Octave seems to have everything going for him: a good mind, a great job in advertising, a lavish apartment, girls, and a cocaine habit he can afford. But it soon becomes clear that he also has a serious problem with his life. From the moment when he storms out of the offices of a lucrative client after daubing the word pigs all over the walls with his own blood, things begin to spiral dangerously out of control. The top men in advertising? They've already started the third world war he claims. This belief inevitably spurs him on from violent words to violent deeds, stopping at nothing—not even murder.
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About the Author
Frédéric Beigbeder is a French novelist and well-known literary critic for television, radio, and magazine.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Homo consummatus.,
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This review is from: 9.99: A Novel (Paperback)
This book gives a fairly good look behind the veil of an advertising agency by following the making and the release of, and the reaction on a commercial for a dairy product 'Madone' (the hint is obvious).It depicts the cynical atmosphere with the ukases of the client, the personal ambitions and deceits, the lick and kick culture, the hire and fire policies, drugs and call-girls. The ultimate ambition of the agency is to turn mankind into a product with a sell-by date and to create a world of unhappy, frustrated and insatiate consumers, because happy people don't consume. The author was fired by the agency after the release of the book, because too many 'colleagues' recognized themselves in the characters of the book. Unfortunately, the story of the production of the commercial is from time to time interrupted by less forceful tirades of obscenities, love lamentations and far too heavy (anti-capitalist) metaphors. At the end the author has no illusions about the Home sapiens : 'there is no alternative for this world'. This book is sometimes overstretched, but I recommend it as a good portrait of the marketing business, which is an essential part of our modern world.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For all you cynical media types,
This review is from: 9.99: A Novel (Paperback)
Frederic Beigbeder writes a refreshing and witty observation of his life as an advertising creative. He wants out of his hyped and glossed over career and tries hard to get the boot from his life of money, women, fast cars and cocaine. A self inflicted, self pitying, loathsome, melodramatic and hilariously funny tale of one man's road to re-invention. It's a great read, especially if you have experience in the industry - you will identify with this novel immediately. A good laugh with critical undertones.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its not something you do not know, but is amusing how its placed.,
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This review is from: 9.99: A Novel (Paperback)
We all know that a consumer is someone who consumes and the main if not sole purpose of advertising is how to make you consume more. What the author shows is that the real trick they achieve is to make you thing that your desires to acquire things is a manifestation of your character, freedom and self-determination, while the truth is that you are just a mental eunuch trapped in a web of artificial needs created by "Inc, world" to ensure your permanent stupidity and annulment of individuality. However it does not seek to offer an alternative or an immunity pill, just to tell you that "such is life".
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