Lenny T., a longtime member of my Silent Book Club group, is one of the most voracious readers I know. I don’t know how many books he reads per year, but it must be many dozens. Lenny is one of only two friends of mine who talk about their reading habit as if it is an addiction or obsession, completely out of their control.
During Silent Book Club meetings, you can find Lenny walking around to view what the other attendees are reading, because he’s always running out of books to read and looking for new book ideas. Most of us have a huge TBR (to be read) stack that we’ll never finish—but not Lenny. His TBR stack is always shrinking fast. Isn’t that awesome? Much respect!
I admire not only Lenny’s reading habit, but also his efforts to be more social by attending Silent Book Club meetings, so he’s not just reading alone all the time. Also: he prefers high-quality books, in tune with the books I feature on this blog. When Lenny says a book is particularly good, I listen carefully. He has the book-reading experience and down-to-earth personality necessary to be an excellent judge of books.
Please enjoy the following guest post, written by Lenny T. (If you’d like to write a guest post for this blog, view my guidelines.)
IN DISCONTENT, MARISA IS DROWNING in the modern Madrid version of Mad Men, although a comparison with Office Space is more apt. The novel Discontent was written by Madrid journalist Beatriz Serrano. It was translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem.
The work culture and pressure are immense, and Marisa’s main pressure release valves include an art museum, online videos, Ativan and escapist lunches, although a quasi-relationship with her neighbor can be also counted on. Additionally, Discontent touches upon relationships, loneliness and other modern issues. I also liked the stream-of-consciousness style, with events being secondary. In a bigger book, it would have been a problem.
I chuckled constantly when reading biting descriptions of office culture like “Some people enjoy meetings because they are the way to avoid working [and] to feel important” and “The ten o’clock meeting reminds me of a sporting competition. It’s a race for who has the most work. My colleagues weigh in on old projects just to get noticed . . . and they pressure people from other departments to send them things that are incredibly urgent.”
I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would. Maybe it’s personal. In the Washington DC area, many are supersized workaholics. The most frequent answer to “How are you?” is usually a confident and assertive “Busy!!” People put 100% of their self-worth into work, create more meetings, come up with more business jargon, etc.—since their self-respect really depends on it. Many of my friends here have 20-30 hours of meetings a week, every week, stuck in a loop trying to increase their self-worth and feel better in a process that discounts both at the end and makes them feel disoriented, stressed and depressed. Those reviewers who found the main character too negative have probably been lucky to avoid such culture for prolonged periods of time.
So in a year of biting political satire, a witty and sarcastic book about work craziness is a welcome and worthy competitor.
Lenny T. is an enthusiastic book reader who lives in the Washington DC area.
Featured in this post: Discontent by Beatriz Serrano, translated by Mara Faye Lethem
