Мыло

e #1

by Matt Beaumont

Эпистолярный жанр на всех парах ворвался в информационный век стараниями блистательного Мэтта Бомонта. Оглушительный успех его книги объясняется просто: очень многие из нас уже не в силах представить себе, как можно жить без повседневной переписки. И мелкая офисная сошка, и всесильные боссы привыкли доверять свои секреты коварному "мылу" - не задумываясь о том, каким вулканом страстей, интриг и противоречий способна обернуться корпоративная электронная почта.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Comedy, Contemporary, Novels, British Literature, Literary Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Annet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun, this book! It's entirely written in emails to and from employees of an advertising agency, where a lot of things are going on.... hilarious!!!! Remember laughting my *** off at the campfire in Canada/US last year.

[Kt · Rating 4 out of 5]

'e' was a very entertaining read. I was impressed at how Beaumont managed to juggle so many main characters and still keep their email personalities quite distinct, save for two men who I couldn't tell apart (which is pretty normal when you think about it). As for those who say that real people don't actually talk the way the 'e' characters do in emails--they're wrong. I've worked online for 10+ years and Beaumont's representations are -exactly- how people talk. As for info that Beaumont occasionally works into email convos in order to move the plot along and keep us informed, only a few of the email texts felt out of place in that respect.. I felt Beaumont carried the epistolary storyline quite smoothly overall.

I recommend reading 'e' all at once on a lazy weekend or a long plane ride, when you feel like a fun, easy read. Don't space it out over more than a few days, though. Else the identities of characters and triviality of some of the sillier plot points will end up lost on you and will probably detract from the enjoyability of this book.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay so let's discuss. I like this book. I mean it isn't going to win a nobel prize or anything but I was thoroughly entertained walking by the hudson river reading it. My feet hurt at the end but I don't blame that on the book.

Okay so here is the thing about this book, there is nothing truly outstanding about it. I mean is there ever in a british novel. No not really. Not to say I don't love them, as Karen knows I commonly buy a book solely because it says the author is british and the queen mother has yet to let me down.

Right so the book. The format is hilarious, and I commend matt for sticking it through even when it is obvious most things are happening face to face. Some of his fixes are great, basically office gossips which we all know so well. The boss's issue with how to use email is also a nice touch. Well as we know in british writers the book is much less about what it is about and more about people being people. yay for england.

also go arsenal.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. It's about a London ad agency trying to land a major Coke campaign and it's set entirely in email. It's brilliant and each time I read this book, I laugh out loud.

***********
The above was written in 2007. Every couple of years, I pick this one back up when I'm in need of a boost. This week I needed some serious laughs, so I decided to dive back into this hilarious story. It never, ever gets old for me, no matter how many times I've read it. Beaumont does a fantastic job juggling his multiple characters and plot lines- again, all in email- and while I've never worked in advertising, much of the bureaucratic shenanigans in the book are oh so familiar. I still highly recommend this one.

[Unclerupert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when it first cae out, years ago - before Twitter, before Facebook, before Google. Yes folks, it's that old. I think there are even references to fax machines. But it was hilarious - I was laughing so much reading it on the tube that people even started conversations with me. It's that good. Younger readers may not get all the references, but, despite the format, the technology isn't the key thing. It is just so funny and so well observed. The best book about working in a contemporary office I have ever read. And thanks to the wonders of this website, I now know that there are sequels, which I will have to seek out.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! I've read it three or four times and I always end up laughing. It's about life in a marketing office, and it's written in the form of e-mails between the office employees. If you've ever worked in an office you should read it, you'll definitely relate with some of the characters, and the problems between them.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast read -- funny, inappropriate, clever

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told in the form of short e-mails, Matt Beaumont details the events of Miller-Shanks, a London-based advertising agency, as they pitch to Coca-Cola.

Initially the e-mails are difficult to sort through because it takes a while to organize the characters, the character voices, and their motivations. I drew up a tiny character chart that helps keep things in order. (See below) Once you do organize the characters their e-mails are easy to read and you zip through them, hurriedly flipping pages uncovering plot after plot.

The plots include backstabbing, cat fights amongst the personal assistants, raucous sexual activity in office, underhanded tattling, obvious brown-nosing, volatile reactions, and flat out chaos. Although highly unprofessional and more than a little unrealistic, the book keeps the reader flipping pages and rooting for the underdogs.

Character Chart

David Crutton - CEO

Simon Horne - Creative Director
- Pinki Fallon - Copywriter
- Liam O'Keefe - Art Director
- Brett Topowlski - Art Director
- Vince Douglas - Copywriter

Harriet Greenbaum - Account Director

Daniel Westbrooke - Head of Client Services
- James Gregory - Account Manager, Mako
- Katie Philpott - Trainee Account Executive

Rachel Stevenson - Human Resources
Nigel Godley - Accounts
Melinda Sheridan - Head of TV Production

- Susi Judge-Davis - Simon's personal assistant
- Fiona Craigie - David's first personal assistant
- Lorraine Pallister - David's second personal assistant
- Carla Browne - David's third personal assistant
- Zoe Clarke - David's fourth personal assistant

Pertti Van Helden - CEO, Helsinki, Finland
James Weissmuller - CEO, New York City, USA

[Georg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Q: What’s the difference between „The Godfather“ and „e – A Novel”?
A: The sequel of “e – A Novel” (i.e. “E²”) is better.

Ok, the book is still funny, the characters are dumb, ridiculous schemers, and the bosses are self-righteous arseholes.
Very entertaining, and very hard to put down. The book mostly consists of e-mails, sms’ and private messages so you have to reconstruct the stories behind all these messages. Confusing in the beginning but it doesn’t take too long to recognize the voices and their individuality. The best thing is: the funniest stories are not told directly but only in pieces you have to put together. And the further the stories go the more these pieces fit together.
But in comparison to E² I missed the really hilarious parts like the Nigerian princess, David’s disastrous family life, Papin, the Serbien detective, the thefts and the Helsinki rock-concerts.
Still worth to read, but for suspense’s sake I recommend to read “e” first.

[Babs · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting book written entirely by e-mails. I had mistakenly thought it was e-mails between 2 people, but instead it is the e-mails of an entire office of an advertising agency. It's written so that you can follow what's going on from a number of angles, and easily spot all the backstabbing and office politics going on.

Because of the way that it's written, you don't really get to know any one particular character. As such, it's difficult to get really "involved" in the book. However it's an entertaining read all the same.

[WordsBeyondBorders · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Epistolary format has been used as narrative method in many novels. Some others have parts of it written as letters. John Barth went as far as making the characters of his previous novel write letters to each other in his novel 'Letters'. But times have changed and so the epistolary novel too had to be changed. That's what matt Beaumont has done with his novel 'e', which consists entirely of emails sent by the characters of the novel. Published in 2000, this is said to the first novel to be written entirely as emails.

The novel is set in a fictional advertising agency 'Miller Shanks London' which is the London branch of an international advertising agency. It shows the inner workings of an office from the perspectives of various persons, the CEO, creative head, account head, the secretaries etc. It gives a glimpse into the infighting, backbiting, jealously that happens everywhere along with the brighter side like creativity, working as a team, people who still want to main ethics etc. Every office has some persons whom we try to avoid like poison, we feel better working under/for say X instead of Y. But in case of this agency it's like 'pick your poison'. Why so? Well, you have the CEO, David, who is dictatorial and more of a tyrant than your normal boss. He bullies, verbally humiliates his sub-ordinates. Would you like to be his secretary or to report to him? There is the creative director Simon , who is high on crack (valium and whatever drugs he can get) or having expensive lunch/dinner at the company's account most of the time. When he is sober enough, he plots to steal the ideas of his creative team and pass it of as his own. His is the classic case of your superior taking credit for all success and passing the failures to you. Would you be willing to trust your creative hunches with such a guy? Then you have the head of client services, probably the person with least power of the trio, which everyone else except him seems to realize. You are an account manager and manage to bring a difficult client around and suddenly you find your head taking credit for it. What would you do? Basically the top level in the company consists of jerks to put it bluntly.

The novels begins on the first day of the millennium with miller shanks employees working on that day too. This is because the agency is trying to get a contract for Coca cola which would be their biggest client till data. The employees themselves do not seem very keen on working that day, but the CEO has apparently overridden everyone. This is the main strand of the novel. Along with it there is the sub-plot of an impending advertising shoot in Mauritius for a client who owns a porn channel. (Busty silicon implanted gals are specifically to be taken there for the shoot). Problems crop up as the pitch for coca-cola seems to be going no where, but all the parties concerned trying to pass the buck to someone else. There is also the hilarious CEO of Miller shanks Helinski branch, who keeps sending unsolicited advice to David, who has to bear it. Meanwhile the shoot at Mauritius starts to go awry. (Breast implants of some of the models explode, the representative from the porn channel who has gone along for the shoot, tries to get fresh with a television anchor who has come there for a holiday and which results in a major publicity scandal). Simon tries to steal the ideas from a couple of fresh graduates and pass them off as his idea for the cola pitch. This is bought to light by the art director, but David still wants to go ahead with the stolen idea. He is ultimately stopped from doing so. However the team manage to give a good pitch to coca cola and it seems like they would get the contract. Meanwhile Simon is caught on video having sex with a transgender and it becomes a viral hit on the internet. This and the act of the client at Mauritius results in the agency losing the contract. At the end, things get resolved and everyone gets their just desserts.

I have just skimmed the surface of this novel, but there is more to it. It has a seemingly endless sequence of funny incidents that narrating them would like telling about the whole novel. This is a very raunchy, lusty novel. (It apparently had a sub-title The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers, it should give an idea of the novel's content). Creative directors shagging she-males, copy writers getting it on with the secretaries in the creative director's room, when a prospective client is shown around the office and sees the duo in action!!!. There is also the peach of a sub-plot of David's mail to his London employees being somehow sent to the Helenski branch also. No one knows why this is happening, David evefires two system administrators because of this. Ultimately it turns out that David is a goof in using his system and the problem is because of his incorrect sending of the mails. In novels with the office as backdrop, you generally tend to see a digression from the main point. For e.g. 'Americana' also deals with existential issues of an employee, 'Then We came to the end' shows the effects of recession while working within the framework of the office novel. In 'e' there is no such digression, in the sense that the narrative never goes away from the office. We never get to know about the personal lives of the characters. The only aim of Matt seems to crunch out one crazy situation after another crazy situation. In that sense, I would say that this is pure office novel. The dialogues are extremely witty too. Matt seems to have had a rip roaring time writing this (he himself worked in advertising prior to this) and the result is a shameless, wickedly funny novel. It once again shows that good writing can be enjoyable too.

You may not remember the characters or even the events, a few months after reading the novel, but you sure will remember the good time you had reading it and would be tempted to re-read this (it happened to me). It would not be much of a miss if you give this book a skip for now, but I would suggest that you add this to your reading list for later. When you get round to it, you sure would enjoy this.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNFed at 6%
At least one star is a must, right?

Any how, I'm still waiting for the laughs and humour of the book to catch up with me. Not!

The book involves annoying email conversations between company members.

Who writes offensive and incriminating stuff on company email provider and not only that, but doing so about other members of the company?
You got some cojones...

Email reading is tiresome.
Archived thread.

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told exclusively in emails and set in the early days of 2000, this is the story of three weeks or so at a London ad agency. REALLY good at differentiating characters, and yes, we've all got some of these characters in our inboxes at work. However, this is also dated in the sense that the humor is sometimes horribly sexist, and the female characters seems to be a bit unbelievable.

Oh, well, I will probably look up the sequel to see if it's as much fun. Very much schadenfreude -- thank God no one compiles MPOW's emails....(actually, they are legally able to be read, which is horrifying)

[Hannah Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story told entirely through emails, this was an absolutely hilarious novel. I actually laughed out loud several times. The formatting makes this an easy quick read and the characters are delightful to get to know!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious! Well worth a read.

[Karla Valdes · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
No se exactamente que fue lo que no me gustó, es gracioso, pero me llevó media vida acabarlo, igual puedo decir que estuvo "bien".

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book 20 years ago, loved it then, love it still.
Read between the lines.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

pa, moram biti subjektivna i dati 5⭐, smejala sam se naglas!

[Jef Leysen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved it. And quite certain that anyone who doesn’t work in advertising would give this 1 or 2 stars. The resemblace with some of the typical advertising profiles are uncanny!

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

SO much fun! 3.5

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very funny book is about office politics and other goings-on in London, all told in email. It's a close-up look at what we all know to be true if we've ever worked in an office of any size.

There were many individuals represented, and Beaumont kept them separate and interesting. Email has changed how we conduct our lives and business. I think today many of these messages would be sent via text, so they would be a little more private, but not nearly as much fun.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. The email epistolary form worked pretty well. I'm not sure if it would have worked as well not set in an office, but it worked here. I do think the book seemed longer than it needed to. Some themes just seemed to repeat instead of concluding and then concluded the way they could have earlier without persuading me they needed to go on longer or without really developing the tension much further, but I still had fun. It works for the most part.

[Martina V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

from: emjee
to: moji obľúbení kolegovia
cc:
re: Nie sme v tom sami

Čaute kolegovia,
už vás dnes niekto vytočil? Šéf? Sekretárka? Podriadený? IT oddelenie? Zákazník? Mňa nie, mám dovolenku :-D Dobrá správa je, že sa to nedeje len u nás. Odporúčam knihu "Kancl" (v origináli "e") od Matta Beaumonta a vaše trápenie vám bude pripadať o trochu menšie.

Do čítania :-)

P.S.: Kto som? Pinki alebo Harriet? :-D

[Jamie Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

A novel comprised entirely of email communication between the employees of a London advertising agency in January 2000. It reads like a mash-up of Mad Men and the UK version of The Office.

It was amusing at first, but it lost me when the guys took off for the island commercial shoot. Nothing about that escapade was really funny.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really great book. I love the concept that the entire story is presented through e-mails. What I found interesting about it was that I realized half-way though that I could care less about the majority of the characters, yet I still couldn't put the book down. I thought it was a fun book and I liked that everyone got what they deserved in the end.

[Judit Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, interesting, revealing book.
I could see so many of my office peers depicted in the description of some of the characters in this book (just like in the TV show "the office"). Makes you laugh even harder when you can relate an absolutely horrible character to a person you know, and the author helps you make that transition.
Highly recommended (not so much the second book)

[Jarrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the ones that forever changed my outlook on fiction. Written entirely in the form of inter-office e-mails.. it was a brilliant approach to modern storytelling. Not to mention laugh out loud funny.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the funniest books I've ever read. Follow the adventures of London's Miller Shanks ad agency as they try to land the Coca-Cola account - completely in e-mail form.

[Rachna Dhall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book I read in an 'email trail' format, and set within a crazy ad agency at that. I started on a friday, couldn't put down till i was done over the weekend. Hilarious.

[Elizabeth Salas · Rating 5 out of 5]

El libro es increíble, no podía dejar de leerlo, literalmente... aunque pude hacerlo, de lo contrario no estaría escribiendo en este momento :)

Pdt: ¿Habré invocado a Pinki?