Seventy years before the release of Wally Lamb’s new novel [We Are Water], philosopher Theodor Adorno critiqued modern society’s “culture industry” – a system of corporations with significant market power, operating across radio, film, television, and print – for disseminating “sameness” and withering the individual’s ability to think independently. The culture industry tightened its grip on the consumer by seeming to offer something for everyone while selling the identical commodity to all. We Are Water embodies Adorno’s culture industry, whose consumer must need no thoughts of his own… Any logical connection presupposing mental capacity is scrupulously avoided. No one in this novel resists. Everyone accepts, everyone is in therapy, everyone is taking anti-anxiety medication. The text’s profusion of brand-name goods, its echoes of blockbuster film, its uncritical embrace of pop psychology, all make one wonder whether it is fiction or, as in Adorno’s vision, an extended advertisement. Finished another book today We Are Water by Wally Lamb. I liked the novel and thought it was a good read and raised some interesting issues. With that said, the novel was somewhat platitudinous, a little Oprahish. I started this post with some quotes from a review in the Globe and Mail which was quite scathing. I included the quotes and references to Adorno as I believe that corporations have taken over and life has become an extended advertisement. I have read three previous Lamb novels: She’s Come Undone, and, I Know This Much Is True, and, The Hour I First Believed --- I thought they were all good reads, I really enjoyed them, but, all very similar. Anybody else read We Are Water? If so, what did you think? Anybody read any other Lamb novels?
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 16:26:22 +0000