The Circle - Dave Eggers

A circle of hell that a modern Dante would have added to his collection without a doubt.
 
I finished it on the slow boat to Luang Prabang a couple of years ago and was glad to pass it on to another traveller, not because there was anything wrong with it, the writing pulls you like a sense of dread, but that’s what made me so uncomfortable. The way that Mae Holland is sucked into the corporate tech interface (not “world”: that would suggest a depth it knows nothing of) is tragically disturbing.
 
Ultimately, the multiple screens that demand Holland’s conscious attention are akin to a giant parasite attaching its bloodsucking larvae to a body in such a way that the brain, also, is infected and taken over.
 
The unpleasant reality, though, is that Mae is allows it to happen, as a result of which I found the lead character rather unlikeable. Just because all the others also put greedy ambition before sincerity and humanity doesn’t excuse her.
 
Eggers devises for The Circle a perfect Orwellian motto, “Secrets are lies, sharing is caring, privacy is theft.” He portrays the horror of fakery and abuse on the corporate scale only too well and I shuddered in the balmy air of the Mekong.