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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
Not a style I particularly enjoyed, I found myself skimming quite a bit of the navel-gazing. That being said, the story moved me. It touched me, and being that we're the same age, it brought about a good deal of my own navel-gazing.
Reviewing this is something of a feat. People whose opinions I love and respect have strong attachments to this book. And it definitely seems to draw that kind of attention - extreme emotions of love or hate, both of which I completely understand.
On one hand, I completely, absolutely, beyond all belief get what it means to lose a parent at a young age. I won't turn this into being about my own tragic story, so let's leave it at that. Losing a parent at a young age does all sorts of things to you, as anyone who has will tell you, or any therapist for that matter. At some point(s) Eggers goes through something of a thesis or approximation of what the effects are, and he's on the money. This aspect of A Heartbreaking Work... endeared itself to me on that level. Also, despite the fact that I don't have a sibling, Eggers' relationship with his brother is equally endearing. The family stuff is golden, and is easily the book's strongest material, even beyond the 123-page or whatever mark he suggests in the intro. And the magazine stuff I liked because I'm a writer.
The rest of it, however, I found more than a little aggravating.
A lot of his romantic and friendly relations seem incredibly shallow or showy, which is quite possibly due to a lot of reasons (reasons he points out, of course!) - his having to take care of his brother meaning he can't get out, those relationships being in the shadow of that with his brother, his own ego, etc.
But honestly, even just that would not have really bothered me.
What really bothered me was the condescending tone he takes towards his readers. For example, when he calls out, during what he suggests is the transcription of an interview for a role on "The Real World," that it isn't an actual transcription, it's already painfully obvious that he's taking creative liberties. Ditto for a completely unbelievable conversation he has with Toph about a publicity stunt, where he calls out that Toph is slipping out of character and being used as a device. No shit, pal. He does this incredibly frequently - I get it, it's his thing - and it drives me up the wall. Firstly, your readers are not that dumb, and if they are, who gives a shit. Secondly, it completely takes the reader out of the novel. This has a lot to do with how I ingest things - I like to disappear in them, dissolve in them, to feel like the metaphorical fly on the wall, to forget that what I'm interacting with - whether it's a book, movie, piece of music - isn't real (or isn't really happening to or around me). Eggers pretty much does everything possible to take the you out of this story and remind you it's all about him. The whole self-aware, meta, quirky shit bothered me for exactly the same reason. It doesn't endear me that he's so self-aware, it just annoys me further, as if he's saying, "Oh, look how intelligent and self-aware I am," it seems like another step he boosts his ego on. Neither am I endeared by his self-deprecation, because it rarely seems honest. When he spends the book pointing out how everything is being used as a tool, his self-derision seems like just another tool, an attempt to make him likable when he's being an asshole - like when he's berating himself for thinking about writing about his friend's suicide/attempt, or disposing his mother's ashes, or whatever other times he does it. He fucking wrote about those things, anyway, so obviously he couldn't have felt that awful about the notion.
But what bothered me even more than the condescension, the self-awareness, the quirkiness, the ego, was the fact that, when you remove all of these tools and tricks, Eggers is a damn fine writer. The man can really, really write. Despite my issues with this book, despite my issues with the only other novel of his I've read (You Shall Know Our Velocity), there are things that I know I will remember about them, things I will refer to, because he captures them so well. Few people capture mania the way Eggers does, that speeding train, taking an idea and fucking running a marathon with it. He's so effective at it that reading this book really made me feel hyper-actively insane at times. I would find myself thinking the way he did, or simply indulging in my own neuroses. He also captures this swelling-heart, hero mentality that's one of the things that results from losing a parent at a young age. As much as I wanted to yell, "Bullshit," during the diatribe of the last page or two, I also wanted to cry and be like, "Oh, so true." There's a lot about Eggers in this book that I felt I totally got, which is equally why there was a lot I wanted to give him a good smack for. There's a lot of ego in this book, and a lot of self-awareness, and I don't see or relate to more of one or the other, I see them both, understand them both, and am equally capable of empathizing and criticizing them. If you want to call me a hypocrite for any of this, feel free - I am, perhaps, not so different from Eggers.
I suppose my ultimate thesis on AHWOSG is that I think Eggers is a magnificent writer when it comes to the human word, which is why I wish he'd drop the tricks and tools, because I don't think he needs them to produce something interesting or worthwhile.
I don't think I'll give up on Eggers, despite my issues with what seem to be his trademarks - more than likely, I'll pick up one of his non-fiction works next, if only because I'd imagine he can't pull off as much fuckery with something that's not his own.
On one hand, I completely, absolutely, beyond all belief get what it means to lose a parent at a young age. I won't turn this into being about my own tragic story, so let's leave it at that. Losing a parent at a young age does all sorts of things to you, as anyone who has will tell you, or any therapist for that matter. At some point(s) Eggers goes through something of a thesis or approximation of what the effects are, and he's on the money. This aspect of A Heartbreaking Work... endeared itself to me on that level. Also, despite the fact that I don't have a sibling, Eggers' relationship with his brother is equally endearing. The family stuff is golden, and is easily the book's strongest material, even beyond the 123-page or whatever mark he suggests in the intro. And the magazine stuff I liked because I'm a writer.
The rest of it, however, I found more than a little aggravating.
A lot of his romantic and friendly relations seem incredibly shallow or showy, which is quite possibly due to a lot of reasons (reasons he points out, of course!) - his having to take care of his brother meaning he can't get out, those relationships being in the shadow of that with his brother, his own ego, etc.
But honestly, even just that would not have really bothered me.
What really bothered me was the condescending tone he takes towards his readers. For example, when he calls out, during what he suggests is the transcription of an interview for a role on "The Real World," that it isn't an actual transcription, it's already painfully obvious that he's taking creative liberties. Ditto for a completely unbelievable conversation he has with Toph about a publicity stunt, where he calls out that Toph is slipping out of character and being used as a device. No shit, pal. He does this incredibly frequently - I get it, it's his thing - and it drives me up the wall. Firstly, your readers are not that dumb, and if they are, who gives a shit. Secondly, it completely takes the reader out of the novel. This has a lot to do with how I ingest things - I like to disappear in them, dissolve in them, to feel like the metaphorical fly on the wall, to forget that what I'm interacting with - whether it's a book, movie, piece of music - isn't real (or isn't really happening to or around me). Eggers pretty much does everything possible to take the you out of this story and remind you it's all about him. The whole self-aware, meta, quirky shit bothered me for exactly the same reason. It doesn't endear me that he's so self-aware, it just annoys me further, as if he's saying, "Oh, look how intelligent and self-aware I am," it seems like another step he boosts his ego on. Neither am I endeared by his self-deprecation, because it rarely seems honest. When he spends the book pointing out how everything is being used as a tool, his self-derision seems like just another tool, an attempt to make him likable when he's being an asshole - like when he's berating himself for thinking about writing about his friend's suicide/attempt, or disposing his mother's ashes, or whatever other times he does it. He fucking wrote about those things, anyway, so obviously he couldn't have felt that awful about the notion.
But what bothered me even more than the condescension, the self-awareness, the quirkiness, the ego, was the fact that, when you remove all of these tools and tricks, Eggers is a damn fine writer. The man can really, really write. Despite my issues with this book, despite my issues with the only other novel of his I've read (You Shall Know Our Velocity), there are things that I know I will remember about them, things I will refer to, because he captures them so well. Few people capture mania the way Eggers does, that speeding train, taking an idea and fucking running a marathon with it. He's so effective at it that reading this book really made me feel hyper-actively insane at times. I would find myself thinking the way he did, or simply indulging in my own neuroses. He also captures this swelling-heart, hero mentality that's one of the things that results from losing a parent at a young age. As much as I wanted to yell, "Bullshit," during the diatribe of the last page or two, I also wanted to cry and be like, "Oh, so true." There's a lot about Eggers in this book that I felt I totally got, which is equally why there was a lot I wanted to give him a good smack for. There's a lot of ego in this book, and a lot of self-awareness, and I don't see or relate to more of one or the other, I see them both, understand them both, and am equally capable of empathizing and criticizing them. If you want to call me a hypocrite for any of this, feel free - I am, perhaps, not so different from Eggers.
I suppose my ultimate thesis on AHWOSG is that I think Eggers is a magnificent writer when it comes to the human word, which is why I wish he'd drop the tricks and tools, because I don't think he needs them to produce something interesting or worthwhile.
I don't think I'll give up on Eggers, despite my issues with what seem to be his trademarks - more than likely, I'll pick up one of his non-fiction works next, if only because I'd imagine he can't pull off as much fuckery with something that's not his own.
One of the more interesting styles of autobiography I've read. The writing is meta and self-referencial and blends what really happened with storytelling aimed at the reader.
Unfortunately, the author is unfailingly bigoted. Every single time a person/character exists who is not a cishet white Christian man, the author has to make some weird little comment on it, ranging from 'harmless but unnecessary' to outright hateful. Kind of shocking for such a recently published book.
Unfortunately, the author is unfailingly bigoted. Every single time a person/character exists who is not a cishet white Christian man, the author has to make some weird little comment on it, ranging from 'harmless but unnecessary' to outright hateful. Kind of shocking for such a recently published book.
3.5/5
"The drives in central Illinois, those miles, so straight, where you could drive eighty, ninety, the windows down, corn gone, just raw gray fields, where you felt like you were plowing through time itself, like you were a huge loud missile tearing the earth in half, leaving grateful ruin in your wake - but also knowing, we knew, we always knew, that really, at least seen from anyone else's perspective, it was not that way. To cars going the other way we were a quick loud noise, a flash; seen from above - even a crop duster would have given you the perspective - we were nothing like that - not loud, not powerful, not affecting much at all, not leaving any ruin, not making any noise - we were just some little black thing puttering straight on the straight road, producing only the smallest buzzing sound, crawling through this flat terrible grid."
"The drives in central Illinois, those miles, so straight, where you could drive eighty, ninety, the windows down, corn gone, just raw gray fields, where you felt like you were plowing through time itself, like you were a huge loud missile tearing the earth in half, leaving grateful ruin in your wake - but also knowing, we knew, we always knew, that really, at least seen from anyone else's perspective, it was not that way. To cars going the other way we were a quick loud noise, a flash; seen from above - even a crop duster would have given you the perspective - we were nothing like that - not loud, not powerful, not affecting much at all, not leaving any ruin, not making any noise - we were just some little black thing puttering straight on the straight road, producing only the smallest buzzing sound, crawling through this flat terrible grid."
emotional
funny
medium-paced
2.5 stars. That book was really long.
Parts of it were even great, but overall the steam- of- consciousness babbling was overwhelming and overdone.
Parts of it were even great, but overall the steam- of- consciousness babbling was overwhelming and overdone.
Dave Eggers effortlessly captures the juxtapositions of life that, most of the time, we all accept without realizing their complete disparities. "We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the gasping void of space that folds and swallows - a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we..." The two orphans are celebrities, they are alone but they receive the attention of all that encounter them. They are burdened by limited funds, but at the same time free of the burdens inherent with having money.
Eggers puts himself on display, all his irrational thoughts and fears along with the grandiose dreams of a gratifyingly simple life. His words seem to strike a poignant chord because they're ones that most people think, but only in a fleeting manner, and so become lost in the tides of every day life. But Eggers holds on to them and throws them down on the page, not covering any detail for fear of reprisal.
He skillfully describes the phenomena of every day life that you intrinsically know, but may never verbally express. And at the same time, it's clear that life is something to be experienced, enjoyed, changing, but never limiting.
"Shake the Etch-A-Sketch"
Eggers puts himself on display, all his irrational thoughts and fears along with the grandiose dreams of a gratifyingly simple life. His words seem to strike a poignant chord because they're ones that most people think, but only in a fleeting manner, and so become lost in the tides of every day life. But Eggers holds on to them and throws them down on the page, not covering any detail for fear of reprisal.
He skillfully describes the phenomena of every day life that you intrinsically know, but may never verbally express. And at the same time, it's clear that life is something to be experienced, enjoyed, changing, but never limiting.
"Shake the Etch-A-Sketch"
slow-paced
I read this because I saw a boy I had a crush on senior year of college reading it while he walked to class. The boy was a creative writing major, and I kept mentally confusing him with the narrator as I read. Of course, I loved the book.