The Cheesy Industry

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Though Dr. Johnson is well aware of the hostility that the book provokes in certain readers, he ascribes such negativity to a fundamental aesthetic prejudice. "Many people haven't discovered the simple," says Johnson, 61. "Many people distrust the simple." He recounts the story of his own life--an inspiring case study in following the cheese. Trained as a medical doctor at Britain's Royal College of Surgeons, he set out in his 20s to discover the underlying reasons for illness. His findings? Bad attitudes as much as bad germs. He deemed the pen a better healing instrument than the scalpel.

And given the complexity of today's corporate environment, Johnson's audience is in need of healing. Says management consultant Bill Dunk: "The increasing raft of books in the pop-psychology area attests to how extraordinarily stressful business has become in the Internet age." One of the basic tenets of Cheese is that people think too much, unlike their rodent cousins, who act instinctively, without resentment. While Hem and Haw rationalize their loss of cheese, the mice go in search of new cheese, sending out resumes, so to speak, the moment they get their pink slips.

Ten years from now, and probably sooner, few will remember the lesson of Johnson's brief tale, but our sense of its cultural moment will persist. A time of exhilaration and confusion, when scurrying professionals with Palm Pilots checked their portfolios from speeding cabs. When 24-year-old bosses in baggy khakis told 50-year-olds in pressed suits to take a hike. The cheese will be somewhere else in 10 years, but its faintly moldy odor will linger on.

--Reported by Andrea Sachs/New York