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The Circle (The Circle, #1)

Dave Eggers

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Nov 20, 2013 Otis Chandler rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, literary-fiction

The Circle is a new bay area company, but is really Google+Facebook. It dominates search and social media, has a huge sprawling campus in the south bay, and is full of intelligent, ambitious young employees. This story is I think a take on where the connected nature of the internet might be taking us. It's essentially a discussion about privacy vs openness, and I think a serious 1984-esque warning about being too open.

I thought a lot of the book was kind of shallow and unrealistic. The character The Circle is a new bay area company, but is really Google+Facebook. It dominates search and social media, has a huge sprawling campus in the south bay, and is full of intelligent, ambitious young employees. This story is I think a take on where the connected nature of the internet might be taking us. It's essentially a discussion about privacy vs openness, and I think a serious 1984-esque warning about being too open.

I thought a lot of the book was kind of shallow and unrealistic. The characters weren't very well developed. And I can't imagine an HR department that would get on your case for not using social media or attending a brunch you were invited too - it was just too extreme to believe. But I suppose that was on purpose, as the author was just making a point. I appreciated the point (see below), but didn't love the story.

Mark Zuckerberg has been fairly public on saying that he believes a more open society is a better one. The notion is exactly the one Mae learns with the kayak incident - if your whole life is open to your friends and family, it's very hard to do anything dishonest or that you might regret. The premise of the Circle - that privacy and secrecy are bad - is taking this idea to an extreme that I doubt Zuckerberg or anyone else who runs a social network has ever contemplated: complete openness. Or as its motto says:

All That Happens Must Be Known.

It is easy to imagine us eventually living in a world like the Circle contemplates. With public video cameras everywhere that document everything we do, and tons more data (photos, videos, texts) available to search engines to scan through. Already there are startups like Dropcam that enable public video feeds that are archived. There are atm and building and traffic cameras everywhere that the police already use. I heard of another startup that puts a video camera on you and it takes photos of everything all day and creates a montage of your day that is searchable/sortable for you. In many ways, we should already start acting like everything we do at least outside of our homes is being recorded on camera.

I think the central question the book poses is the one Bailey contemplates with Mae: is there such a thing as a good secret? Should we have privacy at all? Or would the world at large be better off if all secrets are known? I think we know where Mr Eggers stands on the subject, as the book seemed to be written in a dystopian, mocking kind of way. But it is in an interesting thought experiment, as many secrets would ultimately be better overall (not necessarily for the disclosing party, but for the overall situation), if they were known. For example you don't want to tell your friend that you know their significant other is cheating on them b/c you aren't supposed to know, but ultimately it would be better for them to know. Can you think of a secret you know that should be a secret?

But of course, there are lots of secrets that should stay secrets. Ignorance often truly is bliss, and people often just need to be weird and express themselves in ways that not everyone would appreciate if it were open. We are private beings, and yet our dignity and sense of self-worth largely stems from how others perceive us. I think this book is a thought-provoking story that shows us how our society is changing. ...more

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Sep 26, 2013 Elizabeth added it

Shelves: fiction, california, bay-area

Very thought provoking. Ask me in person what I think!

14 likes · Like · see review

Feb 24, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, lotsa-buzz, literary-schmiterary, wouldnt-normally-read, 1001-books

I was deeply disappointed by this book.

I thought Dave Eggers was the darling of the literary world (he's been nominated for both the Pulitzer and the National Booker award, after all), so I expected The Circle to be a well-written but dull story of how a universally-adopted modern convenience is actually evil. (Soylent Green, anyone?) Instead, what I found was a poorly written and dull story of how a universally-adopted modern convenience is actually evil. I am so confused. I'm almost as confuse ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Sep 16, 2015 Liz rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-on-tape, book-club-reject

This was just so incredibly creepy and also a little too realistic. I could definitely see our society heading down the transparent path and giving up more and more privacy for social media. scary!

2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 20, 2014 Janet rated it it was ok

I really liked the premise and the beginning, but this would have been a better book if Eggers wasn't so insistent that every single reader get the point. He pounds it in with a sledgehammer, and no matter what the Ayn Rand fans out there say, lectures do not make a good novel. Added to that, he purposely makes Mae, the main character, incredibly boring and passive. I understand that it works for the plot, but that doesn't make her any less boring. Apparently she has some appeal invisible to the ...more

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Dec 12, 2013 Gina rated it it was ok

It started off like reading a history of Google, and became Googled: The End of the World as we know it...x 10. I'm not particularly pro-social media (I say on this social media site for readers), but it was still hard to slog through some of this paranoia. ...more

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