Customer Reviews

Blake's Therapy

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Blake's Therapy raises a lot of issues and, in my opinion, leaves a lot of questions unanswered. But it many ways that's OK. At the very least, it will make you think.

I'm giving the book four stars instead of five because I really think the book should have been longer. Dorfman has paced the book quite fast . . . you zip along from one surprise to another. But I would have liked to have had more. I want to know more about the background of the characters, particularly those who act out Blake's whims. I wanted to know more about the company that was giving Blake the "therapy." These are just two examples.

Dorfman offers us many intriguing mysteries, but then doesn't give us the answers.

Despite these criticisms, it's a very good book. Those claiming that Dorfman doesn't understand CEOs are missing the point. Blake, given his interests and the company he created, resembles the kind of person you might find working at Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, The Body Shop, or Working Assets -- companies that are dually committed to both a profit and progressive political ideals. Blake is believable in that role.

But even then, in the broader sense, if Dorfman isn't offering us a realistic CEO, one has to wonder how morally ambivalent a real CEO would be before they would care about their employees. If Dorfman is offering us an unrealistic vision -- a CEO who cares "too much" perhaps? -- then it makes for a damming commentary, not on Dorfman's work, but on the world we live in. Because overall, Blake is a good guy. He wants to make a profit like the rest of us, but he doesn't want to destroy the planet in the process and he wants to help people at the same time. He feels guilt when he fails at doing these things. One only has to look at Enron to realize that many CEOs aren't like that.

Although Blake's Therapy is a short book it is one that needs pondering over. It is difficult to discern reality and truth among the conflicting narrative voices. The book opens with a lecture from an unnamed therapist who proclaims that we are here to help Graham Blake. What follows is what appears to be the therapy where Blake, a CEO of a huge multinational company is at the verge of a breakdown and must learn to weigh his power over the personal comfort and freedom of his employees. From there things get sketchy: are the people Blake is interacting with real or just actors? Has his therapy ended by the close of the book? The last chapter is a report from our unnamed therapist to Blake's ex-wife but the details here are still fuzzy.

If you enjoy clear cut plots and well defined characters, Blake's Therapy isn't for you. If however you like to be challenged and enjoy stories with multiple realities, then I recommend Blake's Therapy to you. In terms of tone and general themes, the novel reminds me of the Argentine film Hombre mirando al sudeste (1986). If you haven't seen the film, then I recommend a weekend combo of watching the film and reading this book.

A book hadn't disturbed me so much since Nude Men. Dorfman captures the lunacy of the depressed mind with the insight of a prophet. His vantage point is one of unhampered voyeurist... Blake's therapist, which happens to be the unidentified narrator, feels that his patient might benefit from a rather unique treatment in which Blake witnesses the turbulent life of one of his female subordinates through a hidden camera. He has been given the power to dictate the woman's future. There are so many disarming scenes in this novel -- it's like Reality TV for the insane. Even if you've never watched the ubiquitous programs that prowl the cable system, you will be uncontrollably bewildered by this story, for it questions morality and raises various questions regarding today's success-driven society. I read it in two sittings. Do not eat or drink while reading this book -- you don't want to spray coffee over your copy of what may be, to date, the purely and unapoligetically thought-provoking book of the new millenium...