The Circle: Book One, part 3 Summary & Analysis

It’s Saturday, and Mae is eating dinner with her parents to celebrate her first week at the Circle. Mae’s father used to be a building manager in Fresno, and her mother used to work at a hotel restaurant. Later, they bought a parking lot. In high school, it was always humiliating for Mae to hear her classmates talking about running into her parents at the lot. In recent years, Mae’s parents have become gentler—a “sweet older couple.”

At dinner, Mae’s mother tells Mae that she’s bragged about Mae’s salary and health insurance to her friends back home. She gives Mae advice, like, “Don’t take lunch your first week. Sends the wrong message.” She also mentions that she saw Mercer, Mae’s old boyfriend—someone Mae doesn't feel like talking about. Together, Mae’s mother and father say that they’re exceptionally proud of her.

Mae asks her parents about their insurance, and they tell her that things aren’t going well. Her father was diagnosed with MS while she was still in high school. Recently, he’s been in near-constant pain, but his health insurance no longer covers his painkillers. Mae is horrified—she knows how badly her father needs his medicine. Before she can express sympathy, her parents give her a gift: a heavy silver pen, which they think will look good on her desk.

Mae sleeps late at her parents’ house and they go to a diner for lunch. Mae’s father—whom her mother calls Vinnie—says that he’s feeling stiff, and he goes to recline in the car. Mae and her mother finish their meal quickly and then go out to join Vinnie. From the car, Vinnie says, “Well, this has been wonderful.”

After saying goodbye to her parents, Mae drives out to the beach. As she drives, she remembers Mercer (her old boyfriend) teaching her how to kayak. At the beach, she rents a kayak from a woman named Marion, whom Mae has known for years. She goes kayaking, savoring the feeling of being alone. Suddenly, she begins to sob. The sight of her father in so much pain is almost impossible for her to bear. She spends nearly an hour drifting on the ocean. She sees seals swimming near her boat, and she wonders if they know “how good this was, how lucky they were to have all this to themselves.” Back at home that evening, Mae eats a light dinner and then falls into a deep sleep.

On Monday morning, Mae throws herself into her work. Mondays are always busy, because the user requests from the weekend have piled up. Mae finds it harder to concentrate on her work, and she dips down to a 91. She sends follow-ups about her low scores, but her clients are grumpy and irritable. She receives a message from Francis inviting her to lunch.

At lunch, Mae sees Francis, and she notes that he seems unusually delicate—almost as if he’s shrunk since she last saw him. Mae apologizes for the abrupt end to their conversation last week, and Francis apologizes for talking about his childhood so frankly. He adds, “I assume Annie filled in the gory stuff. She likes to tell that story.” Francis proceeds to tell Annie about ChildTrack, the program that Annie was describing the previous Friday. Not too long ago, the Danish government implanted chips in children’s wrists so that parents would know where their children are at all times. The problem with the implants was that they could be cut out of the children’s wrists fairly easily. Francis and Sabine are working on implanting chips in bone so that they’re virtually impossible to remove from the body. These chips will surely reduce child abductions by a massive amount. Mae realizes that she’s late and she needs to rush back to work.

For the rest of the afternoon, Mae’s aggregate score is barely a 93. Dan messages Mae to ask her to meet a Circle worker named Gina later. While she’s walking to the restroom, Mae sees a man walking through the halls; he introduces himself as Kalden. He explains that he’s worked at the Circle for a while, and he asks to see Mae’s workplace. Mae takes Kalden back to her workplace, where she lets him watch her as she works through customer requests. Kalden watches for a few minutes, asking Mae some basic questions about her job. Then, he excuses himself and says he’ll see her around. As Kalden departs, Mae thinks, “he was not a normal kind of person.”

As Kalden leaves, a cold-looking woman walks into the room, greets Mae, and introduces herself as Gina. She asks Mae if now would be a good time to set up her “socials.” Mae apologizes for having not done so earlier—she claims that she didn’t have any time for “extracurricular stuff.” Gina frowns and lectures Mae about how social networking isn’t extracurricular at all; it’s a vital part of working at the Circle. Mae apologizes to Gina, and Gina nods and proceeds to set up Mae’s social networking accounts. She’ll use her accounts to stay in touch with the rest of her team, and also for social participation. Gina also sets up a program called CircleSearch, which allows Mae to search for the location of anyone on the Circle campus.

Gina sets up a Zing account for Mae, and tells Mae that the Circle expects her to “zing” at least ten times a day. Gina explains that Mae will be receiving hundreds of online messages every day. Her Circle network will categorize these messages according to their importance. Most important will be 1) her customers, followed by 2) her coworkers, followed by 3) her online friends, broken up into her “Inner Circle” and “Outer Circle” friends. Gina claims that, although online social networking is prioritized third, it is still “just as important as other messages.” She concludes, “I hope that’s clear. Is it?” Mae nods.

Before leaving, Gina shows Mae one more thing: the Participation Rank, or “PartiRank.” All Circle employees are ranked on their number of zings, the number of people who correspond with them, the number of people who “like” their posts, etc. Gina insists that ranking isn’t important, but that “some Circles take it very seriously.” With these words, she leaves.

In the evening, Mae stays late to look through the messages she’s receiving from her Outer and Inner Circles. She receives messages about the menus in the Circle cafeteria, about upcoming speakers, and more. Mae gets a message from an old friend who has the flu, and Mae responds by posting a song about the flu. Her post prompts a series of new threads about the band that wrote the song, which leads to further posts and threads about a city, war veterans from that city, the war in Afghanistan, medical marijuana, etc. Mae finds herself getting tired and she heads home.

On Tuesday, Mae’s workload is lighter, but she spends three hours looking through her Outer and Inner Circle messages. She feels lucky to be in contact with so many amazing people. Just before lunch, Mae gets a message from Dan asking her to stop by. Dan introduces Mae to Alistair, someone she’s never seen before. Without any further comments, Dan asks Mae if she’d like to start. Mae is utterly confused—suddenly, Alistair begins to cry. Dan hints, “It’s about Alistair’s Portugal brunch.” Mae has no memory of being invited to a brunch, but, wanting to end the conversation on a good note, she apologizes for not attending. Immediately, Dan smiles and says, “Let’s hug it out.” Mae and Alistair do so, “forming a tight scrum of newfound communion.” Immediately afterwards, Dan sends Mae a summary of her “glitch” with Alistair. The summary explains that Alistair held a Circle-wide brunch for all Circle employees who’d “liked” Portugal online. Mae didn’t respond to the invite, which upset Alistair greatly. The summary concludes, “Now Alistair and Mae are great friends and feel rejuvenated.”

Mae meets Annie for lunch. Annie tells Mae that she’s been following Mae’s “conflict resolution” with Alistair. At first, Mae is uneasy that Annie has been listening to her, but then Mae feels relieved that Mae has been with her “even if remotely.” Annie adds that she’s brought in for conflict resolutions about once a month. She explains that Mae must have been invited to the brunch automatically because Mae went to Portugal five years ago, and took pictures—pictures that are posted on her accounts online. Annie assures Mae that Alistair is a “nut” and that Mae shouldn’t worry about her conflict resolution with him. After they finish eating, Annie shows Mae the “sample room,” which is full of designer shoes, jeans, etc. Because Circle employees are style leaders, companies send products to the Circle campus every day.

Mae returns to her desk, where she’s left her phone, she and sees that Annie has already left her eleven messages. Each message is more urgent than the one before: Annie asks Mae not to repeat her comments about Alistair to Dan, asks again, then asks Mae if she’s giving her the silent treatment, etc. As soon as she sees the messages, Mae calls Annie to ask what’s wrong. Annie apologizes for being paranoid, and Mae suggests that she’s overstressed.

After work, Mae asks Francis if he wants to hang out. They get dinner in San Francisco and afterwards Mae kisses Francis. Francis thanks Mae, which she finds odd. They wander through the city, kissing and exploring the streets. As they kiss, a homeless man watches them “as an anthropologist would.”