We the workers

>> Joshua Ferris strikes at the heart
of soulless jobs in Then We Came to the End

by JULIET WATERS

“We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at 10:15. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled.”

This is the opening of Josh Ferris’s first novel, Then We Came to the End. The novel is narrated by “we,” the collective awareness of everyone who works at a small advertising firm. It’s a smart, but not too smart, gossipy voice that tirelessly records every ridiculous anecdote, every distorted melodrama, every annoying gesture, every secret insanity and every poignant tragedy of those who work there. Picture ABC’s The Office as a somber HBO series—hilarious but human. It would make high-quality television, but this is very much a novel. A funny page-turner that accomplishes a rare literary feat. It manages to create an interior life for a collectivity often accused of not having one—the collectivity of anyone who has ever worked at a soulless but secure job. Or, more accurately, of those who worked at these jobs until they began to disappear.

The novel opens in the late ’90s and follows these characters until 2006, through good times and very bad. The opening bears some comparison to a more famous one from A Tale of Two Cities—especially since “we” quotes it nostalgically as part of a favourite, successful campaign: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...” In the ad, the text of this quote gradually fades and a headline reads, “A Great Writer Needs a Great Ink Cartridge.”

Ferris, who is deservedly developing a reputation as a literary wunderkind, obviously has a lot more than a great ink cartridge. He has real empathy and vision. Most writers start their career arguing on behalf of originality and individualism and against a society that seems to be doing everything it can to destroy those things. Ferris is in many ways arguing on behalf of the average guy, and in defence of all the irritations, angers and obsessions that plague the average mind and the average soul. He also seems to be arguing that nobody really is average, just as nobody is really unique. These categories are ultimately abstractions. And in the end we all do the same average, unoriginal thing. We die.

Death haunts this novel like the piece of rancid sushi that one nasty-minded prankster deliberately hides behind an upper manager’s bookcase. While the bulk of the narrative deals with the comedy of gestures that makes up contemporary office life, there are lurking subplots. One woman is suffering from a deep depression over the recent kidnapping and murder of her five-year-old daughter. A senior partner, one of those rare bosses who is respected and liked, is rumoured to be suffering from breast cancer. And the company asshole, the crazy, angry, recently divorced, restraining-ordered guy, has just been let go. And is leaving hints that he might be going postal.

Out of everyone, it’s the company asshole who shows the greatest capacity for deep thought, quoting Emerson before he leaves, “For all our penny-wisdom, for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts.” Though unfortunately he undermines himself with trite rage. “They never knew me,” he says, “shaking his head and pointing up at those bastards. ‘They never did.’”

It is not to be doubted that Ferris has way more than the average amount of sublime thoughts.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris,
Little, Brown, 387pp, $29.99