科幻小说恐怖图景影射谷歌

    许多小说家都把笔触伸向了商业界，他们的作品有的荒诞离奇，有的贴近真实。其中最出名的有以下几位：首先是乔纳森•迪和亚当•哈斯雷特，他们的作品从不同的角度描写了金融危机。去年，海伦•德怀特的《避雷针》（Lightning Rods）以极为认真可信的搞笑笔法描写了一个人是怎样把一个龌龊的念头变成现实的——也就是把办公室性服务变成一项合法的全国性业务。罗宾•斯隆的作品《半影先生的24小时书屋》（Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore ）描写了一家在硅谷真实存在的书店背后的故事。去年，加布利埃尔•罗斯的处女作《未知》（The Unknowns）则描写了一名年轻企业家在以几亿美金的价格卖掉自己的公司之后所经历的一段迷茫时期。

    作家戴夫•艾格斯是麦克斯威尼出版社（McSweeney's）的创始人（有些人认为他的作品矫饰过重，但也有不少人非常喜欢他的作品。从大多数标准看，他都是一个成功的作家。）最近他也加入了戏笔商界的行列。之前他有两部书都围绕着“目的”这个主题。【《什么是什么》（What is the What）一书描写了一个虚构的苏丹难民瓦伦蒂诺•阿扎克•邓命运多舛的一生，《泽图恩》（Zeitoun ）则讲述了一个家庭在卡特里娜飓风中的挣扎。】写完这两部书后，他又连续创作了两部描写美国商界的小说。2012年的小说《王者的全像》（A Hologram for the King）用又没得笔触描写了一个身心俱疲的美国销售员在经济危机的打击下，远赴沙特阿拉伯去谈一笔无线技术业务的大生意。这本书的语言代表了艾格斯本人写作风格的转型。这本书的语言少了几分闲散和异想天开，多了几分凝练、实用和简洁，获得了很好的反响。

    When novelists point their pens at the business world, the results—specifically the plausibility—vary. Some of the more successful in the past few years have included Jonathan Dee and Adam Haslett, whose novels took on the financial crisis from different angles. Last year, Helen DeWitt's Lightning Rods depicted, with surprisingly believable hilarity, a man turning his sordid idea for in-office sex escorts into a legitimate national business; Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore depicted the secrets behind a brick-and-mortar book shop in the heart of Silicon Valley. And this year, The Unknowns, a terrific debut novel by Gabriel Roth, focused on a young tech entrepreneur's failed romance during an aimless period after selling his company for millions of dollars.

    Dave Eggers, father of the publishing house McSweeney's (twee and cutesy to some, beloved and celebrated by others, but by most measures a true San Francisco success), these days falls among the "biz curious" writerly ranks. After two books centered on a "cause" (What is the What was a fictionalized biography of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee; Zeitoun reported one family's ordeal during Hurricane Katrina) he has put out two consecutive books concerned with corporate America. The 2012 novel A Hologram for the King beautifully imagined a weary, frustrated American salesman, bruised by the downturn, traveling to Saudi Arabia to land a big wireless technologies deal. The language, in that book, represented a bit of a turn for Eggers: less meandering and whimsical, more terse, utilitarian and clean. It worked wonderfully.

    艾格斯于本月出版的新书《圆》（The Circle）也是一本以美国商界为背景的小说，但它却没有《王者的全像》的美感与写实。书名“圆”来自书中作者描写的那家名叫The Circle的公司，它也是书中唯一一家重要的公司。它的规模极为庞大，是一家年轻、但实力极其雄厚的科技企业，在硅谷有一片占地极大的总部。是不是觉得似曾相识？在本书的发布会上，有记者问艾格斯：“本书是不是影射了谷歌（Google）、Facebook或其他哪家特定的公司？”艾格斯答道：“不，不是。”不过书上的The Circle公司有三个联合创始人：汤姆、艾蒙、泰，让人很难不联想到谷歌的“三巨头”拉里、谢尔盖和董事长施密特。The Circle的餐厅叫做“玻璃餐馆”，一共有9层，它的墙和地板都是用玻璃做的。一眼看去，就好像“上百人飘在空中吃饭”一样。这家公司的核心员工被称做“四十人帮”，也是公司最重要的四十名员工，只有他们有权接触公司的核心计划和数据。

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    不管The Circle公司是否让你想起了谷歌、Facebook或其他哪家公司，反正在看过了本书的基本设置后，后面的故事已经很难找到任何一家真实企业的影子了，不过这也是它最大的问题之一。艾格斯显然是要把这本书写成一本反乌托邦的讽刺作品，不过这个目标可以说是失败了。因为书中的故事实在是太过牵强和夸张，是一本能让人嗤之以鼻、而不是兴奋颤抖的书。

    小说的主人公梅•霍兰德第一天走进公司的时候还是一个天真烂漫、不谙世事的少女，急于获得别人的认可。她也是我们看这家公司的一扇窗口。但她很快成了长官意志的牺牲品，渐渐变得让读者难以认同，甚至很难喜欢上她。随着她抓住每个机会一步步往上爬，她也一步步被洗脑，丝毫不能激起人们的同情。

    The writing style of his new novel The Circle, out this month, is the same, but this book lacks the grace, charm and realism of Hologram. The novel takes its name from a fictional company: The Circle ("the only company that really mattered at all") is a gargantuan, young-but-powerful tech corporation on a giant, sprawling campus in Silicon Valley. Sound familiar? In a prepared Q&A on the press release that went around with the book, Eggers is asked coyly, "Is this book about Google (GOOG) or Facebook (FB) or any particular company?" He responds, "No, no." And yet The Circle has three cofounders: Tom, Eamon, and Ty (hard not to think of Larry, Sergey and chairman Schmidt). Its cafeteria is called "the glass eatery," a space "designed such that diners ate at nine different levels, all of the floors and walls glass. At first glance, it looked like a hundred people were eating in mid-air." Its most revered staffers are the "Gang of 40," which comprises "the forty most crucial minds at the company… privy to its most secret plans and data."

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    Regardless of whether The Circle reminds you more of Google, Facebook, or a different company, after we get through the recognizable early descriptions of the setting, the company no longer resembles any organization that exists or could ever conceivably exist right now. And that's one of its biggest problems. Eggers clearly means The Circle to be a blistering, dystopian satire, but that fails because what happens is so absurdly far-fetched and over the top. It is a book that will make you scoff, not tremble.

    The Circle's protagonist Mae Holland arrives at the company on her first day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to please. She is our window into the company. But she so swiftly falls prey to the founders' whims that it's impossible to identify with her or even like her. There is no pathos to be found in what happens to her since she leaps at every opportunity for further brainwashing.