The Circle

Hello readers and welcome to the second entry in the 2020 Reading List. Last time I took a deep dive into the best science fiction novel I have ever read. I have now shifted to a contemporary title in the genre, Dave Eggers’ well-received 2013 novel The Circle. Eggers is considered a pillar of the literary community, his creation of one of the most iconic publishing brands alone cementing that years ago (I also somehow never put together that it launched the landmark lit mag The Believer). I encountered other organization websites in the bio section that I was not aware of as being his projects. And of course Eggers has a litany of published works in many different genres and won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. This was the first novel of his I had read.

While I understood and even cheered the themes he pursued in this novel, so much of the execution was flawed that I have a hard time recommending it. First I want to discuss the things Eggers gets right in this tale. For being published in the early part of the decade he was way ahead of the curve seeing where internet technology would be headed in a few years. One giant company engorging on the data of everyone, concerns of privacy and security and transparency, and the ideology of disruption overriding moral ideals are a few themes he explores. We see the world of The Circle through the eyes of Mae Holland, who accepts the increased demands of her employer with alarming alacrity despite warnings about these concepts from others in her life. I found many of these descriptive passages very compelling as Eggers spends yards of prose on mundane details like social media updates that are still gripping, just as we understand how important yet pointless it seems in the real world.

I applaud the overall direction of analysis Eggers takes, and his prose is deceptive enough to weave layers of comment under the character interactions. Yet I found myself wanting more diversity out of Mae. Her persona is written rather cliched, bouncing between two weird male characters and coming to hate another female protagonist for reasons of corporate advancement. Eggers overreaches in his own need to stand-in as two characters, one I’d wager is Mae’s ex, Mercer, who is a foil in that he offers up endless screeds against the tyranny of the online masses Mae continues to dismiss. I also struggled with some of the logistical issues of what The Circle manages to accomplish. It would be a massive undertaking to place cameras everywhere on the planet, even given the disregard for political pushback on companies like this in the novel. Eggers presents the reverse political accountability in a novel way (more cameras, but this time following elected officials) but one I found overall to be unconvincing.

I have a hard time advocating for this book as a great science fiction read, but it does contain a solid working of these themes, and Eggers deserved the praise for his remarkable and prophetic vision of these internet companies. Next I’m going to take on a final major icon for this sci-fi tour: Isaac Asimov and his 1950 collection I, Robot. Then I will shift back toward all kinds of fiction and hope to mix up the genres a bit by the summer months, which still feel decades away. Thanks as always for reading, and stay healthy.