The Circle by Dave Eggers
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This book is basically "1984" for the post millennial generation. Like 1984 was in its heyday, it contains enough adult content that it is an uncomfortable mainstream study, in my opinion. But it also teaches the latest generations the importance of independence and privacy. It restates the oppression of the past not in terms of political parties or dictators, but in terms of tactics and false logic. My fear for the book is that it plays the false logic too hard. The logical fallacies about how everything should be known to everyone are plentiful, but are the young people of today able to see them? Do they have the critical thinking capability to weed out values from fiction?
Speaking of values, that is a glaring omission in my mind. Mae did not seem to have any values other than an overly general "Be a good person" and "don't tell lies." She was willing to sleep with strange men on a whim, but internally struggled with not telling her friend the truth about it. She was a basket case.
The other recurring theme I noticed, which is recycled time and time again, is the balance between safety and security. So much of the power grab that was The Circle centered on people's fears and false offers of safety in exchange for control. I like to call this the Star Wars paradox. The evil, power-hungry antagonist champions the rights and will of the people, convincing them to relinquish their freedom in return for the protection of the regime, which then turns on the people to maintain control.
So this is a thought provoking book that addresses new issues regarding our privacy and data collection. It comes with distasteful baggage, i.e. bad language and adult situations. The writing was not my favorite, and in the end I'm not sure there was a protagonist anywhere in the book, but I can promise that the themes in this book WILL make you think. For me, this was 2 stars.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
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