English language
Published Jan. 17, 2014 by Penguin Books, Limited.
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world--even …
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world--even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.
What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
Die Struktur ist etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig, so ganz ohne Kapitel, nur Absätze.
Im Prinzip sind wir ja an diesem Szenario schon nahe dran, es ist nur ein wenig weitergesponnen und überspitzt. Ich finde nur, es hätte gerne noch mehr Katastrophen geben können, und das durchaus schon etwas früher.
Content warning discussion of the Circle's technology re: sexual assault (spoilers?)
P.S. This is my first time reading a dystopian novel. As such, I have no comparisons to draw, but it ought to be possible to do it much better.
Am I supposed to believe no one saw this small, inexpensive SeeChange camera and did not immediately think of the great value this would bring to voyeurs? How is anyone supposed to feel safe in bathrooms or locker rooms? It was advertised as a tool that would make life easier, communities safer, but apparently every character is so near-sighted as to not even deem this issue worthy of a single sentence. I find it extremely hard to believe that nobody in the whole research + development + marketing process would have thought of this. The naivety of almost all characters in this novel regarding privacy is utterly infuriating and unrealistic. Why do the characters still stand behind The Circle after so many violations of their privacy which they are described to be disgusted by? Why do they take "I'm sorry, but we cannot help you with this." as an answer?
Apart from the problem I've already talked about, the scenes in which Mae has sex as well as the ones in which she thinks about her lovers seem to me like the very definition of "written by a man", it's just that uncomfortable.
If this weren't required reading for my class I would probably have given up after half of it. It tries to be more than it is.
Just save your time, skip this one, it's baaaad.
The protagonist is so extremely naive, the plot points are only surprising in the way that they always go down the route that's so stupid you wouldn't believe the author actually goes there.
The only redeeming quality is the topic. There is so much potential for a fantastic story, but it's just mind boggling how you could screw it up this bad. The personalities of the characters are bland, the technologies are often outright impossible just to allow certain things to be possible, the story is unbelievable as where the plot points go, the dialogs are weird, the way he portrays women is very weird to say the least (especially the toilet scene with "him") ... I could go on for hours with that, but just don't read it. Maybe watch the movie, but don't waste your time with the book. …
Just save your time, skip this one, it's baaaad.
The protagonist is so extremely naive, the plot points are only surprising in the way that they always go down the route that's so stupid you wouldn't believe the author actually goes there.
The only redeeming quality is the topic. There is so much potential for a fantastic story, but it's just mind boggling how you could screw it up this bad. The personalities of the characters are bland, the technologies are often outright impossible just to allow certain things to be possible, the story is unbelievable as where the plot points go, the dialogs are weird, the way he portrays women is very weird to say the least (especially the toilet scene with "him") ... I could go on for hours with that, but just don't read it. Maybe watch the movie, but don't waste your time with the book.
I mostly feel bad for the story itself. There are so many good authors out there, that would be able to turn this into a work of art. Just the premise alone is strong, it just needs good characters and a believable story. It's sad that they made a movie about this book. They made it because of the premise I'd think, not because of the actual story.
I don't recommend this book, no, I even advise you to not waste your time with this pile of garbage. You are welcome.
This book changed the way I looked at the internet, specifically social media. It was really the first time I became aware of the dark side, and themes from this book have cemented themselves as constants in my mind
整点新鲜的我不知道的成吗？读你不如去读新闻专访。
一本2013年的书居然还在那里扯‘天哪天哪the big tech firms are gonna eat all of us alive they are the Wolfs in Sheep’s Clothing’
整篇光描述问题不给解决方案解决思路，也不整点别人没讲过的发展预测
浪费时间。
对tech这些没那么了解的人可能看这个被唬住，也许我不是它的目标人群吧。
The book just ends. There's no satisfying conclusion, and while the journey was interesting, it went nowhere.
Better review to come, but in the meantime I feel like throwing my phone into the Charles and disappearing from the internet forever.
A blunt and occasionally funny satire about the blackest imaginings of a technologically-controlled world. Egger's writing is often stale and predictable, but the ideas (albeit technically far-fetched) save an often entertaining book. It says nothing profound, but, like Black Mirror positions itself as an anthology of the worst possible outcomes of technological advancement. Some fantastic passages about quantification and freedom make the book worthwhile.
However necessary it might be to the plot, it's so frustrating to read novels in which the main character acts less than is acted upon. Come on, Mae, instigate something!
Also, Dave Eggers has an Ayn Rand problem. He seems to be immune to her philosophy, at least, but the style is pure ham-fisted Fountainhead.
The topic is a good one. I guess I'm adding a star in recognition of a worthy study.
It works - as a satire.
It works - as a satire.
Meine Rezension: amerdale.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/gelesen-dave-eggers-der-circle/
Skillfully done, occasionally brilliant, at other times superficial, The Circle extends some of the trends of our society to their logical conclusion.
In the real world, the president and congress find themselves deadlocked. Who was it that came up with this separation of powers idea? It's very inefficient. If everyone worked together, instead of at cross purposes, so much more could be accomplished. Privatization is often suggested as a better way, with the voting of the marketplace to enact the will of the people.
Books like Sam Harris's Lying argue that all lies are bad, though it allows for the truth of "I refuse to tell you" as a possible way out of revealing everything. People on the Internet willingly forgo their privacy in the interests of community. Even I let my emails be scanned for keywords allowing targeted ads in return for free Google email. After all, isn't their …
Skillfully done, occasionally brilliant, at other times superficial, The Circle extends some of the trends of our society to their logical conclusion.
In the real world, the president and congress find themselves deadlocked. Who was it that came up with this separation of powers idea? It's very inefficient. If everyone worked together, instead of at cross purposes, so much more could be accomplished. Privatization is often suggested as a better way, with the voting of the marketplace to enact the will of the people.
Books like Sam Harris's Lying argue that all lies are bad, though it allows for the truth of "I refuse to tell you" as a possible way out of revealing everything. People on the Internet willingly forgo their privacy in the interests of community. Even I let my emails be scanned for keywords allowing targeted ads in return for free Google email. After all, isn't their slogan "Don't be evil?"
The Circle, resembling Google the most, but including Apple and Facebook and Twitter and many other private companies as their inspiration, shows how it could all go wrong. But most of us already knew this, and often in much more nuanced ways than are addressed in this book. And since we know in advance it will lead to disaster, we read this book as one would watch a youtube video of a circus performer who we just might want to see fall off the tightrope, or of a grizzly auto accident videoed as it happened. We are the choir being preached to and we enjoy our point of view being expressed with a nice story line that would make a great movie.
But I don't go to those movies. I prefer those with more subtlety. I like stories that address internal conflict and unconscious motivation. I would like my main character to recognize early on that her "transparency" is a lie. I'd like her to recognize that being watched doesn't make her "her best self" but only her most devious, not because of the times she cuts her video or audio feed, but because her every action is designed to hide her real thoughts and feelings in preference for how she "should" be. People lie to themselves to protect their self-image but most of them, at least, suspect they're lying. And why not show them in the bathroom? Is it something to be ashamed of? Lyndon Johnson would hold meetings as he sat on the toilet. These arguments aren't taken far enough and it mars the believability of the book.
Also, we don't hear enough about the poor, who, presumably deserve their poverty--because if we actually spent any attention on them, we'd turn on The Circle at a point when when Eggers wants us to give the company point of view more of a chance. And when it's time to show the company at it's worst, we watch defenseless animals, who we know are innocent, not humans who are always morally ambiguous.
Mercer could have merely gotten in an accident. Not even fatally. A suicide is too cartoonish. It was hard to believe that Mae believed he'd laugh about it with her, but most of the relationships seemed based on the exigencies of plot. Kaldon/Ty may have been socially inept, but why he'd choose Mae and expect her help (or expect the help she could provide to make any difference) has no other explanation. Similarly Mae, a celebrity, returning to Francis when she would have many other choices is unconvincing. Similarly, her not understanding that her parents might need privacy makes sense ideologically but not emotionally.
I gave it 3 stars because I never got too bored, but didn't raise it to 4 on followup.
If Facebook and Google were to get married, The Circle would be their direct result of their procreation. The Circle takes the social aspects (and lack of privacy) of Facebook and combines it with the innovation of Google to create a dominant social media platform. Their success was a result of TruYou, a tool that requires people to use their real identity to sign up (including their social security number making it impossible for anyone outside of the US to sign up), many web based companies jumped on board with this innovation, wanting direct access to real data. The effect of TruYou saw the end of internet trolling, identity theft and so much more.
Mae Holland is a woman in her early 20’s that has just landed a job with the Circle thanks to her friend Annie. While she has to start in Customer Experience, a place well below her …
If Facebook and Google were to get married, The Circle would be their direct result of their procreation. The Circle takes the social aspects (and lack of privacy) of Facebook and combines it with the innovation of Google to create a dominant social media platform. Their success was a result of TruYou, a tool that requires people to use their real identity to sign up (including their social security number making it impossible for anyone outside of the US to sign up), many web based companies jumped on board with this innovation, wanting direct access to real data. The effect of TruYou saw the end of internet trolling, identity theft and so much more.
Mae Holland is a woman in her early 20’s that has just landed a job with the Circle thanks to her friend Annie. While she has to start in Customer Experience, a place well below her qualifications the idea of working at the Circle was enough for her. The offices (or campus) of the Circle mimic that of Google, and Mae founds that this is the place to work; everyone is friendly and she will be on the fast track to a promotion in no time. However the Circle; while it demands transparency (hiding nothing from the public) in everything they do, their attempt to close the circle (their mission statement) will result in complete control over everything. Secrets Are Lies, Privacy Is Theft.
Let’s face it, Dave Eggers’ The Circle is less of a social satire and more a horrifying prophecy of the direction social media is going. They days where people can be a curator of their lives online are fast ending and every part of our lives will be accessible. This may have some positive effects in life but when one company or person has too much power, human rights tend to take a back seat. Do people see this? Are they aware just how much of their information is being shared or sold? The Circle forces the readers to ask these questions and take a deeper look what is happening online.
The Circle serves more as a motif; even a homage to Dante if you will. Dave Eggers is the Virgil of this story and both Mae and the readers travel deeper into the circles of hell. Mae learns just much of a tyrant the Circle is, while the reader has a look at social media. While I see this as a homage to Inferno, this totalitarian nightmare is obviously influenced by Nineteen Eighty-Four (as most dystopian novel are) more than anything else. Eggers, like Orwell wants to look at society and see the direction we are heading.
The Circle is headed by the “Three Wise Men” each of them with their own ideas for the direction of the company. These three men seem to be modelled after real life innovators; Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Julian Assange. I’m not going to go into the effects three big personalities would have on a company, but I’m sure you can imagine. I’m not going to go too much further into the plot or themes but with a company slogan like “All that happens must be known”, I probably don’t need to spell it out.
This is my first Dave Eggers novel and I’ve often heard that this is one of his weaker novels, however I think this was a perfect place to start for me. I found this dystopian satire to be directly influenced by the works of Jonathan Swift and George Orwell. I have no idea what Eggers other novels are like but I’m convinced to read more; even if they are not social satires. I loved how he incorporated pop-culture into the novel but I worry that this will mean it won’t age well, so you might want to pick this one up soon.
I have been reading novels that critique society but the majority have been classics, so it is nice to step into a modern day setting and see how the age of high-tech innovation and technoconsumerism could be harmful. I see some mixed reactions to this novel and I can understand that, my only hope is that people are understanding satire and are not marking it down for that. Of course I am a big fan of satire and will always be preaching about its value within literature. I found The Circle to be a very impressive novel and it did a great job at critiquing society, I hope people will give it a chance but I suspect this book will be a popular pick. I would like to do this one as part of a book club.
This review originally appeared on my blog: literary-exploration.com/2014/10/17/the-circle-by-dave-eggers/
This was a quick read - took me about two days (granted, one was a sick day). Some initial thoughts:
The novel does a nice job illustrating the importance of maintaining balance in information technology and asking the question of what that balance is. Where is that line between secrecy and privacy? Who owns information? What information is best kept personal and what private information is worth sharing in exchange for a better quality of life or greater efficiency? What information is better left unknown? What happens when we no longer have to wonder about things - when all questions can be answered with a simple web query - how does this affect the human brain and behavior? When does communication cease being meaningful?
While many of the characters and situations are cliches and the …
This was a quick read - took me about two days (granted, one was a sick day). Some initial thoughts:
