A review by mthomson
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

5.0

I have seen reviews that refer to this book as "wildly funny," and it didn't strike me as such. It was funny in an absurd rather than a laugh-out-loud way. I don't say that to diminish this book at all, but rather to say that it's far more than just Office Space or The Office as a novel. All of the absurd situations that characters find themselves in--feeling utterly compelled to dismantle an office chair out of spite, or ruminating for hours over the riddle of a totem pole as if it could explain the universe--will seem completely realistic to anyone who's worked in an office and, especially at a time of layoffs, borne the strange burden of not having enough work to do. At rare times the office workers' attention to minutiae was almost too detailed to keep me in thrall, but I guess that's part of the realism, and in the end the litany of seemingly inane details became absolutely relevant. And I was kind of awed.