait to see what my next book is!

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