Hologram for the King

I first read Dave Egger’s Hologram for the King when it was published in 2012. After watching the movie, I went back and reread it. Aside from a few minor character changes and a couple of plot adjustments, the screenplay balances the humor and ennui portrayed in the book. 

Alan Clay travels to Saudi Arabia to sell a new teleconferencing system to the king.  On his first day, he misses the shuttle to King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) where the presentation is to take place. The hotel arranges a driver who introduces himself as “driver, guide, hero.”

Yousef is a bright spark of humor in an otherwise bleak novel about globalization’s effects on manufacturing and middle-aged executives. Paranoid that someone might blow up his car, Yousef stops to check under the hood before he starts the engine. For what? He’s not exactly sure. As he tells Alan, “I watch the same TV shows as you.”

Alan means well, but he is floundering. Divorced, he needs this deal to go through so he can afford to put his daughter back in college and get by until his house, long on the market, sells. He tries to advocate for his three young techies who have been relegated to a tent outside despite its proximity to a grand, air-conditioned, practically vacant office building. Day after day, the Saudi representative is unavailable. No one knows for sure when the King will appear.

Alan remains (ironically) optimistic. “Maybe if he was the sort of man who could eat someone else’s hash browns, who the hotel wanted to impress so much they sent him someone else’s breakfast, maybe then he was the sort of man who could get an audience with the King.”

Next up is an adaptation of Egger’s The Circle. Will it be as successful an adaptation? We can only wait. And see.