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Book recommendation
May. 17th, 2003 06:39 pmI finished the book "Happiness(tm)" by Will Ferguson; and I'm still rather bemused. I can't figure out how to classify this book - except that the library put it in general fiction, not science fiction. Well, it is and it isn't SF, it's sort of a cross between satire and magical realism.
The (tm) is the trademark sign, but I don't know enough HTML to put it in correctly. One of the characters in the book trademarks the word "happiness".
The book opens with the protagonist going to his job at a Major Publishing Company. I suspect, if I was in that end of the trade, I would recognize people and places. The first few chapters are a rather cruel satire of publishing (as is some of the rest of the book.)
Then his firm publishes a self-help book that really works. I mean WORKS - everyone who reads it is completely and totally HAPPY.
And everyone is reading The Book. Society collapses, our hero looses everything, and the author of the book...well I don't want to give away too much. There are also parallels to the Book of Job, if my memory serves me.
I found it hysterically funny in places, and also very sobering. I mean, do people really want to improve their lives, or just read about it?
The (tm) is the trademark sign, but I don't know enough HTML to put it in correctly. One of the characters in the book trademarks the word "happiness".
The book opens with the protagonist going to his job at a Major Publishing Company. I suspect, if I was in that end of the trade, I would recognize people and places. The first few chapters are a rather cruel satire of publishing (as is some of the rest of the book.)
Then his firm publishes a self-help book that really works. I mean WORKS - everyone who reads it is completely and totally HAPPY.
And everyone is reading The Book. Society collapses, our hero looses everything, and the author of the book...well I don't want to give away too much. There are also parallels to the Book of Job, if my memory serves me.
I found it hysterically funny in places, and also very sobering. I mean, do people really want to improve their lives, or just read about it?
