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Why Are You So Sad?
Have we all sunken into a species-wide bout of clinical depression?
Porter’s uproarious, intelligent debut centers on Raymond Champs, an illustrator of assembly manuals for a home furnishings corporation, who is charged with a huge task: To determine whether or not the world needs saving. It comes to him in the midst of a losing battle with insomnia — everybody he knows, and maybe everybody on the planet, is suffering from severe clinical depression. He’s nearly certain something has gone wrong. A virus perhaps. It’s in the water, or it’s in the mosquitoes, or maybe in the ranch flavored snack foods. And what if we are all too sad and dispirited to do anything about it? Obsessed as he becomes, Raymond composes an anonymous survey to submit to his unsuspecting coworkers — “Are you who you want to be?”, “Do you believe in life after death?”, “Is today better than yesterday?” — because what Raymond needs is data. He needs to know if it can be proven. It’s a big responsibility. People might not believe him. People, like his wife and his boss, might think he is losing his mind. But only because they are also losing their minds. Or are they?
Reminiscent of Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Douglas Coupland and Jennifer Egan, Porter’s debut is an acutely perceptive and sharply funny meditation on what makes people tick.
Porter’s uproarious, intelligent debut centers on Raymond Champs, an illustrator of assembly manuals for a home furnishings corporation, who is charged with a huge task: To determine whether or not the world needs saving. It comes to him in the midst of a losing battle with insomnia — everybody he knows, and maybe everybody on the planet, is suffering from severe clinical depression. He’s nearly certain something has gone wrong. A virus perhaps. It’s in the water, or it’s in the mosquitoes, or maybe in the ranch flavored snack foods. And what if we are all too sad and dispirited to do anything about it? Obsessed as he becomes, Raymond composes an anonymous survey to submit to his unsuspecting coworkers — “Are you who you want to be?”, “Do you believe in life after death?”, “Is today better than yesterday?” — because what Raymond needs is data. He needs to know if it can be proven. It’s a big responsibility. People might not believe him. People, like his wife and his boss, might think he is losing his mind. But only because they are also losing their minds. Or are they?
Reminiscent of Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Douglas Coupland and Jennifer Egan, Porter’s debut is an acutely perceptive and sharply funny meditation on what makes people tick.
198 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 2014
11 people are currently reading
831 people want to read
About the author
Jason Porter
2 books27 followersJason Porter was born in Jackson, Michigan, in 1972, and grew up in nearby Ann Arbor. After a brief career as an online news editor (Yahoo! News and The New York Times) and a less brief non-career as a rock musician, Jason completed an MFA in Fiction at Hunter College. Now he writes fiction, mostly in odd shapes and sizes. His first novel, Why Are You So Sad?, was shortlisted for the Paris Literary Prize, and is being published by Plume. He lives in Brooklyn, with his girlfriend and their two dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
August 27, 2013
I can't claim to be objective about this sort of thing, but after reading it various times over a five year period, I can say that I still don't hate it. Coming from me, that's pretty high praise.
October 27, 2013
If you are a corporate wage slave and you like satire, this novel may feel like home to you. As a reader, I don't always tune into satire right away. I start reading and wonder, why is this so loopy? So exaggerated? Then I get the forehead-smacking moment when I figure out that the weirdness is intentional. "Ooooooh, I get it. It's satire."
Keep that in mind when you look at my three-star rating. Given that I'm not a big fan of satire and not part of the corporate rat race, I think my rating bodes well for the book. I finished it in three days.
Raymond Champs is a lackey for corporate America, just like you. He wants to know if we are in an evolutionary downward spiral which has left all of us depressed and getting worse. "Why are you so sad?" is just one of the questions in the survey he designs for his co-workers to find out what might be making people so generally low in spirits.
There's not a lot in terms of plot here, but I think that's intentional. There were a couple of things I appreciated most about what Jason Porter has done here. First is the send-up of how pathetically little we are willing to settle for as long as we have security and predictability. "I have a job. I have a nice apartment. I have a hot car. I have a wife." Therefore, I should be happy, shouldn't I?
The second thing I liked most about the book was the variety of possible answers to common existential questions we first-worlders like to obsess about. Do you believe in God? Are you who you want to be? Is today better than yesterday? Do you think people will remember you after you die?
I think Porter has a good handle on what makes us sick and sad as a society, and he makes it bearable by presenting it in a humorous style where we can recognize ourselves without getting even more depressed.
Keep that in mind when you look at my three-star rating. Given that I'm not a big fan of satire and not part of the corporate rat race, I think my rating bodes well for the book. I finished it in three days.
Raymond Champs is a lackey for corporate America, just like you. He wants to know if we are in an evolutionary downward spiral which has left all of us depressed and getting worse. "Why are you so sad?" is just one of the questions in the survey he designs for his co-workers to find out what might be making people so generally low in spirits.
There's not a lot in terms of plot here, but I think that's intentional. There were a couple of things I appreciated most about what Jason Porter has done here. First is the send-up of how pathetically little we are willing to settle for as long as we have security and predictability. "I have a job. I have a nice apartment. I have a hot car. I have a wife." Therefore, I should be happy, shouldn't I?
The second thing I liked most about the book was the variety of possible answers to common existential questions we first-worlders like to obsess about. Do you believe in God? Are you who you want to be? Is today better than yesterday? Do you think people will remember you after you die?
I think Porter has a good handle on what makes us sick and sad as a society, and he makes it bearable by presenting it in a humorous style where we can recognize ourselves without getting even more depressed.
August 30, 2014
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Have we all sunken into a species-wide bout of clinical depression?
Porter’s uproarious, intelligent debut centers on Raymond Champs, an illustrator of assembly manuals for a home furnishings corporation, who is charged with a huge task: To determine whether or not the world needs saving. It comes to him in the midst of a losing battle with insomnia — everybody he knows, and maybe everybody on the planet, is suffering from severe clinical depression. He’s nearly certain something has gone wrong. A virus perhaps. It’s in the water, or it’s in the mosquitoes, or maybe in the ranch flavored snack foods. And what if we are all too sad and dispirited to do anything about it? Obsessed as he becomes, Raymond composes an anonymous survey to submit to his unsuspecting coworkers — “Are you who you want to be?”, “Do you believe in life after death?”, “Is today better than yesterday?” — because what Raymond needs is data. He needs to know if it can be proven. It’s a big responsibility. People might not believe him. People, like his wife and his boss, might think he is losing his mind. But only because they are also losing their minds. Or are they?
Reminiscent of Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Douglas Coupland and Jennifer Egan, Porter’s debut is an acutely perceptive and sharply funny meditation on what makes people tick.
I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM LIBRARY THING'S EARLY REVIEWERS PROGRAM
My Review: Reading this book is like watching Jim Carrey play Rabbit Angstrom in a shelved TV pilot of Rabbit, Run. It's like reading John Updike's hitherto-unknown draft of a spec script called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's quite similar to a lost Seinfeld episode in which George and Kramer get drunk and fool around...or was that an ayahuasca-fueled nightmare...?
I'm not quite sure why the publisher labeled this satire. It's black comedy, and quite dryly amusing in many spots. It's satirizing...what? Modern Society? Permaybehaps I'm no longer With It and don't get the satire. That's more than a little possible.
Porter has an MFA (ruh-roh, Raggy) from Hunter College and is blurbed by my dote Colum McCann. I entered these portals an eager acolyte in the making. I exited the service entrance wondering just how the hell I got onto the loading dock. The not-really-an-ending felt like I was here at the business end of the edifice but there wasn't a delivery truck in sight.
But two things have stuck with me, two contributions to my ever-smaller stock of Stuff I Want to Remember:
1) The image of happiness, complete and sincere and freshly made happiness, as like the feeling of putting new socks on clean feet. Can't pull the quote without spoilers. But the image is instantly relatable and also fresh (pun optional).
2) The Fearless and Searching Moral Inventory (how twelve-steppy I'm feeling today!) that Ray passes around in questionnaire form. I love it!
It's like a sociology class exercise designed by someone who's drunk and lonely. I was bemused that this questionnaire was a central organizing device of the sort novel. It took up a lot of space that would have been more satisfactorily used in traditional means of character development, either of Ray himself, or the people answering his trippy survey. But it made me smile, of itself and as a shortcut to the purpose of making readers invest in the lovable loon that is Ray.
My life may not be changed by the book, but my smile muscles are exercised and my chuckle-box got wound up a time or three. I call that a win.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The Publisher Says: Have we all sunken into a species-wide bout of clinical depression?
Porter’s uproarious, intelligent debut centers on Raymond Champs, an illustrator of assembly manuals for a home furnishings corporation, who is charged with a huge task: To determine whether or not the world needs saving. It comes to him in the midst of a losing battle with insomnia — everybody he knows, and maybe everybody on the planet, is suffering from severe clinical depression. He’s nearly certain something has gone wrong. A virus perhaps. It’s in the water, or it’s in the mosquitoes, or maybe in the ranch flavored snack foods. And what if we are all too sad and dispirited to do anything about it? Obsessed as he becomes, Raymond composes an anonymous survey to submit to his unsuspecting coworkers — “Are you who you want to be?”, “Do you believe in life after death?”, “Is today better than yesterday?” — because what Raymond needs is data. He needs to know if it can be proven. It’s a big responsibility. People might not believe him. People, like his wife and his boss, might think he is losing his mind. But only because they are also losing their minds. Or are they?
Reminiscent of Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Douglas Coupland and Jennifer Egan, Porter’s debut is an acutely perceptive and sharply funny meditation on what makes people tick.
I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM LIBRARY THING'S EARLY REVIEWERS PROGRAM
My Review: Reading this book is like watching Jim Carrey play Rabbit Angstrom in a shelved TV pilot of Rabbit, Run. It's like reading John Updike's hitherto-unknown draft of a spec script called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's quite similar to a lost Seinfeld episode in which George and Kramer get drunk and fool around...or was that an ayahuasca-fueled nightmare...?
I'm not quite sure why the publisher labeled this satire. It's black comedy, and quite dryly amusing in many spots. It's satirizing...what? Modern Society? Permaybehaps I'm no longer With It and don't get the satire. That's more than a little possible.
Porter has an MFA (ruh-roh, Raggy) from Hunter College and is blurbed by my dote Colum McCann. I entered these portals an eager acolyte in the making. I exited the service entrance wondering just how the hell I got onto the loading dock. The not-really-an-ending felt like I was here at the business end of the edifice but there wasn't a delivery truck in sight.
But two things have stuck with me, two contributions to my ever-smaller stock of Stuff I Want to Remember:
1) The image of happiness, complete and sincere and freshly made happiness, as like the feeling of putting new socks on clean feet. Can't pull the quote without spoilers. But the image is instantly relatable and also fresh (pun optional).
2) The Fearless and Searching Moral Inventory (how twelve-steppy I'm feeling today!) that Ray passes around in questionnaire form. I love it!
Why are you so sad?
Are you single?
Are you having an affair?
Are you who you want to be?
Would you prefer to be someone else?
Are you similar to the "you" you thought you would become when as a child you imagined your future self?
When was the last time you felt happy?
Was it a true, pure happy or a relative happy?
What does it feel like to get out of bed in the morning?
Do you realize you have an average of 11,000 to 18,250 mornings of looking in the mirror and wondering if people will find you attractive?
Do you think people will remember you after you die?
For how long after you die?
Do you believe in life after death?
Do you believe in life after God?
Are you for the chemical elimination of all things painful?
Do you think we need more sports?
Have you ever fallen in love?
If yes, were you surprised that it, like all other things, faded over time?
Do you hear voices?
It's like a sociology class exercise designed by someone who's drunk and lonely. I was bemused that this questionnaire was a central organizing device of the sort novel. It took up a lot of space that would have been more satisfactorily used in traditional means of character development, either of Ray himself, or the people answering his trippy survey. But it made me smile, of itself and as a shortcut to the purpose of making readers invest in the lovable loon that is Ray.
My life may not be changed by the book, but my smile muscles are exercised and my chuckle-box got wound up a time or three. I call that a win.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
December 23, 2013
I'm not sure I understood this book. Porter is definitely talented and funny, but there was a tendency to stay in the joke too long. The two-part structure felt very off balance. I loved the survey responses from the various folks in Raymond's life and I also thought Brenda was a well-drawn character. That said, the ending is baffling. It feels like this is about mental illness in some form or fashion, but there wasn't enough follow through on this novel's ambitions.
January 25, 2016
I don't know if I feel more or less alone after having read this. Either way, I am glad I did.
May 9, 2015
This book is, for depression and middle age anxiety, what Fight Club was for youthful rage and anti-commercialism. It is absorbing, hilarious, and thought provoking, but not in a manner meant to comfort or inspire. And I admire the bravery in the "multiple choice" endings, where the reader has to choose between two finales, neither of which is warming, but both have something to say about the struggles with depression.
February 22, 2014
Loved it. Hilarious and true. I am fairly certain that Raymond is based on at least 3 people I know. Or perhaps Jason Porter listened in on one of the late night, post six pack conversations my husband and I love to have. Either way, I couldn't put it down and couldn't stop laughing. We HAVE to laugh at ourselves, or we'll all slip down into that toilet bowl vortex of despair.
February 6, 2014
This book should come with a trigger warning - if you are somewhat sensitive and overwhelmed with the world, suffer from depression and don't see a way out of the darkness, than this book just might send you over the edge. Or better yet, this book should come with an instant support group that pops up the second you finish the last page. Or perhaps a group hug, that envelops you in warmth and certainty. Or best possible option: an injection of liquid Ecstasy, that melts you in wonder and magic, so all the overwhelm at how desperate things really are just doesn't seem to matter anymore.
Our hero, Raymond, is sad and that sadness projects out like a dark, wet movie onto every single person he interacts with. He works in an IKEA-like cubicle world, which is perfectly described, down to the horrifying color combinations and large bean bag chairs. His dark view is inescapable and all he can see is the pathetic emptiness in those he is surrounded by. Most of the book is him projecting his depression on the people around him and it gets hard to get through at points.
Fortunately, there are moments of exquisite humor. They come in sharp and fast, slapping you across the face with a delicious crack and then scuttling away just as fast as they appear. I wanted more of those slaps and less of the quicksand-feeling of sinking deeper and deeper into meaninglessness.
Things only start to look up, when Ray finally leaves the corporate monolith that is killing him and meets a strange performance artist, amidst the smells of cooking meats and beer. But just as quickly as she arrives, she is taken away from us, as well as any sort of possible release and escape from the dark depression. This is where things derail for me a bit, as a reader. It's like the second half of the book is missing. We never get to see what was possible with Glenda ("the Good Witch" Artist?) Instead we get a "choose your own ending" of sorts, where both choices are quite bleak: either Ray [SPOILER ALERT!] commits suicide by pills or forces himself to stay in love with a woman who does not seem to recognize or appreciate his unique, strange beauty and perception of the world.
Our hero has a chance to explore a world of conceptual thinking, where he can discover new relationships and new paradigms of existing. I mean, he finds a woman who understands his odd survey and not only appreciates it, but asks for more. She is interested in him, unlike Brenda, his wife, whose continual disinterest in the true, expressive Ray, runs like a sharp barbed wire throughout the book. Where Glenda is asking for more creations and explorations of the world, Brenda is shutting the magic down, pushing for Ray to stay in his cubicle and stay asleep to the potential magic around him.
But instead of exploring a new world with Glenda, the only other choice given to Ray (besides suicide) is to stay with Brenda, who is embarrassed by Ray's creativity, and judges and shames him as often as possible, in the hopes of creating some idea of "normalcy." Brenda is shown as the choice of salvation - I mean, it's either her or DEATH. But really, Brenda is the "go back to sleep" choice, which is just as bad as suicide, from a certain point of view. Why isn't an adventure with Glenda the Artist, option "C)"?
Regardless of my personal feelings about the story, it is a fast, enveloping read that truly immerses you in a palpable world. It's powerful and moving and intense. At this point, I feel that I should be transparent and reveal that I did know the author once, a long time ago, when we were young. There's no way to say if that affected my review of his book or not, but I feel that this should be acknowledged here. Great job, Jason.
Our hero, Raymond, is sad and that sadness projects out like a dark, wet movie onto every single person he interacts with. He works in an IKEA-like cubicle world, which is perfectly described, down to the horrifying color combinations and large bean bag chairs. His dark view is inescapable and all he can see is the pathetic emptiness in those he is surrounded by. Most of the book is him projecting his depression on the people around him and it gets hard to get through at points.
Fortunately, there are moments of exquisite humor. They come in sharp and fast, slapping you across the face with a delicious crack and then scuttling away just as fast as they appear. I wanted more of those slaps and less of the quicksand-feeling of sinking deeper and deeper into meaninglessness.
Things only start to look up, when Ray finally leaves the corporate monolith that is killing him and meets a strange performance artist, amidst the smells of cooking meats and beer. But just as quickly as she arrives, she is taken away from us, as well as any sort of possible release and escape from the dark depression. This is where things derail for me a bit, as a reader. It's like the second half of the book is missing. We never get to see what was possible with Glenda ("the Good Witch" Artist?) Instead we get a "choose your own ending" of sorts, where both choices are quite bleak: either Ray [SPOILER ALERT!] commits suicide by pills or forces himself to stay in love with a woman who does not seem to recognize or appreciate his unique, strange beauty and perception of the world.
Our hero has a chance to explore a world of conceptual thinking, where he can discover new relationships and new paradigms of existing. I mean, he finds a woman who understands his odd survey and not only appreciates it, but asks for more. She is interested in him, unlike Brenda, his wife, whose continual disinterest in the true, expressive Ray, runs like a sharp barbed wire throughout the book. Where Glenda is asking for more creations and explorations of the world, Brenda is shutting the magic down, pushing for Ray to stay in his cubicle and stay asleep to the potential magic around him.
But instead of exploring a new world with Glenda, the only other choice given to Ray (besides suicide) is to stay with Brenda, who is embarrassed by Ray's creativity, and judges and shames him as often as possible, in the hopes of creating some idea of "normalcy." Brenda is shown as the choice of salvation - I mean, it's either her or DEATH. But really, Brenda is the "go back to sleep" choice, which is just as bad as suicide, from a certain point of view. Why isn't an adventure with Glenda the Artist, option "C)"?
Regardless of my personal feelings about the story, it is a fast, enveloping read that truly immerses you in a palpable world. It's powerful and moving and intense. At this point, I feel that I should be transparent and reveal that I did know the author once, a long time ago, when we were young. There's no way to say if that affected my review of his book or not, but I feel that this should be acknowledged here. Great job, Jason.
March 9, 2014
Jason Porter nailed it. Thank you. You just got into my bibliography of the (non-fiction) book I'm writing. I wish I did not understand this book so well but I do.
For people who don't understand, don't try to analyze. This is the story of a breakdown (in colloquial terms). It makes sense. It is moving. And it shows us how normal stuff is really not normal at all - and vice versa.
Jason is a good writer, he can use language, and he is funny while being sad. I don't generally read books like this one, since my everyday life is overflowing with these stories, only not told as poignantly, eloquently, or without self-pity. I guess that's why this book was so moving and impressed me - because most of the depressed people I see every day can't get off that pity pot.
Anyway, if you like books that are only about character - this is a great one. Me, I usually like books with plots, but I think the writing in this book is good enough to write a more complex story next time.
I do highly recommend this book for everyone, though. Maybe it will help people's eyes to open inward a little bit.
For people who don't understand, don't try to analyze. This is the story of a breakdown (in colloquial terms). It makes sense. It is moving. And it shows us how normal stuff is really not normal at all - and vice versa.
Jason is a good writer, he can use language, and he is funny while being sad. I don't generally read books like this one, since my everyday life is overflowing with these stories, only not told as poignantly, eloquently, or without self-pity. I guess that's why this book was so moving and impressed me - because most of the depressed people I see every day can't get off that pity pot.
Anyway, if you like books that are only about character - this is a great one. Me, I usually like books with plots, but I think the writing in this book is good enough to write a more complex story next time.
I do highly recommend this book for everyone, though. Maybe it will help people's eyes to open inward a little bit.
March 1, 2014
Short review (which doesn't do the book credit): Office Space meets The Apartment.
I've always wondered why the movie,The Apartment, was marketed as a comedy. To me it was an interesting, adult tale with a happier ending then something like "Shampoo". It may be that in it's marketing wisdom, Hollywood felt nobody would go to see that type of movie if it was simply promoted as a mature story with great acting.
Why Are You So Sad seems to get the same treatment. It is not the book described by the blurbs on it's covers. It has moments of hilarity however selling it as a gut laughter fest really short changes it's many interesting parts. Found myself skipping ahead to see where it would go next. Will read again.
I've always wondered why the movie,The Apartment, was marketed as a comedy. To me it was an interesting, adult tale with a happier ending then something like "Shampoo". It may be that in it's marketing wisdom, Hollywood felt nobody would go to see that type of movie if it was simply promoted as a mature story with great acting.
Why Are You So Sad seems to get the same treatment. It is not the book described by the blurbs on it's covers. It has moments of hilarity however selling it as a gut laughter fest really short changes it's many interesting parts. Found myself skipping ahead to see where it would go next. Will read again.
January 28, 2014
A smart slim book that reads quick to the end. I loved it and I hope a lot of people read it. Jason Porter elbows conventions out of the way so that this clear little tale can emerge. Life as we live it is a theater of the absurd. But you can't just say stuff like that. You have to have a character take his hand and warm it on the photocopy machine and press it to your heart. That's what it feels like to read this book. Awkward and familiar. I want to give it four stars so that you will have less expectations and then you could say "why didn't she give it more stars?" but I'll leave them as they are.
February 5, 2014
I've been recently thinking a bunch about endings, and I found Porter's both a stumper and an inventive way to truncate yet prolong the protagonist's course. The shift to "multiple choice" at the end is not quite choose your own adventure, but readers are allowed to view it in two disparate veins, and I dug that. Porter is also wicked clever. I laughed out loud a lot. Interestingly too, the technological and "cubicle farm" moments connected with Eggers' The Circle in an eery way, making me think maybe we all know what is coming and are growing less afraid to say so.
March 17, 2014
I thought this book was insightful and hilarious at points. The verdict is still out on the ending(s)...I want to read it through again, which will be an easy task because I breezed through it.
May 29, 2014
A complete gem. Porter's satirical short novel is wry, laugh-out-loud funny (such a rarity when reading alone), and utterly delicious. How incredibly appropriate to our current world that Ray chooses to indirectly issue a survey, aligning with Porter's (meta) choice of story format. Even more insanely perfect is how almost every.single.in-person.conversation is bizarre, dissociative, asinine, inappropriate, and mutually misunderstood. Satire is ridiculousness in its most extreme form. I can't remember the last time I read an account as enjoyable as Jerry's, Ray's boss', affair with a former secretary. That the first time was intense, crazy, "animalistic" - but that it was never again as good as the first time, and that he was always trying to achieve that pleasure again. Ultimately, he couldn't finish without thinking about his wife. Excited, he goes home and has incredibly bad, loveless, awkward, and awful sex with his wife. Every time he sees his mistress, however, he must fantasize that it's his wife, who he hasn't had sex with since.
Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.
Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.
January 12, 2014
***** This is a First Reads, Thank You Goodreads ****
Ray is slipping. Slipping down a hole of which nothing seems to be saving him from going deeper into. We, the reader, are privy to his thoughts, which range from hearing people in the cars next to him on his commute to work to the strangeness he experiences within his marriage. One day sitting outside of LokiLoki, where he works as a pictographer, he creates a questionnaire - for surely, he can't be the only one that feels this way.
Darkly humorous, filled with twists, and some intense insight, Mr. Porter takes us on a journey into the mind and the life of Ray, guides us, and leaves us. Ray's observations on life and his co workers spoke to me on a deeper level as his survey did to them.
I really loved this book, the style of writing, the depth. There is something special here that is deeper than the pages and it speaks volumes of the author's talent. this book is one to read over, to share at a book club, and to keep on your shelf.
Ray is slipping. Slipping down a hole of which nothing seems to be saving him from going deeper into. We, the reader, are privy to his thoughts, which range from hearing people in the cars next to him on his commute to work to the strangeness he experiences within his marriage. One day sitting outside of LokiLoki, where he works as a pictographer, he creates a questionnaire - for surely, he can't be the only one that feels this way.
Darkly humorous, filled with twists, and some intense insight, Mr. Porter takes us on a journey into the mind and the life of Ray, guides us, and leaves us. Ray's observations on life and his co workers spoke to me on a deeper level as his survey did to them.
I really loved this book, the style of writing, the depth. There is something special here that is deeper than the pages and it speaks volumes of the author's talent. this book is one to read over, to share at a book club, and to keep on your shelf.
March 19, 2014
Here we have it, a book so funny and so sad all at once. I breezed through this, thoroughly captivated by the dark humour and acute eye of this first time novelist. Are we all miserable? Is the world a mundane place filled with dissatisfaction and sorrow? Despondency? Is Jason Porter a misanthrope? I'd agree that sometimes "sad is beautiful" and can believe in "a crazy thing that is beautiful because it barely makes sense." Porter allows us to laugh at ourselves and our many frailties and cautions us to remember to check in, inward. And to ask.
February 23, 2014
An adult book with two endings! Choose the one you prefer. Yay!
An adult book with little drawings at the beginning of each chapter (and yes, I did try to work out what they were meant to mean!)
An adult book that takes a very funny look at a very sad and awful subject - depression, and twirls it around so that the funny side comes up trumps.
An adult book with little drawings at the beginning of each chapter (and yes, I did try to work out what they were meant to mean!)
An adult book that takes a very funny look at a very sad and awful subject - depression, and twirls it around so that the funny side comes up trumps.
July 22, 2016
Somewhere between three and a half and four stars. I can't decide how much was the book and how much was me.
November 9, 2013
I found it a bit odd, but not in a bad way. Sometimes I would stop and think...What the hell is he talking about?!
But I liked it.
February 22, 2014
Everything about the cube farm mentality rings true! This novel made me laugh and made me sigh. And the last page completely rocks!
December 4, 2015
This is a quick nutty book that I loved. It's what I would expect if Chuck Palahniuk and David Sedaris co-authored a novel; wacky, satirical and very funny.
May 3, 2015
The ultra banal suppurating grind of corporate wage slavery, as told by Jason Porter.
July 28, 2015
Pretending the multiple choice part didn't happen because the rest of the book was too good otherwise.
June 18, 2014
"I think we should unify all sports into one and call it Ultimate Tango."
i agree.
i agree.
July 3, 2014
The most confusing book I've ever read. I liked it, I think...
July 4, 2020
The lovely @jenniferdown recommended this book to me at the start of lockdown. It slots beautifully into my obsessions with satire, epistolary form, capitalist pain and existential dread. Satire can be so hit or miss and this was mostly hits. I must say I didn’t love the ending but if Brautigan is your guy you will enjoy this (and the ending). Side note: I’m shocked by how much Brautigan is already out of print. Thanks for the rec Jennifer!
January 10, 2014
Why Are You So Sad? by Jason Porter is a recommended satirical novel.
In Why Are You So Sad? Raymond Champs is going through a hard time. He is a senior Pictographer at the North American Division of LokiLoki, an Ikea-like store. The novel opens with Raymond in bed, pondering whether we have "all sunken into a species wide bout of clinical depression?" He tries to ask his wife about it but as she is less than encouraging him along these lines of thinking, he decides that what he needs is "an emotional Geiger counter that could objectively measure other people for sadness." But how does an average corporate desk jockey come up with a way to measure sadness?
Naturally, Raymond decides to write a questionnaire. He can have people at work take it under the auspices that it is from management. This would provide him with a random sampling of the data he needs to prove that we are all depressed. He knows that his co-workers are all compliant. "They do as they are told, like sheep waiting for paychecks. Corralled over to meetings that serve no purpose. Filling out forms they never hear about again. Sitting in on career development workshops with box lunches and guest speakers who had just flown in from the middle of the country. It was a natural fixture within the terrain, jumping through unnecessary hoops." And so he writes out his questions, many of them unconventional, sends the completed questionnaire to the copier and has 50 copies made.
Immediately his coworkers start answering the questions he poses on the form and putting their completed forms in a basket marked for them by Raymond's cubicle. Questions include, in part:
Are you single?
Are you having an affair?
Why are you so sad?
When was the last time you felt happy?
Are you who you want to be?
Is Today worse than yesterday?
If you were a day of the week, would you be Monday or Wednesday?
and more....
I did find the idea that a man might wonder if we are all as a species going through clinical depression intriguing. As Raymond's wife tries to talk him out of his mission, Raymond battles his depression by looking for answers and maybe empathy or camaraderie from others who feel the same way. (There is one scene in a movie rental store that had me thinking that it should have been re-written as an encounter in front of a Red Box because I don't even know of a store location anymore.) While Why Are You So Sad? is smart and funny, I might find it funnier if I worked in a cubicle for a large corporation.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of The Penguin Group for review purposes.
In Why Are You So Sad? Raymond Champs is going through a hard time. He is a senior Pictographer at the North American Division of LokiLoki, an Ikea-like store. The novel opens with Raymond in bed, pondering whether we have "all sunken into a species wide bout of clinical depression?" He tries to ask his wife about it but as she is less than encouraging him along these lines of thinking, he decides that what he needs is "an emotional Geiger counter that could objectively measure other people for sadness." But how does an average corporate desk jockey come up with a way to measure sadness?
Naturally, Raymond decides to write a questionnaire. He can have people at work take it under the auspices that it is from management. This would provide him with a random sampling of the data he needs to prove that we are all depressed. He knows that his co-workers are all compliant. "They do as they are told, like sheep waiting for paychecks. Corralled over to meetings that serve no purpose. Filling out forms they never hear about again. Sitting in on career development workshops with box lunches and guest speakers who had just flown in from the middle of the country. It was a natural fixture within the terrain, jumping through unnecessary hoops." And so he writes out his questions, many of them unconventional, sends the completed questionnaire to the copier and has 50 copies made.
Immediately his coworkers start answering the questions he poses on the form and putting their completed forms in a basket marked for them by Raymond's cubicle. Questions include, in part:
Are you single?
Are you having an affair?
Why are you so sad?
When was the last time you felt happy?
Are you who you want to be?
Is Today worse than yesterday?
If you were a day of the week, would you be Monday or Wednesday?
and more....
I did find the idea that a man might wonder if we are all as a species going through clinical depression intriguing. As Raymond's wife tries to talk him out of his mission, Raymond battles his depression by looking for answers and maybe empathy or camaraderie from others who feel the same way. (There is one scene in a movie rental store that had me thinking that it should have been re-written as an encounter in front of a Red Box because I don't even know of a store location anymore.) While Why Are You So Sad? is smart and funny, I might find it funnier if I worked in a cubicle for a large corporation.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of The Penguin Group for review purposes.
July 18, 2016
Book Lust
Ray, your average corporate slave at an Ikea-esque furniture company, is depressed. What's more, he's convinced that everyone around him is depressed, whether they admit it or not. On a whim one morning he creates an employee survey to measure the unhappiness of his colleagues, claiming the survey comes "from the top."
From there the story is interwoven with a narration of the next couple days in Ray's life, his amusingly cynical observations about the world around him, and his answers to the survey he created.
In writing Why Are You So Sad?, Porter satirizes the social norm of pretending everything is just great. In the United States, the expected response to "How are you?" is "Fine, and you?" Any other response will throw a person for a loop, myself included. When I worked in customer service, every once in a blue moon (actually, less often than that), someone would respond to me, "How are you today?" with "Oh, not very good, but thanks for asking." Our society, at least American society, is not accustomed to acknowledging unhappiness in everyday life, and Porter addresses this issue in a refreshingly comical way.
What I really loved about the book is that Porter knows what depression is all about. While he adds humor, he does not sugarcoat it. One of my favorite passages of the book discusses the difficulty of getting out of bed in the morning:
Anyone who has been through a prolonged bout of depression will recognize the feeling of being powerless over your own body in the morning. I'm impressed with Porter's ability to capture this feeling so accurately.
TL;DR: This novel is just delightful. And it doesn't take long to read either, so there's no excuse not to pick it up!
Ray, your average corporate slave at an Ikea-esque furniture company, is depressed. What's more, he's convinced that everyone around him is depressed, whether they admit it or not. On a whim one morning he creates an employee survey to measure the unhappiness of his colleagues, claiming the survey comes "from the top."
From there the story is interwoven with a narration of the next couple days in Ray's life, his amusingly cynical observations about the world around him, and his answers to the survey he created.
In writing Why Are You So Sad?, Porter satirizes the social norm of pretending everything is just great. In the United States, the expected response to "How are you?" is "Fine, and you?" Any other response will throw a person for a loop, myself included. When I worked in customer service, every once in a blue moon (actually, less often than that), someone would respond to me, "How are you today?" with "Oh, not very good, but thanks for asking." Our society, at least American society, is not accustomed to acknowledging unhappiness in everyday life, and Porter addresses this issue in a refreshingly comical way.
What I really loved about the book is that Porter knows what depression is all about. While he adds humor, he does not sugarcoat it. One of my favorite passages of the book discusses the difficulty of getting out of bed in the morning:
Waking up is like reversing a burial; I was a Cartesian brain alive in a coffin, aware of my own thoughts and the requirements of the living, but with no will to rise and proceed with my life.
Anyone who has been through a prolonged bout of depression will recognize the feeling of being powerless over your own body in the morning. I'm impressed with Porter's ability to capture this feeling so accurately.
TL;DR: This novel is just delightful. And it doesn't take long to read either, so there's no excuse not to pick it up!
November 2, 2014
Fans of Max Barry and Joshua Ferris will enjoy this debut novel from Jason Porter. As someone who's read several novels from each of those authors, finding them hit and miss, I could have easily gone either way with "Why Are You So Sad?" 1/3 of the way through the book it was a 2-star disappointment, a too-on-the-nose satire of life for a thirty-something year-old man working a modest cubicle job for at the corporate offices of LokiLoki, i.e. IKEA. If it hadn't been a short novel that I had on a library deadline, I might have just given up right then and there. But I read on. As the book got away from the mundane day-to-day at not-IKEA and further down the rabbit hole of the narrator's mind, it got better. Not great, but definitely better. I was happy to continue reading, glad it had a perspective of sorts, and mentally upgraded to 3 stars. Then I got to the final part of the book - without spoiling I can say from the bar scene on. And especially the unexpected ending of Chapter 2, Multiple Choice. Porter salvaged an uneven book with one of the most unusual turns I could have ever imagined (or not imagined). Sometimes that's all it takes. I have no idea what I learned from this book. Am I less sad? Should I be? I don't know. Porter wins.
January 26, 2014
Traditionally I liked New York authors, they seem to have a certain edge. This was a book I won in a GR giveaway. Small enough to read in just a couple hours. The thing about it is that I liked the writing so much more than the story. The writing showed a lot of potential, witty turns of phrase, dark humor, that sort of thing. The book itself though was an excruciatingly depressing study of human condition at its saddest, existentialism of the suicide inducing kind. Conceptually neat enough, but just too much of a downer to really enjoy, even for those who resent the Hollywood happy mentality of mass entertainment. Also in large aspect a business satire, spoofing a Scandinavian affordable particleboard furniture by a different name, and if you enjoy that sort of thing, be sure to check out Max Barry, who is a master of the genre. Quick bleak read. If you find yourself suddenly and overwhelmingly happy, this one ought to balance you out perfectly.
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