Since time available for reading (and blogging, obviously) has been seriously cut back due to a longish driving commute, my progress on Then We Came to the End has been slow, slow, slow. I'm also now leaning toward disliking the book, which doesn't up my enthusiasm for getting to the ending.

Although some of it is acerbically funny, a whole lot more is depressing. Take Janine Gorjanc, whose daughter was kidnapped and later found murdered. To make matters worse, the missing child billboard erected during the search remains standing long after the body was found and serves as a constant, painful reminder. As a result of the trauma, Janine's marriage breaks up, her personal hygiene begins to slide, and she goes on several psychiatric medications. Since the main premise of the novel is built around office gossip, no one speaks to her directly about her problems. So, her cubicle's adornment with photos of the dead daughter and ex-husband become a source of discomfort to those around her, people whisper about her smell, and an unhappy co-worker steals her meds for himself.

For the most part, my issues with the book relate to the characters themselves. As the layoffs begin and progress, they become disfranchised admen who engage in over-the-top antics as rebellion. But since Ferris also offers a look into their sad home lives, jokes that might have seemed funny to me a moment earlier suddenly become tragic. I know too much about them to laugh at them and they never laugh at themselves with me (the reader) even though they spend plenty pages laughing at each other.

I'm going to try and suspend my final judgment on the book until the end because I've been told there's a payoff. I hope so.

Imagine the scene: it's the 2007 National Book Awards. In the banquet hall, each table features a centerpiece made up of copies of the nominated titles. Invited guests polish off their desserts while, up in the balcony, the press and a small pack of bloggers put some polish on their writing. Fran Lebowitz speaks the last words of her closing remarks and the awards ceremony officially ends. Lured by the scent of freebies, crazed bloggers stampede down the stairs and run through the banquet hall grabbing books as authors and industry-types topple in their wake.

Well, it wasn't exactly like that. But I'm sure I moved at a quicker clip than usual. And I did stick my finger into an untouched dessert tray just for a little taste. Whatever happened, my copy of Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End started out as an NBA centerpiece.

It's a hardcover and it has been pissing me off. Not the story, which is entertaining enough, but the actual, physical object.

First off, I took off the dust jacket. Such action is sort of counterproductive since the jacket exists as protection, but I find it a nuisance. Jackets tend to creep skyward on me, making books too tall and gangly. Up to now, Then We Came to the End has been at home, at work, in the car, and on several lunches. The poor thing is becoming positively filthy, and it bothers me more to wreck a hardcover than a paperback.

When at lunch, the damn thing is simply too heavy and inflexible to hold open with one hand while eating with the other. I am forced to read with it lying on the table, so it also has been doubling as a placemat.

Then yesterday as I rode the elevator, I dropped the book on my foot. One of its corners got smashed in the fall and I have a little round bruise on the top of my foot. I'm glad I didn't break a toe, but none of this is helping me love the thing.

Hoo boy, I am ever so glad last year is behind us. A topsy-turvy end to 2007 rendered me incapable of reading nothing more rigorous than wine bottle labels. And even those sometimes proved too difficult to sort out: "Cabernet Sauvignon? Merlot? Pinot Noir? I will be serving meatloaf. Is there no hero to rescue me from the Wines of California aisle of the discount liquor mart?"

Drying out and getting back in the swing, I'm currently making my way through Joshua Ferris' NBA nominated Then We Came to the End. Just prior, I re-read Matt Beaumont's e, a comedy about antics at an ad agency which is comprised entirely of e-mails. Ferris' book is also a comedy about an ad agency, but the gimmick here (Do all novels about ad agencies have a gimmick?) is that it's written in first person plural. I'm only a handful of pages in and am waiting to discover what merited the NBA nomination, but I've been assured by others that the end of Then We Came to the End is where I'll hit pay dirt. Thus far, however, e is still winning in chuckles and has a slight edge because it only requires a commitment of a few hours.