Call number
FIC EGA
Collection
Series
Publication
Scribner (2022), 348 pages
Description
Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Time , Entertainment Weekly , Vogue , Good Housekeeping , Oprah Daily , Glamour , USA TODAY , Parade , Bustle , San Francisco Chronicle , The Seattle Times , The Boston Globe , Tampa Bay Times , BuzzFeed , Vulture , and many more! From one of the most celebrated writers of our time, a literary figure with cult status, a "sibling novel" to her Pulitzer Prize– and NBCC Award–winning A Visit from the Goon Squad —an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private. The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is "one of those tech demi-gods with whom we're all on a first name basis." Bix is 40, with four kids, restless, desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or "externalizing" memory. It's 2010. Within a decade, Bix's new technology, "Own Your Unconscious"—that allows you access to every memory you've ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone. In spellbinding interlocking narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Intellectually dazzling, The Candy House is also extraordinarily moving, a testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption. In the world of Egan's spectacular imagination, there are "counters" who track and exploit desires and there are "eluders," those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of narrative styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter and a chapter of tweets. If Goon Squad was organized like a concept album, The Candy House incorporates Electronic Dance Music's more disjunctive approach. The parts are titled: Build, Break, Drop. With an emphasis on gaming, portals, and alternate worlds, its structure also suggests the experience of moving among dimensions in a role-playing game. The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. Egan takes to stunning new heights her "deeply intuitive forays into the darker aspects of our technology-driven, image-saturated culture" ( Vogue ). The Candy House delivers an absolutely extraordinary combination of fierce, exhilarating intelligence and heart.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Hccpsk
Early in the pandemic I reread A Visit From the Goon Squad and was overjoyed to find it as imaginative, interesting and well-written as I remembered; my joy runneth over when I realized that Jennifer Egan’s newest book, The Candy House picks up where Goon Squad left off. Similar in style — but
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tighter and more refined — The Candy House jumps from character to character and time to time as interconnected stories with many familiar faces and stories from Goon Squad. At the heart of these stories, Egan writes about technology, relationships, and families with wit, skill, and heart. A definite must-read for Egan fans, and literary fiction readers who don’t mind stretching their understanding of what a novel is. Show Less
LibraryThing member brianinbuffalo
I give up on Egan. I couldn’t finish “A Visit the Goon Squad,” but I wanted to give this Pulitzer Prize winner one more shot. Some reviewers have labeled “The Candy House” confusing, convoluted, boring and downright weird. I managed to plod through this until the end — only to wish that
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I stopped much earlier. I simply couldn’t get into the last two-thirds of the book. The first third was actually interesting, somewhat coherent and thought-provoking. I’ve come to the conclusion that Egan just isn’t for me. I need a more linear, less contorted, more cohesive narrative structure. Blame it on me. Although I enjoy books that challenge me to think, I don't relish works that force me to perform excruciating mental acrobatics. Disclosure: a late mayor once publicly proclaimed me “of average intelligence.” Show Less
LibraryThing member thewanderingjew
The Candy House, Jennifer Egan, author; Michael Boatman, Niclole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, Colin Donneli, Griffin Newman, Rebecca Lowman, Jackie Sanders, Lucy Liu, Christian Barillas, Tara Lynne Barr, Alex Allwine, Emily Tremaine, Kyle Beltran, Dan Bittner, Chris Henry Coffey, a full cast of
Bix Bouton is a successful, black businessman. He married his wife, Lizzie, a white woman, in 1992. He is the founder of a technology company called Mandala. It has changed the character of the world. Mandala is an innovative business designed to make life easier and less stressful. Bix believed that an expansion of consciousness would free everyone to leave racism behind as a thing of the past. It would eliminate secrets, by freeing all ideas and memories, to be shared by all. Thus, we would all be the same, and we would all have equal access. There would be no secrets. Eventually, our every move would be tracked and our every thought would be known. All would be stored in a data base that could be easily accessed. Crime would diminish. Hatred would disappear
There are several characters followed throughout this novel that hearken back to “A Visit From The Goon Squad”. The novel begins with the memories of four young men, born in the thirties, who meet again in 1965. They had been part of a small singing group in college, known as the Dildos. This book, follows them, their relatives and friends, for the next several decades and into the future. The storyline introduces many characters and many timelines. Neither the narrative nor the timeline is linear. Each chapter is a story on its own, and the author does try to knit all the disparate components together at the end. She is only somewhat successful.
I struggled to understand the message the author wanted to impart as the characters bounced around with the timeline. Often, I simply lost the thread of the story. I was drawn back again and again, however, because of the writing style, which, although it was sometimes confusing and too wordy, was also brilliant at other times. Still, when once in awhile I would think I understood the message from a character, another would enter the scene and I would be again, unsuccessfully, trying to place that character into the appropriate place in the novel.
For instance, as an example of one character’s confused behavior we watch Chris go on and on about his job. He was “algebraizing” all thoughts and all intentions, reducing them to algebraic equations. Could there be such a man, one who was able to reduce the collective thoughts of the entire population, down to algorithms? Would he then be unable to control the events occurring around him, allowing himself to be duped by acquaintances or seduced by his professor, because in spite of his intelligence, he had so little common sense? Did Chris even believe in his work? Was the Professor Miranda Kline important? What about Comstock who actually duped him into carrying a suitcase for his odd “lady friend”, a stranger to Chris? Were both those incidents important? Did that narrative come together? Would the sharing of a collective consciousness, so completely, ultimately allow for more freedom and less stress or would it curtail freedom because if everyone knew what everyone thought, would it not diminish the need to think? Would everyone have to conform to this behavior? What about the eluders who wish to be unique again, not to be universally known in a data bank, like everyone else? Mondrian helped them to elude Mandala. They also ran a game room for drug addicts on Methadone. Was this incongruous? Even supporters of Mandala sometimes left the ranks to try and become somewhat invisible again. O'Brien was a saboteur. Were there really only two choices, Exile (Mandala) vs Freedom (Mondrian)? Was there no gray area?
Near the end of his life, was even Bix Bouton questioning the results life’s work? Did it improve society or was it actually tearing it down? If everyone could be tracked, did his programs provide more freedom or cage people in? If we all were privy to each other’s thoughts, would we eventually stifle imagination as all ideas would be out there and all would be funneled into one similar space? Would there be pressure to accept one idea over all else? Who would get credit for the idea once it was out in the collective consciousness? Would it not be an invasion of privacy?
Did Bouton’s original business idea of providing more freedom with more technology, actually get subverted so that it created less freedom as more technological advances were made? Did collective consciousness create a lack of creativity and imagination? Did conversation get stifled and all but disappear? Was it fair for Bix to make his money from an idea spawned by someone else? He did develop the idea further into a practical application. Was everyone required to be tracked and have their thoughts and memories made public?
The name Mandala made me think of Nelson Mandela, the two words were so close. Was this a device engineered by Egan? After all Mandela was a man who had lost his freedom for decades? When he was freed, was he freer to do as he wished or more encumbered because he was in the public eye, obligated to everyone, no longer only those who followed his philosophy? Surely, his life was more comfortable, but was the lack of privacy better? Was the founder of Mandala deliberately portrayed as black so as to make the reader wonder if this idea of collective consciousness also created slaves of all its followers? These are unconventional questions for an unconventional novel.
The novel was written with so many innovative ideas and creativity, but I think it tried to tackle too many of the problems of society; it was too long and too convoluted for most people to stay with it as the verbiage seemed to get out of control. For me, in the ened, it was still just too disconnected. However, when I finished the book, I was struck with this thought: How can a book that is written so brilliantly be so difficult to understand? Although it is the second book, the first being “A Visit From the Goon Squad”, I did not get the connection until I went back and read my review of that book, written a decade ago, in order to recall some of the characters. I realized, immediately, that I had pretty much the same feeling about both books. While the prose is often exceptional, the story doesn’t flow easily from one character to another. The author is so imaginative, witty, and thoughtful, but it was often repetitive, overworked and overly technical. Her ideas did not travel from one to another smoothly, nor did they intersect with each other conveniently. I can only hope I understood some of this novel and that my review is logical.
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narrators.Bix Bouton is a successful, black businessman. He married his wife, Lizzie, a white woman, in 1992. He is the founder of a technology company called Mandala. It has changed the character of the world. Mandala is an innovative business designed to make life easier and less stressful. Bix believed that an expansion of consciousness would free everyone to leave racism behind as a thing of the past. It would eliminate secrets, by freeing all ideas and memories, to be shared by all. Thus, we would all be the same, and we would all have equal access. There would be no secrets. Eventually, our every move would be tracked and our every thought would be known. All would be stored in a data base that could be easily accessed. Crime would diminish. Hatred would disappear
There are several characters followed throughout this novel that hearken back to “A Visit From The Goon Squad”. The novel begins with the memories of four young men, born in the thirties, who meet again in 1965. They had been part of a small singing group in college, known as the Dildos. This book, follows them, their relatives and friends, for the next several decades and into the future. The storyline introduces many characters and many timelines. Neither the narrative nor the timeline is linear. Each chapter is a story on its own, and the author does try to knit all the disparate components together at the end. She is only somewhat successful.
I struggled to understand the message the author wanted to impart as the characters bounced around with the timeline. Often, I simply lost the thread of the story. I was drawn back again and again, however, because of the writing style, which, although it was sometimes confusing and too wordy, was also brilliant at other times. Still, when once in awhile I would think I understood the message from a character, another would enter the scene and I would be again, unsuccessfully, trying to place that character into the appropriate place in the novel.
For instance, as an example of one character’s confused behavior we watch Chris go on and on about his job. He was “algebraizing” all thoughts and all intentions, reducing them to algebraic equations. Could there be such a man, one who was able to reduce the collective thoughts of the entire population, down to algorithms? Would he then be unable to control the events occurring around him, allowing himself to be duped by acquaintances or seduced by his professor, because in spite of his intelligence, he had so little common sense? Did Chris even believe in his work? Was the Professor Miranda Kline important? What about Comstock who actually duped him into carrying a suitcase for his odd “lady friend”, a stranger to Chris? Were both those incidents important? Did that narrative come together? Would the sharing of a collective consciousness, so completely, ultimately allow for more freedom and less stress or would it curtail freedom because if everyone knew what everyone thought, would it not diminish the need to think? Would everyone have to conform to this behavior? What about the eluders who wish to be unique again, not to be universally known in a data bank, like everyone else? Mondrian helped them to elude Mandala. They also ran a game room for drug addicts on Methadone. Was this incongruous? Even supporters of Mandala sometimes left the ranks to try and become somewhat invisible again. O'Brien was a saboteur. Were there really only two choices, Exile (Mandala) vs Freedom (Mondrian)? Was there no gray area?
Near the end of his life, was even Bix Bouton questioning the results life’s work? Did it improve society or was it actually tearing it down? If everyone could be tracked, did his programs provide more freedom or cage people in? If we all were privy to each other’s thoughts, would we eventually stifle imagination as all ideas would be out there and all would be funneled into one similar space? Would there be pressure to accept one idea over all else? Who would get credit for the idea once it was out in the collective consciousness? Would it not be an invasion of privacy?
Did Bouton’s original business idea of providing more freedom with more technology, actually get subverted so that it created less freedom as more technological advances were made? Did collective consciousness create a lack of creativity and imagination? Did conversation get stifled and all but disappear? Was it fair for Bix to make his money from an idea spawned by someone else? He did develop the idea further into a practical application. Was everyone required to be tracked and have their thoughts and memories made public?
The name Mandala made me think of Nelson Mandela, the two words were so close. Was this a device engineered by Egan? After all Mandela was a man who had lost his freedom for decades? When he was freed, was he freer to do as he wished or more encumbered because he was in the public eye, obligated to everyone, no longer only those who followed his philosophy? Surely, his life was more comfortable, but was the lack of privacy better? Was the founder of Mandala deliberately portrayed as black so as to make the reader wonder if this idea of collective consciousness also created slaves of all its followers? These are unconventional questions for an unconventional novel.
The novel was written with so many innovative ideas and creativity, but I think it tried to tackle too many of the problems of society; it was too long and too convoluted for most people to stay with it as the verbiage seemed to get out of control. For me, in the ened, it was still just too disconnected. However, when I finished the book, I was struck with this thought: How can a book that is written so brilliantly be so difficult to understand? Although it is the second book, the first being “A Visit From the Goon Squad”, I did not get the connection until I went back and read my review of that book, written a decade ago, in order to recall some of the characters. I realized, immediately, that I had pretty much the same feeling about both books. While the prose is often exceptional, the story doesn’t flow easily from one character to another. The author is so imaginative, witty, and thoughtful, but it was often repetitive, overworked and overly technical. Her ideas did not travel from one to another smoothly, nor did they intersect with each other conveniently. I can only hope I understood some of this novel and that my review is logical.
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LibraryThing member lisamunro
I liked this book--I like the interwoven stories and characters that bump into each other in unexpected ways. Maybe it was the futuristic setting, but I had a hard time following the plot in this one.
LibraryThing member msf59
I am a fan of Jennifer Egan and I especially loved A Visit to the Goon Squad. She attempts the same linked narrative style here, along with some experimental forays, (one fails completely, the other mildly interesting). I just could not get a foothold into the story and remained fairly disconnected
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for most of it. She is a fine writer and I admire her ambitious mind but this one just didn’t work for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member alexrichman
When it’s good, it’s very very good, but not as good as Goon Squad. Levels of enjoyment will depend on whether you see keeping track of so many characters and so many time jumps as fun or frustrating.
LibraryThing member mojomomma
One character figures out how to externalize human memory and share it on the web. How this impacts society is this the point of this book.
LibraryThing member kylekatz
2022. Jennifer Egan’s dystopian landscape is especially frightening to me because of the humanity, the fallibility, of her characters. People are playing God, creating tech that seems omniscient, or nearly so, but people are still so painfully human and imperfect, even as technology pushes them
This book carries on in the tradition of Dave Eggers’ The Circle, with some people trying to escape Big Brother’s all-seeing eye.
Speculative fiction has for years posited implants, augmentations, interfaces, or weevils as Egan calls them, technology in our bodies able to interact with our brains, translate our thoughts, visions, dreams, memories, or feelings to computers, or the cloud, so others can access them.
For another novel riffing on some of the possible ramifications of such technology, this one is mild in terms of negative consequences. Except as regarding beautiful women being used as spies. That part was creepy and dire.
So thought-provoking, but once again I felt let down at the end. Like nothing had really happened or been resolved. I find her writing fairly mesmerizing, and her leaping from character to character fascinating, but her endings unsatisfying.
I think the technology we already have is almost destroying us and nobody’s dealing with what that’s like in fiction yet. Reality feels more like The Matrix to me.
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to their limits. And nostalgia is playing a part, almost a character. Bennie is longing to bring music to young people the way it used to be, so pure. Gregory is longing for literature to hold the status it once held, the possibility of transcendence. Bix almost regrets his creation, the Mandala Cube, Own Your Own Consciousness, when he sees how it is used in the real world. This book carries on in the tradition of Dave Eggers’ The Circle, with some people trying to escape Big Brother’s all-seeing eye.
Speculative fiction has for years posited implants, augmentations, interfaces, or weevils as Egan calls them, technology in our bodies able to interact with our brains, translate our thoughts, visions, dreams, memories, or feelings to computers, or the cloud, so others can access them.
For another novel riffing on some of the possible ramifications of such technology, this one is mild in terms of negative consequences. Except as regarding beautiful women being used as spies. That part was creepy and dire.
So thought-provoking, but once again I felt let down at the end. Like nothing had really happened or been resolved. I find her writing fairly mesmerizing, and her leaping from character to character fascinating, but her endings unsatisfying.
I think the technology we already have is almost destroying us and nobody’s dealing with what that’s like in fiction yet. Reality feels more like The Matrix to me.
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LibraryThing member mykl-s
Jennifer Egan describes The Candy House as a sister to her earlier A Visit from the Goon Squad, and it is.
When I looked back at my notes for Goon Squad, I had said it was joyful to skip and skim through it, but would be a slog to try and read it all, or to try to read its interconnected stories
A dozen characters are introduced in the first few pages, so the reader has to either take notes or just go with the flow. Flow works best. Some characters are memorable, most are not, and their relationships to other people in the stories may or may not be important to understanding them.
The stories circle around a sort of device that gives rise to what its owner firm calls the "collective consciousness", where people can have their memories downloaded in a way that they can review them, and, if they choose, can also experience the memories of anyone else who is part of this collective consciousness. This could make Candy House a science fiction novel, but with a bit of disbelief suspension, the book becomes more a story about what social media of different kinds are doing to us now.
This is not a book I would have wanted to miss, but like much social media its form may be as important as its contents. No book can be completely understood, but not every book has to be read completely in order to understand it.
When I looked back at my notes for Goon Squad, I had said it was joyful to skip and skim through it, but would be a slog to try and read it all, or to try to read its interconnected stories
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from cover-to-cover. I It was only after starting Candy House that I remembered how I responded to the earlier book, and how I was also responding to this one. A dozen characters are introduced in the first few pages, so the reader has to either take notes or just go with the flow. Flow works best. Some characters are memorable, most are not, and their relationships to other people in the stories may or may not be important to understanding them.
The stories circle around a sort of device that gives rise to what its owner firm calls the "collective consciousness", where people can have their memories downloaded in a way that they can review them, and, if they choose, can also experience the memories of anyone else who is part of this collective consciousness. This could make Candy House a science fiction novel, but with a bit of disbelief suspension, the book becomes more a story about what social media of different kinds are doing to us now.
This is not a book I would have wanted to miss, but like much social media its form may be as important as its contents. No book can be completely understood, but not every book has to be read completely in order to understand it.
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LibraryThing member novelcommentary
I loved A Visit from the Goon Squad written about a decade ago, and was excited to hear that the characters circle back in The Candy House. I'm a fan of interconnected stories and so trying to remember where I last saw Bennie Salazar or Shasha actually got me searching through the Goon Squad. I'm
" Authenticity,” he said, unfurling the word like an ancient, holy scroll. He almost never uttered it, lest overuse diminish its power. “Genuine human responses rather than the made-up crap we serve each other all day long. I’ve sacrificed everything for that. I think it’s worth it.” He was encouraged by Kristen’s look of fascination. “Do you do it during sex?” she asked."
The third chapter about Alfred's brother Miles, is a wonderful spiral of a successful lawyer getting addicted to drugs and nearly ending his life. His redemption coming at the hands of his cousin Shashi's husband. And if you're keeping track Shasha, the kleptomaniac form Goon Squad is now a famous artist who constructs recycled sculptures in the dessert that are best seen from a hot air ballon. It's too much to summarize each section here and some are uniquely told in 2nd person or through text messages, but throughout Egan manages to connect enough to tell a satisfying tale. Highly recommend both novels, or anything she writes.
Lines:
Eamon’s long deadpan face seemed to shield an illicit excitement, Bix thought, like a generic house containing a meth lab.
He felt the mystery of his own unconscious like a whale looming invisibly beneath a tiny swimmer. If he couldn’t search or retrieve or view his own past, then it wasn’t really his. It was lost.
Jack was known for deflowering cheerleaders in the old camper cabins, but broken hearts were assuaged (to Alfred’s mind) by Jack’s goodwill, high spirits, and occasional flashes of motherless heartbreak, discernible (again, to Alfred) in his tendency to gaze out across the lake, which was deep and cold, formed by glaciers, and populated by thousands of Canada geese in fall.
The ladies, whose curved fingernails had been lavished with the nuanced paintwork normally reserved for museum-quality surfboards, listened with barely repressed hilarity.
Humor is impossible to quantify. For that reason, it is one of our chief tools in spotting proxies: vacant online identities maintained by a third party in order to conceal the fact that their human occupants have eluded...Mondrian’s most sophisticated proxies are live professionals—usually fiction writers, I’m told—who impersonate multiple identities at once.
She ended up on methadone, with hepatitis C. Eventually only we could still see the flickering specter of her young self, flashing and bird-featured, like an antic ghost haunting a tumbledown mansion.
Never trust a candy house! It was only a matter of time before someone made them pay for what they thought they were getting for free. Why could nobody see this?
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not sure that's for everybody and equally not sure it's necessary, but I marvel at the author's ability to rejoin the old gang and now use their children for the current narrative. Whereas Goon Squad was about the music industry, this is more about the direction of technology. Some of the novel takes place in the near future where people have the ability to download their memories into the cube and share their collective consciousness with others. This of course means there are also rebels of this trend who seek to elude this trail. Again Egan uses the structure of a concept album,(there's a New Yorker article about this if you're interested), to weave together seemingly separate tales to illustrate her ideas. I loved the second story about Alfred who obsesses over seeking authenticity and so screams in public to get a reaction. He manages to find a a perfect girlfriend who gets him." Authenticity,” he said, unfurling the word like an ancient, holy scroll. He almost never uttered it, lest overuse diminish its power. “Genuine human responses rather than the made-up crap we serve each other all day long. I’ve sacrificed everything for that. I think it’s worth it.” He was encouraged by Kristen’s look of fascination. “Do you do it during sex?” she asked."
The third chapter about Alfred's brother Miles, is a wonderful spiral of a successful lawyer getting addicted to drugs and nearly ending his life. His redemption coming at the hands of his cousin Shashi's husband. And if you're keeping track Shasha, the kleptomaniac form Goon Squad is now a famous artist who constructs recycled sculptures in the dessert that are best seen from a hot air ballon. It's too much to summarize each section here and some are uniquely told in 2nd person or through text messages, but throughout Egan manages to connect enough to tell a satisfying tale. Highly recommend both novels, or anything she writes.
Lines:
Eamon’s long deadpan face seemed to shield an illicit excitement, Bix thought, like a generic house containing a meth lab.
He felt the mystery of his own unconscious like a whale looming invisibly beneath a tiny swimmer. If he couldn’t search or retrieve or view his own past, then it wasn’t really his. It was lost.
Jack was known for deflowering cheerleaders in the old camper cabins, but broken hearts were assuaged (to Alfred’s mind) by Jack’s goodwill, high spirits, and occasional flashes of motherless heartbreak, discernible (again, to Alfred) in his tendency to gaze out across the lake, which was deep and cold, formed by glaciers, and populated by thousands of Canada geese in fall.
The ladies, whose curved fingernails had been lavished with the nuanced paintwork normally reserved for museum-quality surfboards, listened with barely repressed hilarity.
Humor is impossible to quantify. For that reason, it is one of our chief tools in spotting proxies: vacant online identities maintained by a third party in order to conceal the fact that their human occupants have eluded...Mondrian’s most sophisticated proxies are live professionals—usually fiction writers, I’m told—who impersonate multiple identities at once.
She ended up on methadone, with hepatitis C. Eventually only we could still see the flickering specter of her young self, flashing and bird-featured, like an antic ghost haunting a tumbledown mansion.
Never trust a candy house! It was only a matter of time before someone made them pay for what they thought they were getting for free. Why could nobody see this?
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LibraryThing member nivramkoorb
This is the 4th novel that I have read by Jennifer Egan. This novel has many of the characters from her Pulitzer Prize winning novel " A Visit from the Good Squad". This book covers a time frame from the 1960's to the middle 2030's. The stories are interconnected and use different writing styles.
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It might help to read the Goon Squad first but not necessary. I read the Goon Squad 11 years ago and did not remember it that well but was still able to enjoy this book. The book deals with technology with the main connecting thread being "Own Your Own Consciousness" This software allows you to download all of your memories to a Mandela Cube that you can access at any time. However your consciousness becomes part of the collective consciousness that anyone can access. Sort of like social media but on a much more refined basis. Egan does a great job of showing the ramifications of this technology and others that she introduces throughout the book. Of course there are those that reject the technology and this makes for giving the book a wide range of activity. This is a very creative book with a large cast of characters. A map of the interactions would have helped but even if you don't remember how al lot the characters connect, you will still enjoy the book. Not everyone enjoys books with multiple characters that bounce around throughout large time frames. For me it totally works. If you never read Egan then start with this book. No matter what, you will be impressed with Egan's quite evident brilliance. Show Less
LibraryThing member kayanelson
The Candy House is a book of intertwined short stories. The stories are about some of the ancillary characters in A Visit From the Goon Squad. I read that years ago and my comment on in was that it was interesting. I don’t remember much of the plot at all, even after reading The Candy House. I
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fear that soon I won’t remember much of The Candy House either. The beauty of the book is the ideas and resultant thoughts that comes into one’s mind. The structure of the book and that of individual chapters also make the book unique and interesting. It IS a great book but it won’t be one that I keep in my memory for long, unless I upload my thoughts in the Mandala cube! Show Less
LibraryThing member Narshkite
"Knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing. Without a story it is all just information."
This quote from the very last moments of The Candy House serves on its own as a pretty thorough review of the book and a pretty thorough summation of much of what is wrong in the world. Last night I
"The Candy House" of which the book speaks is a reference to the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel. It is the shiny appealing bit of short term satisfaction that spurs us to enter its doors and sacrifice all. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." And we do abandon hope, or more explicitly we abandon privacy, individuality and all sense of self all to get a little gingerbread (or convenience), a few empty calories. BUT Egan is no Ishiguro or Eggers, happy to share their fear of the hobgoblin of technology and have that be the end of the story. That is lazy. I got a headache from rolling my eyes when I attempted to read The Circle. Egan sees past this threat, she sees a way out, she sees that what matters is how we connect to one another and what we give and get from the ways in which se share our stories. Also she sees the advantages of committing our life to the public record. Others ignore that, but we need to get something to willingly give up so much, we need to get something we truly value in this exchange. It is a nuanced look, it is a smart look, it is a compellingly human look at what now and what next. It is also a really fun, sometimes heartbreaking, always fascinating story about people, and the ways in which imagination and intellect can be a very dangerous thing. Here, one of our fascinating main characters, Miranda Kline, uses her brilliance and the passionate interest in learning how people relate to one another to develop a theory of patterns of affinity. Another intriguing character, Bix, filled with nothing but goodwill and a great mind (informed by a love of literature) turns this theory into an algorithm and then into a method of uploading the contents of people's unconscious and conscious minds and to use that record in various ways including the creation of a "collective consciousness." No more memories spurred by a madeleine, now a literal record of memory as an immediate sense impression and as that impression is processed by the person. It is not an owned memory anymore, it belongs to everyone in the collective, everyone has access to everyone's experience. (Or at least the things that stay in memory -- presumably the burger I ate last night is not permanently stored and available for download.) It seems like the end of wonder, but as one of our characters, a numbers guy charged with turning human behavior into algorithms says, the act of codifying behavior "doesn't make human life any less remarkable, or even (this is counterintuitive, I know) less mysterious — any more than identifying the rhyme scheme in a poem devalues the poem itself." I think that is right. I hope that is right.
One note -- this is a companion to A Visit from the Goon Squad, a book I loved very much, but there is no need to read Goon Squad to get this. Many of the characters that showed up in Goon Squad, some very briefly, show up here, but there is plenty of set up for each character and if I recall correctly Goon Squad doesn't provide backstory that would be helpful to understanding this book. It is just as creative and revelatory and captivating and delightful as Goon Squad but still absolutely its own book.
This quote from the very last moments of The Candy House serves on its own as a pretty thorough review of the book and a pretty thorough summation of much of what is wrong in the world. Last night I
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was having drinks with a much younger friend (just a few years older than my son) and I said that I think one of the things that leads to so much unhappiness and lack of connection in the 30 and under crowd is the deluge of uncontextualized information. It is exhausting trying to assimilate even a fraction of the information that is thrown at us every day, and all that energy would be so much more satisfyingly spent analyzing a few facts that will tell us more about something that means something to us and to our lives, or simply enhances expertise or satisfies true intellectual curiosity rather than simply making us feel a bit less FOMO. A lot of this book is about that. About tapping into other people's lives and experiences as a substitute for creating our own lives (The device to do this in the book is currently a bit of science fiction, but the experience of people staring at the inane input of influencers day after day rather than having experiences is the same.)"The Candy House" of which the book speaks is a reference to the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel. It is the shiny appealing bit of short term satisfaction that spurs us to enter its doors and sacrifice all. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." And we do abandon hope, or more explicitly we abandon privacy, individuality and all sense of self all to get a little gingerbread (or convenience), a few empty calories. BUT Egan is no Ishiguro or Eggers, happy to share their fear of the hobgoblin of technology and have that be the end of the story. That is lazy. I got a headache from rolling my eyes when I attempted to read The Circle. Egan sees past this threat, she sees a way out, she sees that what matters is how we connect to one another and what we give and get from the ways in which se share our stories. Also she sees the advantages of committing our life to the public record. Others ignore that, but we need to get something to willingly give up so much, we need to get something we truly value in this exchange. It is a nuanced look, it is a smart look, it is a compellingly human look at what now and what next. It is also a really fun, sometimes heartbreaking, always fascinating story about people, and the ways in which imagination and intellect can be a very dangerous thing. Here, one of our fascinating main characters, Miranda Kline, uses her brilliance and the passionate interest in learning how people relate to one another to develop a theory of patterns of affinity. Another intriguing character, Bix, filled with nothing but goodwill and a great mind (informed by a love of literature) turns this theory into an algorithm and then into a method of uploading the contents of people's unconscious and conscious minds and to use that record in various ways including the creation of a "collective consciousness." No more memories spurred by a madeleine, now a literal record of memory as an immediate sense impression and as that impression is processed by the person. It is not an owned memory anymore, it belongs to everyone in the collective, everyone has access to everyone's experience. (Or at least the things that stay in memory -- presumably the burger I ate last night is not permanently stored and available for download.) It seems like the end of wonder, but as one of our characters, a numbers guy charged with turning human behavior into algorithms says, the act of codifying behavior "doesn't make human life any less remarkable, or even (this is counterintuitive, I know) less mysterious — any more than identifying the rhyme scheme in a poem devalues the poem itself." I think that is right. I hope that is right.
One note -- this is a companion to A Visit from the Goon Squad, a book I loved very much, but there is no need to read Goon Squad to get this. Many of the characters that showed up in Goon Squad, some very briefly, show up here, but there is plenty of set up for each character and if I recall correctly Goon Squad doesn't provide backstory that would be helpful to understanding this book. It is just as creative and revelatory and captivating and delightful as Goon Squad but still absolutely its own book.
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LibraryThing member ccayne
The concept of uploading our memories as part of the next move in social media is plausible and frightening. This book was so intriguing in its style and plot. It was a fun adventure.
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
A sort of sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad, this is a series of stories following the members of a family and those who interact with them in an alternate version of our present, in which people can upload their consciousness and view events from their lives they'd forgotten as well as being
Jennifer Egan is a talented and assured writer, which makes every sentence a pleasure to read and each individual chapter (with one exception) a delight to read. But the book itself is hard to grasp hold of and I don't expect to remember much about it. I did like thinking about whether I'd upload my consciousness or become one of the "eluders." I initially thought I'd stay far away, but let's be honest -- I'm too nosy to hold out for more than a few moments. The chapters where she kept the focus on the immediate family were excellent, the other ones maybe less so. Which is not to say that Egan's writing isn't fantastic no matter what she's writing about, she just does better with more to work with.
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able to access moments from the point of view of others. This conceit plays out with varying degrees of importance in each story. Jennifer Egan is a talented and assured writer, which makes every sentence a pleasure to read and each individual chapter (with one exception) a delight to read. But the book itself is hard to grasp hold of and I don't expect to remember much about it. I did like thinking about whether I'd upload my consciousness or become one of the "eluders." I initially thought I'd stay far away, but let's be honest -- I'm too nosy to hold out for more than a few moments. The chapters where she kept the focus on the immediate family were excellent, the other ones maybe less so. Which is not to say that Egan's writing isn't fantastic no matter what she's writing about, she just does better with more to work with.
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LibraryThing member kcshankd
Wide ranging from the 60s to 2030s, this novel tracks our willing descent into a metaverse. Each chapter follows a character spinning from an early aughts discussion group. A couple of chapters stand out, one seemingly of tweets as poetry, the other as email/DMs threads.
I typically dislike these
I typically dislike these
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twists in forms but Egan nearly pulls it off. You will typically figure out the next character in a passage or two, though I still long for a good expository story more often than not. Show Less
LibraryThing member Dreesie
I enjoyed The Goon Squad 11 years ago, but really had no interest in rereading it. Maybe it would be interesting to compare her pre-pandemic work with some of these characters to their pos-pandemic lives. Or maybe not. This novel stands on its own. And it's fine, but I never felt like I was swept
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up in a story--I felt like was very much reading Egan's work, waiting for her next Clever Item to come along. Lulu's list of rules was exhausting to read, and the email threads were just...tiring. I do too much of sorting out email threads like that for work to find it clever or witty. The PowerPoint in The Goon Squad seemed clever (would it if it came out now I wonder? maybe [book:Several People Are Typing|54468020] is the closest, and I found it pretty tiresome). The list of rules and email convos did not seem clever to me at all. Show Less
LibraryThing member bergs47
I agree with one of the other reviewers that this is not a book to listen to the audio. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on and thought I should abandon the audio. I have listened to A visit to the goon suad and cannot remember one single thing about it. Perhaps I should stick to her
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more conventional works. I must be in the minority as it has a rating of 4.16, alas i can only give 2,5 Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
This novel takes us on a complicated thread connecting characters and plot lines through time, starting with the development of a new software application “Own Your Unconscious.” Using this app, or by “taking a bite of the Candy House,” people can access memories of others in exchange for
Stories of the characters are related in a variety of styles - from omniscient to first person plural to tweets and letters, and we are never sure at first who is the subject of each chapter.
While I admired the author’s brilliance, I found the book extremely hard to follow, and characters were switched and dropped just as I was beginning to get a sense of who they were and build up some empathy with them. One theme interconnecting the stories seemed to be that while all humans are unique, we all have much in common as well. The lures and dangers of advanced technology plays a role as well. But frankly, it was mostly a little beyond me.
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contributing memories of their own to a common database - a sort of extension of the DNA databases we have today.Stories of the characters are related in a variety of styles - from omniscient to first person plural to tweets and letters, and we are never sure at first who is the subject of each chapter.
While I admired the author’s brilliance, I found the book extremely hard to follow, and characters were switched and dropped just as I was beginning to get a sense of who they were and build up some empathy with them. One theme interconnecting the stories seemed to be that while all humans are unique, we all have much in common as well. The lures and dangers of advanced technology plays a role as well. But frankly, it was mostly a little beyond me.
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LibraryThing member jnmegan
Jennifer Egan once more exceeds high expectations with her follow-up novel, The Candy House. Meant to be a companion to her renowned A Visit from the Geek Squad, it can also be enjoyed as a standalone. The author provides a unique setting that is an alternate version of 2010, almost identical to
Thanks to the author, Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
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the real world, but with some important twists. In her rendering, a technology has been developed that allows users to upload their exact memories, to review and share. Egan employs a variety of scenarios and perspectives to postulate how lives might be affected by the technology, for better or worse. The Candy House asks why people would want to expose themselves and their personal data for public view. As would be expected, such an ability would create controversy and divide those who refuse to share their data. The book follows characters who are acting as representatives from both sides. By placing the plot within an alternate reality that closely mirrors our own, Egan can creatively reflect how quickly technology can drastically change a culture, on a personal to global level. Excellent, challenging and masterfully rendered, The Candy House is a fitting addition to Jennifer Egan’s illustrious body of work.Thanks to the author, Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
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LibraryThing member bookwyrmm
A look at a not-unrealistic near-future told in Egan's signature style, meaning I loved some chapters and could not connect with others.
LibraryThing member travelgirl-fics
as much as i wanted to enjoy this book, at the half-way mark, the POINT of the book still wasn't evident. there seemed to be no plot, even as multiple characters (and their individual thoughts and agendas) were paraded in front of me that all had some connection to each other. i found myself
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unwilling to keep reading to discover the reason why the book had good reviews... Show Less
LibraryThing member CarltonC
A book about memory and technology, very much in the style of A Visit from the Goon Squad, so if you enjoyed that novel, you are likely to enjoy this (although there is no PowerPoint chapter!). Egan uses chapters from multiple viewpoints over different times to create a collage of stories, which
The Candy House is a sequel of sorts to A Visit from the Goon Squad, but as I had read this more than ten years ago, this came to me from a feeling of familiarity with the names, rather than storylines.
I received a Netgalley copy of this book, but this review is my honest opinion.
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can feel forced and artificial for some chapters, quite hard work to follow sometimes (remembering who is related to who), but works overall for me. A good read, but not an easy read.The Candy House is a sequel of sorts to A Visit from the Goon Squad, but as I had read this more than ten years ago, this came to me from a feeling of familiarity with the names, rather than storylines.
I received a Netgalley copy of this book, but this review is my honest opinion.
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LibraryThing member lostinalibrary
Bix Bouton, the brilliant and successful owner of tech giant Mandala has developed new software that is completely game changing - Own Your Own Unconscious. It allows you to download your memories to a Mandela cube and to access them at any time. Not only that but, as the software evolves, you can
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan is one of the most anticipated books of the year and deservedly so. It is a complex tale brilliantly told across decades through interlocking stories of many different characters, many of them recognizable from The Goon Squad, and with many different voices and narrative styles including epistolary and even a chapter consisting completely of tweets. It is about family and memory. the uniqueness of each individual as well as the similarities and, of course, the value as well as dangers inherent in technological advances. Although there are some similarities as well as characters from The GoonSquad, The Candy House is a stand-alone novel, one that is guaranteed to make you think while entertaining.
Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
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download your memories to the Collective Consciousness which allows you to access the thoughts and memories of anyone else who has also downloaded to the Collective. But, like the candy house of the fairy tale, not everything is as it seems and there are potential dangers lurking within.The Candy House by Jennifer Egan is one of the most anticipated books of the year and deservedly so. It is a complex tale brilliantly told across decades through interlocking stories of many different characters, many of them recognizable from The Goon Squad, and with many different voices and narrative styles including epistolary and even a chapter consisting completely of tweets. It is about family and memory. the uniqueness of each individual as well as the similarities and, of course, the value as well as dangers inherent in technological advances. Although there are some similarities as well as characters from The GoonSquad, The Candy House is a stand-alone novel, one that is guaranteed to make you think while entertaining.
Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
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LibraryThing member jscape2000
Is this a novel or short stories? I clearly blundered by not reading Goon Squad first. Short stories about a new tech that transforms the world, and the characters share many connections. But if there was a unifying plot, I missed it.
Awards
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Fiction — 2023)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Fiction — 2023)
NPR: Books We Love (2022)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction/Poetry — 2022)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2022)
BBC 50 Best Books of 2022 (2022)
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