A review by megmcardle
Company by Max Barry

4.0

Max Barry loves to play with the themes of the evils of corporate culture, taking common flaws of companies to their ultimate extremes. He did it with absurdly amusing effect with his novel [b:Jennifer Government|5297|The Picture of Dorian Gray|Oscar Wilde|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1204865529s/5297.jpg|1858012], and he does it again here in Company. Jones is a new hire at Zephry Holdings, who is baffled by his new corporate home. A hopelessly complicated hierarchy, paranoid interdepartmenal competitiveness, and a certain ambiguity about what the company actually *does* causes Jones to start asking questions. His curiosity leads hims to some interesting places, where he see the dangers of reducing a company to simply a place where employees are tools to improve the bottom line. All of this plot description does not get across how funny this book is. Barry loves to take concepts to their absurd zenith, and he does this time and again in Company, to hilarious effect. Although at times it veered towards being a book-length Swiftian satire, it keeps a silly heart.