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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
I don't think the narrative from Hand's point of view added anything, and I would have liked the story much better without it.
Not only did I find this simply enjoyable, but the metafictional trickery added another dimension. I had the odd experience of reading it for a book club and reading an edition that was lacking the postscript by Hand, then reading the postscript only after all of my other book club members had. Which somehow made it even more interesting.
This is a great, if at times frustrating, tale of adventure, about two late-twenty-something Americans on an impulsive journey,trying to get around the world in a week. I found myself often frustrated at the ignorance of their plan, their assumptions and ethnocentric views, but I think that may have partially been Dave Eggers' point. Two friends, dealing with a personal tragedy, try to make sense of things, to go on an adventure, in their own way. The story is a hilarious, exasperating, emotional, and ultimately healing journey of growth.
This book follows two men (i use that word with caution, I am not sure they are Adult in every sense of the word) in their mission to get rid of a large amount of money by travelling around the world and giving it to complete strangers in a period of a week.
This is obvious precipitated by the sudden death of their friend BUT how they cam about the money is less clear - is it a legacy they don't want or ill gotten gains from something they all three did together.
What is clear is that this book simply does not work, their journey is fraught with difficulties and there are more such difficulties in understanding the narrative.
For me this is an epic fail but at least the audio narrator was good.
This is obvious precipitated by the sudden death of their friend BUT how they cam about the money is less clear - is it a legacy they don't want or ill gotten gains from something they all three did together.
What is clear is that this book simply does not work, their journey is fraught with difficulties and there are more such difficulties in understanding the narrative.
For me this is an epic fail but at least the audio narrator was good.
I am now, officially, in love with Dave Eggers. A friend gave me this book for my birthday nearly three months ago, and I only just picked it up and actually read the thing. Eggers style is savvy, poetic and enthralling. I was captivated from start to finish. I really did love this book.
I was so excited to read this book. I had already read "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" (I think that's the title!) and loved it- so was looking forward to this one. I just could never get into it. I thought it was scattered and disjointed. Plus I didn't care about the characters at all. :(
My second Eggers book. After the tour de force that was Heartbreaking Work, I suppose it was almost inevitable that reading Egger's first novel would be a disappointment.
The premise is that Will and Hand, two friends from childhood, take on a week-long world trip to give away $30,000 windfall Will received but does not feel he deserves. They are also making this impulsive decision due to their grief over the death of their close friend Jack, several months prior from a car accident.
Along the way, Will and Hand are spontaneous, thoughtful, crude, easy to anger, admiration, and love. They travel with a fervor and naivete that could only be described as novelesque. They spurn planning, embrace randomness but rebuke it's undesirable consequences when randomness does not favor them. They struggle with the ethics and unease that comes with their mission to give out large amounts of money in an arbitrary way to strangers. They are hungry for experience, driven by their limited time, and fully frustrated when anything dares strain their momentum.
Eggers show again that he is a master of his unique brand of prose. It is personal, with strong doses of manic energy and passion, unnervingly honest with cutting perspectives that rhyme well with this millenial and I suspect many others, and unabashedly honest in spirit. However, the riveting prose does not save this story from it's distractedness.
Was it about grief? If so why did it spend most of its time talking about other things? There was a weird and disorienting detour about unreliable narration that made sure if you weren't disoriented at 3/4th way through, you would be by the end. By the last page, I didn't know what exactly I read, beyond the component parts of compelling rants of beautiful prose.
I did really like Egger's use of projecting imagined dialogue between Will and strangers as a device to dive into Will's thoughts:
(A Russian hooker's imagined advice to Will after a odd night of non-sex)
—But see how we are the same? You and I, Will? We both see strangers and we react. We don’t like to walk by people without nodding. We’re broken when people are rude. We’re broken when people can’t meet us halfway. We can’t accept the limits of normal human relations— chilly, clothed, circumscribed. Our hearts pull against their leashes, Will.
(Will's judgement of hasseling locals in Morocco trying to make a buck)
"disco later?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
“You like the disco! Very good the disco!”
“Thanks though.”
—You have a choice, stuttering man.
—I do not.
—Then we have a choice.
Lastly, I do have to thank Eggers for passages like the below that make me want to write as they cast a strange spell convincing me that my rambling winding daydreams can be made vivid, mysterious, and deeply telling like the way Eggers does for his passages...
"Here you picture tidal waves or quickly moving glaciers. Or dragons. I grew up obsessed with dragons, knew everything, knew that scientists or people posing as scientists had calculated how dragons might have actually flown, that to fly and breathe fire they’d have to be full of hydrogen, at levels so dangerous and in such tremulous balance that— I wondered quickly if I’d give my life so that a dragon could live. If someone offered me that deal, your life for the existence of dragons. I thought maybe yes, maybe no."
Mildly disappointing given the expectations that Heartbreak Work set, but won't discourage me from more Eggers books.
The premise is that Will and Hand, two friends from childhood, take on a week-long world trip to give away $30,000 windfall Will received but does not feel he deserves. They are also making this impulsive decision due to their grief over the death of their close friend Jack, several months prior from a car accident.
Along the way, Will and Hand are spontaneous, thoughtful, crude, easy to anger, admiration, and love. They travel with a fervor and naivete that could only be described as novelesque. They spurn planning, embrace randomness but rebuke it's undesirable consequences when randomness does not favor them. They struggle with the ethics and unease that comes with their mission to give out large amounts of money in an arbitrary way to strangers. They are hungry for experience, driven by their limited time, and fully frustrated when anything dares strain their momentum.
Eggers show again that he is a master of his unique brand of prose. It is personal, with strong doses of manic energy and passion, unnervingly honest with cutting perspectives that rhyme well with this millenial and I suspect many others, and unabashedly honest in spirit. However, the riveting prose does not save this story from it's distractedness.
Was it about grief? If so why did it spend most of its time talking about other things? There was a weird and disorienting detour about unreliable narration that made sure if you weren't disoriented at 3/4th way through, you would be by the end. By the last page, I didn't know what exactly I read, beyond the component parts of compelling rants of beautiful prose.
I did really like Egger's use of projecting imagined dialogue between Will and strangers as a device to dive into Will's thoughts:
(A Russian hooker's imagined advice to Will after a odd night of non-sex)
—But see how we are the same? You and I, Will? We both see strangers and we react. We don’t like to walk by people without nodding. We’re broken when people are rude. We’re broken when people can’t meet us halfway. We can’t accept the limits of normal human relations— chilly, clothed, circumscribed. Our hearts pull against their leashes, Will.
(Will's judgement of hasseling locals in Morocco trying to make a buck)
"disco later?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
“You like the disco! Very good the disco!”
“Thanks though.”
—You have a choice, stuttering man.
—I do not.
—Then we have a choice.
Lastly, I do have to thank Eggers for passages like the below that make me want to write as they cast a strange spell convincing me that my rambling winding daydreams can be made vivid, mysterious, and deeply telling like the way Eggers does for his passages...
"Here you picture tidal waves or quickly moving glaciers. Or dragons. I grew up obsessed with dragons, knew everything, knew that scientists or people posing as scientists had calculated how dragons might have actually flown, that to fly and breathe fire they’d have to be full of hydrogen, at levels so dangerous and in such tremulous balance that— I wondered quickly if I’d give my life so that a dragon could live. If someone offered me that deal, your life for the existence of dragons. I thought maybe yes, maybe no."
Mildly disappointing given the expectations that Heartbreak Work set, but won't discourage me from more Eggers books.
A wonderful book; thought inspiring, yet looses steam towards the end. Eggers get lost in himself.
I will write my thoughts on the book here after my next re-read.
But for the record (my own as well as others', since I own both a paperback and Kindle version): There are two different versions of this book. The original is named You Shall Know Our Velocity. The second, revised edition is named either Sacrament (McSweeney's, February 2003) or You Shall Know Our Velocity! (Vintage, 2003; note the exclamation mark in the title). The latter edition contains additions to the text that put the story in a new light.
But for the record (my own as well as others', since I own both a paperback and Kindle version): There are two different versions of this book. The original is named You Shall Know Our Velocity. The second, revised edition is named either Sacrament (McSweeney's, February 2003) or You Shall Know Our Velocity! (Vintage, 2003; note the exclamation mark in the title). The latter edition contains additions to the text that put the story in a new light.