A review by parsonsaj416
You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers

3.0

I really enjoy Egger's prosaic style. There were moments in this novel that made me laugh in their absurdity and some that made my heart clench in familiar pain. That being said, this was a novel that was trying to do too much at once--much like our protagonist. The narrative resolves around a pair of supremely ineffectual men trying to give away a large amount of money in a small amount of time. The underlying catalyst for this endeavor is the death of a friend, and so presumably part of the contemplation here is on grief. Great. Could be a powerful story. But Eggers decides that he needs to seat this exploration in the middle of a critique of altruism and the narrative that surrounds it in modern culture, in an aimless travel story except that it's only the worst, most agonizing parts of travel. And perhaps that was the point: to create a narrative that simulates grieving, where you are constantly moving but you feel like you are going nowhere, where every day bleeds into the next and the world is moving without you. But the thing is, this metaphor is unnecessary. The most powerful parts of this book were the moments when we see Will and Hand actively engaging with Jack's death, not all the liminal nonsense in between. Also, the explanation about the jumping people to explain *why Will is the way he is* is just completely arbitrary and feels like a cheap deferral of agency in the 11th hour. In short, this novel would have been stronger with some parring, but it was still well-written.