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WORDS | Dave Eggers - A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS
Thursday, April 03, 2003

I know that I was supposed to read this book three years ago if I wanted to be on the pulse or whatever. But I truly do wish that I had read this book three years ago, and not for some such superficial purpose (though that's been enough in the past). No, had I read this book sooner, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble in the meantime.

I'd put off reading it, expecting it to be kind of unbearable, because I am a hypocrite. You see, I protest strongly against overly self-conscious, quasi-post-modern, self-involved narration, even though (a.) I have a weblog and (b.) every time I sit down to write fiction, that's the only kind of prose that comes out of me (either that, or a dead, stony style reminiscent of shitty Bret Easton Ellis). But this book, possessed of exactly that quality and sensibility, honestly was really, really good. A lot of that can be chalked up to his situation -- if he'd just been any other boho twenty-something in the early 90s, this book would be insufferable, but he does have a touching and unique story to tell about his family, and when that's intermingled with a more commonly felt generational story, it works fantastically.

So my point is: Now I can move on. Now that I have seen this arch self-consciousness played out to its maximum potential -- nothing in this book is frivolous, none of his asides are without merit, he's not being cute just to show that he can be, there's always something being communicated -- I can rest in peace and stop writing the same shit, only without any kind of point. Or at the very least, if and when I do adopt a similar methodology, I now have a nagging voice in the back of my head saying "Shouldn't there be a reason for all this wankery?" And if there isn't one, I might finally, FINALLY, be able to edit myself. AND IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME.

So thank you, Dave Eggers, for an entertaining book (though I keep hearing bad things about your novel...) and a minor wake-up call in regards to my writing. Perhaps I'll send you a cookie or something.

Links:

• Amazon: US / UK

04.03.2003 | 02:33 PM | TrackBack (0)

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