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brandonpytel 's review for:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers’s memoir reads like a pieced together experimentation in postmodernism, written by a man in his late 20s trying to recount his early 20s and all the selfish and absorbent attitudes that come with it. The result is ironic, comical and self-aware, making the voice of an arrogant and ambitious 21-year-old come out funny rather than annoying. The introduction, acknowledgements and corrections section (a whole 48 pages at the end of the book) point to the book’s postmodern themes, mostly the self-conscious aspect of the book combined with the unique experience of having had both parents die in the span of several months and the story to own that comes with it.
The self-absorption-self-reflection parts of this memoir make it a punchy, stream of consciousness-without-the-confusion project that's more real, letting us into the mind of a young adult and making me recount my own shitty behavior during that age. The big difference is the book is cast around Eggers’s attempt to remain this ambitious kid that wants to start his own magazine to stick it to the Man while simultaneously being responsible for his younger brother Toph. Eggers tries to be a responsible adult way earlier than he ever thought he'd be and the result is often times hilarious, mostly as he described the childish games he plays with his brother, sibling games that are innocent, mocking and loving. Throughout the book, Eggers becomes more anxious and fatalist, often times to a comic extent, the way many young adults let their inner mind torture them.
As Eggers sorts through the guilt and experience of making art out of his own tragedy, he discovers the obstacles that get in the way of his dreams, the nakedness of the memoir as art, the innocence lost with age and the entering of a world that can’t be easily recast through words.
The self-absorption-self-reflection parts of this memoir make it a punchy, stream of consciousness-without-the-confusion project that's more real, letting us into the mind of a young adult and making me recount my own shitty behavior during that age. The big difference is the book is cast around Eggers’s attempt to remain this ambitious kid that wants to start his own magazine to stick it to the Man while simultaneously being responsible for his younger brother Toph. Eggers tries to be a responsible adult way earlier than he ever thought he'd be and the result is often times hilarious, mostly as he described the childish games he plays with his brother, sibling games that are innocent, mocking and loving. Throughout the book, Eggers becomes more anxious and fatalist, often times to a comic extent, the way many young adults let their inner mind torture them.
As Eggers sorts through the guilt and experience of making art out of his own tragedy, he discovers the obstacles that get in the way of his dreams, the nakedness of the memoir as art, the innocence lost with age and the entering of a world that can’t be easily recast through words.