Stefan Beck, the fiction reviewer and one-time associate editor and for The New Criterion, is now periodically writing for The New York Sun. Quick upon the heels of his NYS review of Surveillance, Beck’s review of Joshua Ferris’s first novel, Then We Came to the End, can be found in today’s NYS. Here is a snippet of Beck’s review, Dilbert Agonistes, but read the entire article for yourself here.
Nick Hornby called the book "awfully funny," but the funny is mostly awful, the kind of nervous laughter that goes with naked anxiety. In that way, it works, though maybe not as Mr. Ferris intends. In one bit a character telling a story about bookshelves keeps saying "buckshelves" by mistake. It’s not funny at all, and it’s not clear what it’s doing there, but we get the distinct feeling the other characters are glad for a reason to interrupt.Employment in Mr. Ferris’s world is a tale primarily of awkwardness and discomfort — much as in Ricky Gervais’s television series "The Office," but without a trace of the chilled-out entertainment. It’s more of a permanent "Breakfast Club": a bunch of people with nothing in common and no escape from one another — unless they want to end up begging on the sidewalk or rampaging through their erstwhile workplace with a handgun.
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