Book Review: The Circle by Dave Eggers
Honestly, half way through this nearly 500-page novel, I couldn’t wait to finish Dave Eggers’, The Circle, so I could write my review of it. In our ever-tightening digital world, never has there been a more important book to read.
Eggers is fantastic at weaving the story of Mae Holland as she starts at the bottom rung of the social networking company, the Circle. While first starting off simply as the response behind user questions, she amplifies to being more and more connected to those in the network—which seems to be a combination of Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, etc. With constant positive feedback from her superiors and the numerical ranking from customers and eventually the public, she strives harder and becomes more ingrained in the fabric of the company.
As a reader, you feel somehow also connected to those ratings of hers, that you managed to earn them right alongside her. I found myself reaching for my phone several times for my Twitter account, so engrossed was I with this novel. This only highlighted the point that Eggers is making: our constant need for validation that we find through social networking.
However, through the story I found myself audibly directing Mae, and not just under my breath, but actually strongly urging her, “No! Bad move!” while shaking my head at her. While it seems obvious to me and many other people the breaking of these boundaries that Mae repeatedly enacted, it occurred to me that those who grew up with a screen in their hand and the world at their fingertips, these boundaries might not be so apparent. The actions this character took would seem logical, right up until the very end.
This book, as mentioned before, is just shy of 500 pages, all of which I devoured within four days. It is an easy read, and I truly did not want to put it down. I blame this fully on the following of the character’s numbers. The reader is constantly updated with her social ranking, her work performance ranking, her followers, and the number of screens at her desk (which I think got up to six, maybe?). But the point is very clear: value measurability, even if it’s of a fictional character. And that is what definitely sucked me in.
If you read no other book this month, this year, let the one book you do get to be this one. My Recurring through throughout the whole of it was that it’s no wonder that a big fish like Penguin picked it up (after initially being published by McSweeney’s and Alfred A. Knopf). This will no doubt be a novel that goes down in history as a literary great.
Author's Note:
This book really resonated with me. I found myself thinking about it days afterward and seeing its very direct application in many of my own actions. I would like to also suggest that before, during, or for the greatest impact, after reading this book, listening to this June 22, 2017 episode of the 1A podcast called "Is Big Tech Getting Too Big?" which talks with New York Times reporter Cecilia Kang, director of the Center for Internet, Jeffery Eisenach, and others. Listening to this hour-long discussion really brought home the implications of this book and the importance of its message.
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