Naive capitalist propaganda worker (aka advertising agency jerk) gets to confront his belief in the system – nice enough premise, and with the book being 70 years old when I read it, I really can’t complain about it. It’s held up well – the pacing a bit old, and the themes too, but not that much. Had hoped for a bit more internal revolution in the protagonist’s mind, but the exploration worked well enough even so!
This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.
Plot summary
Beware: full spoilers! Also probably incomplete and possibly incomprehensible.
Mr Protagonist works in an ad agency in hyper end state capitalism. He believes everything they say about consumerism, about the world and about life. His big project is a campaign convincing people to go to Venus, which is an utter hellhole. A rival gets him declared dead, and now he gets to live life from the perspective of a lowly worker. His perspective starts to change, although he also manages to muscle back into his hold job.
