Review of The Circle by Dave Eggers

The Circle by Dave Eggers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Circle isn't a perfectly well-written story, but its message is so important I have to give it top ratings.

The main character, May, is superficial and not introspective. Unfortunately, the reader can then dismiss the point of the story by thinking it'll never happen to most people, because most people are smarter and more wary than May. There are scenes where even an immature person of average intellect would stop and say, "Wait a minute! Is it right to let my employer put cameras in every corner of my parents' house?" or "Hey, is my dad dying or something?" Yet, May doesn't.

For example, May goes out kayaking in the dark one evening. She's finally off the grid, and wonders if the unmonitored, unphotographed, unvideoed seals splashing around her realize how good they have it. Yet she never compares that to her own situation, or sees parallels. Superficial May never seems to learn from anything.

There's a nasty reminder in The Circle about the built-in ageism in the IT industry. In one passage, May is aghast at the amount of money her employer is planning to spend on health care for May's parents. Her employer explains. "Because Circlers are generally young and healthy , our health care costs are a fraction of those at a similar-sized company—one without the same kind of foresight.”

Foresight, in this context, is code for age discrimination, which is illegal in the United States. I assume Eggers wrote this scene on purpose to make that point, and I thank him for it.

Here's another. Annie, one of the Circle's top execs, is grilling May about a mysterious beau. May alludes to the fact that the beau is older. Here's Annie's reaction:

“And you’re sure he wasn’t some old man? Like some old man you found on the street?”

“No.”

“Were you roaming the streets, Mae? Are you into that particular smell of an older man? A much older man? It’s musty. Like a wet cardboard box. You like that?...he must be so grateful for any affection at all.…"

If Dave Eggers is making the point that this is the kind of person running the biggest IT companies of today, I'm sickened.

In one important scene, one of the three founders of The Circle is interviewing May onstage in front of thousands of employees. May is confessing to having indulged in the private kayaking experience.

Bailey: “We were talking about what you saw as the impulse to keep things to yourself.”

May: “Well, it’s not something I’m proud of, and I don’t think it rises above the level of simple selfishness. Now I really understand that. I understand that we’re obligated, as humans, to share what we see and know. And that all knowledge must be democratically accessible.”

Bailey: “It’s the natural state of information to be free. We all have a right to know everything we can. We all collectively own the accumulated knowledge of the world...Privacy is theft.”

May nods and agrees, and the audience thunders its applause. This scene reminds me of such other futuristic dystopian stories, such as 1984, Animal Farm, and Atlas Shrugged. And I think in that context, this book deserves tons of attention and discussion.

In spite of its literary flaws, the book is valuable. I can't get it out of my head. It has changed the way I look at social media.

And that's my biggest takeaway from The Circle. Although I do believe social media is authentic extension of the human experience, there are times since reading this book I feel have a new perspective. How much of what we do online is valuable, and what is knee-jerk, thoughtless response? I've decided that some of my SM activities aren't much more than hamster-wheel activity. More importantly, I have begun to see the Circle looming everywhere, and I'm more cynical and guarded about my online activities now. So I thank Dave Eggers for that. I recommend the book, because it'll make you think harder about this new unmarked territory we live in today.





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