There are also characters we might call quantifiers, for want of a better term. Then there is the reclusive Miranda Kline, the late-blooming anthropologist whose research on “affinity and trust”, based on her study of a Brazilian tribe, is appropriated to drive Mandala’s social media revolution, in a way that is the perverse opposite of her intention. Mandala’s flagship products include Own Your Unconscious and The Collective Unconscious, programs that allow people to upload the content of their minds, which can then be shared on a global online platform that allows subscribers to relive memories and experiences.

She opens a window not just to the America that is, but the America that may very well come to be.Īmong the novel’s teeming ensemble of players is Bix Bouton, tech entrepreneur and helmsman of Mandala, the company he has formed to realise his vision of the next quantum leap in social media and virtual reality. In particular, she shows herself to be both shrewd and adept at assembling the right characters to develop her themes. In this bustling, multifaceted report on contemporary consciousness, Egan more than delivers on her claims. Review: The Candy House – Jennifer Egan (Corsair)įollows a number of peripheral characters into their own futures and pasts to create an independent work with a new set of preoccupations and center of gravity, but equal affinity for technology, humor, and structural freedom. Is this new book smarter, better-looking, more charismatic than its older sister or brother? I don’t think it is a question worth posing: it’s easy to love these two fascinating children just the same.

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The candy house book review