Jennifer Government

Rating:
Summary: Snow Crash without the cyberpunk
Review: First, to dismiss the cover quote that describes it as Catch-22 meets the Matrix -- more like Snow Crash meets Moby Dick. And it's clear that Max Barry is a big Neal Stephenson fan, as the world overrun by corporate America is a very Stephensonian theme. In Barry's world, corporate America controls not only the US (and the entire western hemisphere) but also England, Australia, and Japan, and the consumerist/corporate culture (referred to as "capitalizm") is so pervasive that a person's last name is determined by the company they work for.

Hack Nike works for Nike in Australia (a USA country). He gets himself involved in a plot by Nike.au management to gain word-of-mouth for their latest sneaker line by killing people who buy the sneakers (a la 1980s gangland fashion wars), which draws the attention of Jennifer Government, a former ad agency wunderkind turned FBI agent (or something like it) with a bar code tattooed below her eye. Hack goes to the Police, who instead of making an arrest on the plotters subcontract the murders to the NRA (now a heavily armed privatized army-for-hire), making an enemy of John Nike, the VP who came up with the idea in the first place and the subject of substantial obsessing by Jennifer. And the corporate world itself is a character, as the plot line that started with some very shady dealing builds towards an all-out corporate civil war between two megalopolies that started off as frequent-flyer incentive plans and grew into political factions dominated by big-name megacorporations like Nike, Reebok, AT&T, IBM, and even Boeing.

The plot goes from Australia to Los Angeles to London, its characters let loose in a world where a hostile takeover involves cyberterrorism and paramilitary action as well as stock market manipulation and the Government stands seemingly powerless against the idea that "free trade == anything goes". It's a very fast-paced read, to the point where the book's sense of timing is a little lost in the shuffle, but it makes for some definite popcorn-movie reading. The book represents a sharp rebuke to the forces of laissez-faire capitalism as both of its protagonists are shown journeying away from the corporate mindset that built this strange, homogenized mess of a world, and also shows a sense of just how strange reality could be.

This book isn't perfect. It is, as I said, very derivative of Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash, and that tends to mute the creativity of the book (though it does manage to avoid some of Stephenson's stranger plot twisting). Also, the book carries not one but two romantic subplots, one of which is absolutely critical to the story and one of which fits in but seems a bit forced and unnecessary at times. The title character remains a bit mysterious even at the end when the meaning behind her bar code is revealed, but she recalls the best of action movie rogue cop characters like John McLean or Martin Riggs. Like I said, popcorn reading. It will be interesting to see what the movie based on this book will be like -- it's hard to imagine this story being toned down by removing the controversial bits (like the namedropping of major companies).

I do recommend this book. It's not the humorfest implied by some reviewers -- in fact it's a remarkably gritty and occasionally bloody book, and it sacrifices realism to the plot on a number of occasions -- but it still works as a sort of grim reductio-ad-absurdum satire where laughs are beside the point. I think it will make an excellent movie, as long as the movie is kept reasonably faithful to the book, and I think Max Barry probably has a long future as a cult author along the lines of Chuck Palahniuk ahead of him.

Rating:
Summary: Toxic comedy
Review: It's a funny thing. This book, that is. But also the reality that it's getting harder every day to create satire. In a world where "war" is considered a solution for preventing the use of "weapons of mass destruction" when war, of course, is itself the use of weapons of mass destruction.

In "Syrup," Maxx Barry applied his lens to the corporate empire, lampooning the marketing mentality that pervades the products we buy and use, the films we watch -- even our own names. Even the names of the authors of the books we read. (Maxx has now reverted to Max.) Syrup is one of a small handful of books -- let's say two -- that have actually made me laugh out loud while reading them in the past decade. But the source of the humor was just how real certain scenes were (notably, the wannabe film producers encouraging the leading lady to adopt the stage name "Babelicious"). It wasn't the satiric genius that made Syrup funny, it was the historical accuracy.

And that's what makes it hard to figure out what to think about Jennifer Government. This time, the target is the broader social and political realm. Which makes it harder to laugh at the laughlines. When satire imitates life, you laugh. When life imitates satire, you cry.

Rating:
Summary: A hilarious skewering of consumer culture!
Review: This compulsively readable novel is ideal for fans of Douglas Adams and Jasper Fforde. Max Barry, a 29-year old veteran of big-time marketing, has so much chutzpah you can't help but worry about him. In his imaginary future, giant American corporations with familiar names like Nike and McDonald's rule the world (except for a few little backwaters like France); employees take the names of the companies they work for; and the Police Department is a publicly traded security firm. Agent Jennifer Government is hot on the trail of the odious John Nike and his equally repellent boss, also named John Nike, whose scheme to raise the "street cred" of their new $2500 gym shoe rings nauseatingly true.

Barry's first book, SYRUP, has-- inexplicably-- recently been taken out of print by Penguin-Putnam. I predict that JENNIFER GOVERNMENT will send readers clamoring for more Max Barry, so hopefully Penguin-Putnam will see the error of its ways and give us something to whet our whistles until his next book comes out.

Rating:
Summary: You'd think he'd have it down by now
Review: Okay. I really don't want to crap all over Max Barry here. But this book was lacking in a lot of areas that I know Max is capable of handling. The thing that got me most is how every time there is a phone conversation, Max still put the dialogue in. How many times can a guy read everybody answer the phone the same way? There wasn't as much cleverness in this one as there was in 'Syrup' either, which would have been cool.
I did like the idea behind this story; I thought it was very original and unique. Everything fits together nicely as far as plot goes, but normally with fiction, when a story has an over-elaborate plot, the characters tend to suffer. Which is what happened. Still, read it. But not while driving.

Rating:
Summary: Very Fast, Very Fun
Review: Barry's work is excellent. 'Jennifer Government' is an excellent novel in which William Gibson meets Dave Barry. A hilarious social satire about the corporate world, Barry's novel succeeds because he avoids the particular slang that permeates Gibson's work. Every phrase in the novel is clear and obvious,and the marketing euphemisms used will make you laugh out loud. And fittingly enough for a novel about marketing to a generation with incredibly short attention spans, 'Jennifer Government' is a quick and easy read that will leave you smiling all day.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful dystopia
Review: I read it, loved it, and am giving it to my brother as a birthday present.

Rating:
Summary: Capitalizm Run Amok -- Our Future??
Review: Like others who have reviewed Jennifer Government, I first heard of the book through the NationStates.net online game, and I was intrigued enough by the sample chapter posted on MaxBarry.com to track the book down and buy it. While Jennifer Government hardly compares to Catch-22, 1984, or any of the works of Douglas Adams, it is a rather sarcastic, witty tale of Capitalizm (Max Barry's spelling) gone amok, where the world is divided into various economic blocs and people take as a surname the name of the company they work for (or, as in the case of one of the characters, who have no last name due to unemployment).


Hack Nike is one such character who is given what looks like the "opportunity of a lifetime" when John and John Nike ask him to help them with their ad campaign for the new, $2500 Nike Mercurys. Thinking to give his career a boost and make some money, Hack signs the contract that the two Johns give him without reading it first, after which they inform him of his assignment: in order to build the proper street cred for the shoes, Hack has to go out and kill at least 10 Nike Mercury customers at random, making it look as if the crime were committed by ghetto kids. Horrified, he takes the matter to the Police, who agree to assist him --for a fee -- by assigning hit men to the operation. This in turn attracts the attention of the titular character herself, who is injured in an attempt to stop the assassins.

What I like about this book the most is the fact that while the writing may appear simple to some, that is actually quite deceptive. Unlike Orwell's 1984 or Joseph Heller's Catch-22, both of which seem to use a lot of long, flowery sentences, Max Barry manages to create a rich and complex world in which the almighty dollar is king and one had better have a platinum card before calling the police or ambulance -- and he does it all with so-called "simple" sentences!

Overall, I would say that Jennifer Government is an awesome book that is definitely worth a look-see. I'll be keeping an eye out for new material from Max Barry in the future!

Rating:
Summary: Did I read the wrong book?
Review: "Hilarious"? "Satire"? "Similar to Douglas Adams"??? What are you people talking about?! This book did not have an ironic paragraph in it. The author never once gave the impression that he was writing this as anything but completely straight. There was no satire! As for comparing it to Douglas Adams, all I can guess is that some people have never actually read anything by Adams. Doug created humor by taking cliches and expectations and either pushing them to their ultimate limit, or doing the exact opposite, along with a healthy dose of totally random weirdness. Mr. Barry never does anything like that. He's just telling a freaking story. It's not exactly a BAD story, in and of itself, but a lot of people seem to be seeing a lot of stuff that just isn't there.

Yes, his... very near future? Alternate universe? ...pushes some of corporate America's business practices to a typically illogical end, but that's just the problem. Few, if any, of the things his companies do are really all that far-fetched! Some of them are just a few steps away right now! I don't even think you could compare this to SCOTT Adams for literary satire. Again, the story itself is not bad, not good, just okay, but don't expect many chuckles or even ironic smiles along the way.

Rating:
Summary: It's not Tolstoy, but so what
Review: I loved this book. Yes, the characters are two-dimensional and there is little in terms of character development. Yes, dialog is trite at times. But in the end, I loved this book. What gets overlooked in some reviews is that this book isn't meant to be the shining beacon of great literature. Personally, I think the simple characters, simple dialog, and the bizarre, convulted plot(s) all work exactly they way they should.

Tolstoy, this isn't. But if you want a fun book to read, pick up this one.


Rating:
Summary: It even has a stupid title! Don't waste your time...
Review: This book came highly recommended from several people whose opinions I usually value. I'll have to learn to be less trusting in the future. Jennifer Government is a waste of an interesting idea, and probably a waste of the paper it's printed on. The pages of this book would be better used wiping an old man's butt than for reading.

Where should we begin? How about with the story's setting, which seems to change every page. One minute a character is in Australia, then New Zealand, then London, then LA...I was so confused as the story progressed that I just stopped trying. And there are too many minor characters that the writer wants readers to care about. Mr. Barry, we don't care. We don't even care about your main characters. Barry tries to show how his characters grow, but instead, he just confuses readers. Character development in this story can be compared to fast food. Both are bad, occasionally nauseating, pose for quality, and occur quickly.

When readers finish the book, they're still unsure about who the characters really are. For example, is Hack a wishy-washy corporate slave or a courageous vigilante? I still don't know. And you can't respect a story that begins without a background. In Jennifer Government, things just are. One or two pages or background information, carefully spliced into the story, would have sufficed. Is Barry that stupid or just that lazy? It's like building a skyscraper without a foundation. No respectable story can rest comfomtably on a foundation of nothing.

What irritated me most about this book is the hollow, almost laughably phony dialogue. You have Jennifer dropping F-bombs and cursing like an Irish cop in one scene, and in the next, calling her daughter "sweetie" and patting her on the head. Jennifer is either schizophrenic (did I spell that right?) or a good actor. Or perhaps it's the writer's fault. No good character is that inconsistent. She can still be a warm, caring mother without babying a daughter who is supposed to be abnormally intelligent. I don't think it's possible to turn on and off your pissed-off attitude the way Jennifer does. While we're on the subject, the daughter's dialogue ranks among the worst in the book. It made me want to slap her every time she opened her mouth. And what's with all the unnecessary swearing and course language? It doesn't offend me, it just seems trite and stupidly out of place. I think that Barry enjoys being perverse for the sake of perversity. Hee hee...I just said a naughty word in my book, tee hee. How juvenile!

Jennifer's tattoo was the only reason I finished the book. I wanted to know why she had it. Barry builds up suspense about the tattoo throughout the book, only to let down readers at the end. Actually, calling the tattoo incident a letdown is like calling Michael Jordan a mediocre athlete. It's so much more than a letdown! Barry could have come up with a really cool story behind the tattoo. Heck, I could think for five minutes and come up with a decent story. But what's the verdict? She got the tattoo because she liked Malibu Barbie? Barry must have run out of steam at the end of the book, because that explanation is unnaceptable at best. How dare he be so lazy!

The plot of the story collapses under its own weight. Too much is going on, too many characters fade in and out, and readers become annoyed and angry. The book sucks. The movie will probably be pretty good because it's based on a good idea, but the idea wasn't presented on paper in a coherent and entertaining way. And one more thing. Mr. Barry, people in the United States don't care about Australia. Call it a global narcissism, but we care about ourselves almost exclusively, although the shameful actions of our political leaders would have you believe otherwise. So if you want to succeed in the United States, don't base your books in Australia. Because Australia sucks, almost as bad as Jennifer Government.