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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
In the near future, we can all externalize our unconsciousness and store it in a cube, retrieving all our memories/life experiences from our brain only to watch them again. Naturally, people decide to turn this into a collective consciousness, allowing anyone to watch, say, hundreds of individual experiences of a concert from 1965. And woven throughout The Candy House is an amazing array of characters who in some way are connected to Bix who figured out this thing that changes the culture quickly, dramatically and forever. This book is a kaleidoscope of people and experiences, families, the music industry, a band everyone knew made famous by a mentally ill ex-military author who's sister's ex was one of the folks who spent his life counteracting the intrusion of the own your unconscious and their family took care of Lulu while her mother was in prison and she somehow is aware she has a famous father but her mother won't tell her who. Lulu's story is my favorite, weaving through the book, pure and yet traumatized, apparently repeatedly but in one part of her life she engages in public service that is captured in my favorite chapters that turned out to be a former New Yorker story -- figures. Meanwhile, Bix got his idea when he read Miranda Kline's book about a Brazilian indigenous people so divorced from the rest of the world that she can study their contained social structure to develop an algorithm and write her book "Patterns of Affinity" that led to the success of all social platforms. And Miranda was once married to Lou, a record producer who had two children with each of his three wives. Don't get me started on Lou's kids or Lou or his wives... I would love to understand, by the way, how Jennifer Egan's brain works because while I find her writing and her story and her characters amazing I can't imagine being a person who could put this book and all its story lines together. It is the journey of The Candy House, strung together with these interconnecting people at various times that makes the book, which is certainly not plot driven or chronological but makes so much sense and gives one far too much to chew on. I think.... I'll read it again.
Yes!! Recommend!! This was a welcome read after a couple of tedious ones. Egan future-casts a world where technology is even further infused in our lives - whether it’s a cube with your entire consciousness loaded on it or a weevil embedded in your body, monitoring your actions. And true to human nature, she illustrates what people will sacrifice for something shiny as well as how factions emerge and dissenters arise. Egan accomplishes this by catching a number of characters at different points in their lives - and masterfully connects them. Each chapter covers a new, interesting character. Pro tip: Take notes on them! It’s tricky to track the characters you’ve been introduced to and fully appreciate the interconnections as you get further into the book.
Thought-provoking. In fact, I was reminded of the first time many, many years ago that I heard about Bill Gates’s home automatically thermo-regulating based on the inhabitant’s personal preferences and thinking how impossible that sounded. How quickly our technology has evolved! And what are the unintended consequences?? That’s the premise of this book.
Inspo: Time: Best Books of 2022 So Far
Thought-provoking. In fact, I was reminded of the first time many, many years ago that I heard about Bill Gates’s home automatically thermo-regulating based on the inhabitant’s personal preferences and thinking how impossible that sounded. How quickly our technology has evolved! And what are the unintended consequences?? That’s the premise of this book.
Inspo: Time: Best Books of 2022 So Far
Brilliant. I was at first frustrated by keeping the multiple characters straight. Then, seeing them all come together was like watching genius in action. Each story and character is so different in tone, most have terrific moment of humor, all are vivid, and I enjoyed this spin out from the Goon Squad world - including the clever speculative elements that Egan is so good at building in.
Such a varied and intricate book jumping in time and across characters across of web of connections (I guess that was the point with Bix' creation). Still thinking about how I felt about it. You'd get into one character then it would switch up style and view to another, many times, with all of them intertwined but often a distinct style. I had a lot of "now who was Ames? .... oh that one!" moments.
“Those who have not read goon squad…” will not understand one thing that happened here. Maybe I’ll go read goon squad and come back to this. Otherwise I am not sure how or why I finished this. It was unreadable.
unmatched character building, especially considering there are 183 of them.
Filled with characters who used to be on 30-Something, and they ought to find their way back there. I abandoned it before I got bogged down in their too-familiar struggles, their avoidable entanglements, their selfishness, oh, you know, being contemporary and wealthy. If someone can convince me that there is anything of consequence in the novel, I'll reconsider it.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
I'm shocked that Egan would take on a sci fi type topic, one whose themes seem to run through much of the great film and literature of our current time (series like Maniac, films like the Beast, and novels like You Feel It Just Below the Ribs are only a few examples from my own recent reading/viewing).
Carrying on in the grand tradition of DeLillo, Egan ably exposes the flaws in technology designed to fix the psyches of every human (with the evil and fascist assumption that any of us need to be fixed). Bix is one of those hipster douches who really believed the internet would unite, rather than polarize, society, when it was an utterly corrupt proposition from the start, only accessible to those with wealth and elitism, closed to all others. Which is why their so called notions of 'community standards' was always corrupt: it assumed everyone was a rich intellectual or academic who would behave politely at all times(and of course this particular elite is so stupid that he doesn't realize that 95% of the lakes in WI and MN are man made, NOT glacial).
Most of the characters are desperately seeking authenticity at the most inauthentic time in world history, which gives the book a tinge of sadness that (almost) makes me feel bad for the younger generations, who are still hoping for what Egan calls a sudden reconfiguration of the past that will change the entire fit and feel of your adulthood, the moment that will cleave you from the mother whose single goal was your happiness. This theme is played out in even uglier fashion in the novel I mentioned above, which sees children taken from parents at birth, then have all of their memories erased at age 10.
The problem is that characters like Lulu believe that there are intrinsically good and bad people, and has an inordinant fear of the latter, failing to see that her elite status and entitlement do far more violence to the people of the world than any act by a so called violent person. She seems to love online court records and wants everyone on display, warning about their permanent records (just like my 70s childhood!). The email threads depicted, rather than being contrived, are among the most telling aspect of these characters, illuminating facets of our discursive world and the way it has been gamified.
It's a sort of redemption tale in which no characters are redeemed, and it's a sad statement on the current conditon of society. a world where social media is antisocial, narcissistic, and propagandist, so grossly inauthentic.
While I was shocked to discover it as I was reading, at least she got a little something out of dating the evil Steve Jobs (and I don't just mean the computer he gave her in the 80s or 90s).
Carrying on in the grand tradition of DeLillo, Egan ably exposes the flaws in technology designed to fix the psyches of every human (with the evil and fascist assumption that any of us need to be fixed). Bix is one of those hipster douches who really believed the internet would unite, rather than polarize, society, when it was an utterly corrupt proposition from the start, only accessible to those with wealth and elitism, closed to all others. Which is why their so called notions of 'community standards' was always corrupt: it assumed everyone was a rich intellectual or academic who would behave politely at all times(and of course this particular elite is so stupid that he doesn't realize that 95% of the lakes in WI and MN are man made, NOT glacial).
Most of the characters are desperately seeking authenticity at the most inauthentic time in world history, which gives the book a tinge of sadness that (almost) makes me feel bad for the younger generations, who are still hoping for what Egan calls a sudden reconfiguration of the past that will change the entire fit and feel of your adulthood, the moment that will cleave you from the mother whose single goal was your happiness. This theme is played out in even uglier fashion in the novel I mentioned above, which sees children taken from parents at birth, then have all of their memories erased at age 10.
The problem is that characters like Lulu believe that there are intrinsically good and bad people, and has an inordinant fear of the latter, failing to see that her elite status and entitlement do far more violence to the people of the world than any act by a so called violent person. She seems to love online court records and wants everyone on display, warning about their permanent records (just like my 70s childhood!). The email threads depicted, rather than being contrived, are among the most telling aspect of these characters, illuminating facets of our discursive world and the way it has been gamified.
It's a sort of redemption tale in which no characters are redeemed, and it's a sad statement on the current conditon of society. a world where social media is antisocial, narcissistic, and propagandist, so grossly inauthentic.
While I was shocked to discover it as I was reading, at least she got a little something out of dating the evil Steve Jobs (and I don't just mean the computer he gave her in the 80s or 90s).
Each chapter is a completely different set of characters written in
different styles. It jumps around and barely mentions the point which is a technological where you can revisit memories. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
different styles. It jumps around and barely mentions the point which is a technological where you can revisit memories. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide