Why Are You So Sad?: A Novel

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.

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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. 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 nice apartment. I have a hot car. I have a wife. 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.

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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.

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Aug 30, Richard Derus rated it liked it. It's quite similar to a lost Seinfeld episode in which George and Kramer get drunk and fool around I'm not quite sure why the publisher labeled this satire. It's black comedy, and quite dryly amusing in many spots. Permaybehaps I'm no longer With It and don't get the satire. That's more than a little possible. 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.

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But two things have stuck with me, two contributions to my ever-smaller stock of Stuff I Want to Remember: Can't pull the quote without spoilers. But the image is instantly relatable and also fresh pun optional. Why are you so sad? Are you having an affair? 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, to 18, mornings of looking in the mirror and wondering if people will find you attractive? 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. View all 4 comments. Dec 23, Roxane rated it it was ok. 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. View all 5 comments. 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. Jan 30, Tracy rated it it was amazing Shelves: 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. I don't know if I feel more or less alone after having read this. Either way, I am glad I did. Sep 17, Tristy rated it it was amazing. 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: 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: 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.

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.

Mar 09, Vivian rated it it was amazing. Jason Porter nailed it.

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. 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 o Jason Porter nailed it. 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.

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Maybe it will help people's eyes to open inward a little bit. Feb 18, Peter Lyte rated it really liked it. 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 b Short review which doesn't do the book credit: 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.

Dec 25, Noa rated it it was amazing Shelves: 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. I want to give it four stars so that you will have les A smart slim book that reads quick to the end.

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? Feb 05, J. 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 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. 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.

Mar 17, Kelsey rated it really liked it. 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. Mar 29, Dale rated it really liked it.

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. Satire is ridiculousness in its most extreme form.

And where "walking through the maze of shimmering office partitions was like getting lost in a durably carpeted cornfield. Stalks of filing cabinets and impermanent desk dividers shot up taller than basketball players. In Raymond's world, sadness is ubiquitous. He discovers this one evening while lying in bed, staring up at his ceiling fan, his wife, Brenda, next to him reading a gigantic children's novel. He asks himself, "Have we all sunken into a species wide bout of clinical depression?

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As traffic begins to "choke Raymond suspects that sadness is a disease, "a severe, but subtle, despondency, germinating in every single one of us. It's this notion that propels Raymond's journey. He concocts a survey to distribute to his coworkers at LokiLoki in order to get some perspective on this suspected epidemic — a Geiger counter, of sorts, to detect sadness. It's a survey so invading, so personal, and so preposterous, that the employees of LokiLoki actually believe it came straight from Human Resources or "Employee Regard" as it's called at the company.

To make it official, Raymond titles his survey: And it goes something like this:. And it is within these that we find the emotional core of the novel, the true sadness of Raymond that surpasses mere office humor. Each sardonic reflection achieves a humane truth. And this novel may very well get you to reflect on your own happiness, your own choices. Perhaps you may end up taking Raymond's survey, asking yourself, why am I so sad?

Once the survey hits the office floor of LokiLoki, high jinks ensue. Those who are obviously sad, like Raymond's coworker Don Ables, who lives for reruns of M. Don's sadness is predictable. But for those like Raymond's boss, Jerry Samberson, whose dreams never lived outside of the corporate structure, sadness is harder to quantify.

When surveyed, Jerry answers: I didn't have the title down, but I could see my name inset in white letters. But is Jerry truly suffering the sadness Raymond suspects in everyone around him? For Raymond's purposes, yes. It's all positive proof that we're already in the hands of a major epidemic, whether we know it or not.



Our desires, like Jerry's, have been tamed by modern excess and a purchase-power way of life.