| Product: |
E. (A Novel) - Matt Beaumont |
| Date: |
03/07/04 (54 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: very very funny, easy to read
Disadvantages: none
e is one of the funniest books that I have ever had the pleasure to read. The e is not a reference to the drug (for that you need to read work by Irvine Walsh) but the form of communication which has made the memo virtually obsolete in the work place and without which I?m not sure what I would do with the part of my working life not spent in meetings or at lunch meetings or in meetings about the need to organise a more important meeting.
This is the first book my Matt Beaumont and is innovative in that the entire story is told through e-mail, this format makes the book a really easy and addictive read and also means that it stands up to repetitive reads as each time I have read this book (three times and counting) I have discovered something new to laugh at.
Set in an advertising company Miller Shanks the action takes place in the London Office. The story opens with a message to all the employees from the CEO David Crutton thanking them for coming in on a bank holiday to prepare for the agencies pitch for the Coca-Cola account. It is a typical ra-ra e-mail with glowing references to the agencies rise to being the 33rd agency clients says they would most like to work with. Crutton is a real piece of work, a tin pot dictator and bully who cannot understand why all his e-mails end up being sent to his opposite number in Helsinki.
The characters in this book are excellent, full of people who extol no positive virtues at all, the incompetent head of client services, the creative director who has not had a creative thought in over 10 years and either recycles old campaign ideas or steals those of others through to the back biting secretaries and the debauched creative teams who spend their time drinking, drug taking and womanising. One of the successes of this technique of using e-mails to tell the story is that it enables Beaumont to introduce a large number of characters quickly and allows the reader to understand their character within the co
ntent of the first e-mail that they send.
As the story unfolds the agency try to balance the demands of their existing clients; The Love Channel, a sanitary towel maker and a company that manufactures cars in the Philippines with the all important Coke pitch. Calamity follows fast on the tracks of disaster as the blame is passed around like a hot potato.
This is a very clever book, often it is whom the e-mail is addressed to and who is CC or BCC in that sets the tone of the text as well as the follow up e-mail that tells the counter view of the recipient. This book certainly strikes a chord with the reader if you have worked in an e-mail dominated company, whether it is a true reflection of life in an advertising agency is another matter.
Would I recommend this book you bet, the only surprising fact for me is that I have not yet read the follow up to this book although by all accounts this is the better of the two.
The RRP is £5.99 but you can pick up a used copy from Amazon from 50p. Happy reading
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