Interconnection

The author divides the novel into a network of narrative voices and points of view in order to formally enact and explore the interconnected nature of all human lives and experiences. At the same time, the author uses Bix’s Mandala technology and social media corporation in order to contextualize this exploration. In the world of The Candy House, Mandala has allowed its users to externalize and upload the sum of their memories and consciousnesses online. In this way, individuals from around the world are able to access and experience one another’s points of view via technology. In the novel’s opening chapter, “The Affinity Charm,” the narrator says that Bix’s original vision was “that luminous sphere of interconnection” (12). His original dream became Mandala, a company which implemented, expanded, monetized, and sold the notion of the Collective Consciousness. This chapter, however, is the only...