Rare is it that a book will cross my path that I want to put down. I’ve always adored reading and always have a book with me. ( Not an eBook or an iBook. A real book. With paper. And ink. And HotMelt™, the binding glue that takes over 40 years to dry out. )
" A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", by Dave Eggers, is such a book. I was irked by it by the time I finished reading the copious forwards and introductions and whatnots.
I picked it up because on the cover is a small black circle about 1.5" in diameter and this is what it says:
Pulitzer
Prize
Finalist
and so I figured okay, this must be some seriously fine literature here. As a child, I was taught that if a book had a gold medallion on the cover that read:
Newbery Medal Winner
then I knew I was in for a good tale.
So I picked this book up. It was free, I must say that. It sat in a box with several other novels that someone had left when they were moving out. Normally this would not put me off. Were I moving, and needed to unload some books that I knew I would not be re-reading in the next 20 years or so, and there was no point in getting credit for them at a used book store ( which seems to be a tradition that no longer exists in New York City, aside from The Strand ), I’d be inclined to leave them in a box on the sidewalk for some of the detachedly ironic hipsters who have invaded Astoria to stop by and pick up.
So, a free book. A Pulitzer Price Finalist free book !! Hot damn.
It’s just a wretched thing. It appears as though this Mr. Eggers fellow figured out something very very clever. IF he wrote out everything he ever told to his therapist and submitted it as a work of fiction, he could accomplish two things with one stroke: he could pay himself back for the 17 years of therapy, and he could publish The Great American Novel.
Anyone a fan? Anyone irked by it? Anyone praying it does not get made into a film starring Johnny Depp?
I’m glad your time machine has gotten you closer to home. After your thread about 4’33" I was beginning to worry you would never get home. But, now that you have entered the YEAR 2000 you are almost there! One more leap should do it!
I enjoy Eggers’ writing, and I thought Heartbreaking Work is a wonderful example of what he is capable of. So, it’s not really a novel. But, it’s not really a memoir, either. Well… I guess it is. But, he kind of plays with time (and probably aspects of the truth) to create a more interesting narrative. I don’t think that affects the quality of the finished product, at all. It’s been years since I read it, but I still have happy memories of enjoying the book, and enjoying the upside down appendix where he added all manner of unnecessary minutiae, corrections and other stuff. (And, explains all the stuff he changed to make things into a better story.)
And, going by what he has been able to achieve since the book came out, Eggers seems like a pretty cool dude.
I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading his novels. I should go back in time and catch up on what he has written in the past couple of years.
<------- laughing. I knew someone would call me on my shit about that " 4’33" " thread. As I was writing this, I could hear voices in my head.
Look, the style is fine. Yes, yes, the reviews printed on the cover invoke the great name of J.D. Salinger. I get that too. The style is what it is. But my god. Salinger wrote with a scalpel. This guy is using a bludgeon.
I’m just sayin’.
Never know, pricciar. That time machine could push me back a cozy 4,700 years or so, in which case I’ll need to brush up on my ancient languages.
Are you suggesting I try one of his later works, one that is not autobiographical?
I couldn’t get into it. I felt it should have been entitled A SELF ABSORBED WORK OF TOTAL NARCISSISM.
Of course my opinion may have been flavored by the fact that I had read his sister’s rebuttal to a lot of his claims when I first read the book. And I have a near hatred of rich kids, even rich orphans.
Have a link to that? I’d be very interested in seeing her version. I’ve read the book twice, mixed feelings about it. Kind of liked it while finding the author vaguely off-putting. Yes I can Google it, but I feel like asking a human bean of my own species.
I picked it up, when it first came out, in an airport, about to take a 30+ hr journey. I enjoyed it and did think it was genius. But in fact, I was going through some stuff not unlike the task he takes on, so there was a whole lot of resonance for me.
When a couple of years later I read it being slagged here, I pulled it down and looked over it anew, no longer neck deep in dealing with a difficult day to day struggle, it really did seem a different book to me.
I mightn’t read it today, but it really did speak to me at the time. He quite aptly puts into words some of the onerous ness of sacrificing your own life, to care for another, and the kinds of challenges and interactions that manifest, as a result. A lot of it rang true for me. I could relate, I guess. But maybe it didn’t ring true for others, so much.
I thought it was pretty good when I was 17. Not “staggering genius”, but a decent read. If anything, all the hype set me up for some disappointment.
Haven’t read it since, but thinking back to it now, almost twice as old as when I read it, I don’t think I would like reading it again. I’m not big on “heartbreaking works”, for one thing. I liked all the funny footnotes, forwards, appendices, etc. though. So maybe I’ll read something else by Eggars, but I see no reason to read this one again.
I loved it and hated it, and ended thinking that I pretty much liked it. Parts of it were excellent, parts were irritating. Like the sections where he’s being interviewed by VH1 or MTV or something- if I’m remembering it correctly. It got very self-referential and boring, but he redeemed himself by the end.
I’m not completely opposed to circumlocution, conversational writing style, self-referential humor, in-jokes, et cetera. I’ve read and enjoyed most of David Foster Wallace’s stuff, and lord knows we indulge in plenty of that shit on this board. I was mainly annoyed by Eggers in this book, however. I finished the whole thing, but I can’t say I liked it.
Well, I liked it. A lot. And I recall that there was some line in the forward to the effect that the book starts off pretty good, and gets a little off track at the end. I think that’s true, but I truly enjoyed reading it the first time. I don’t really have plans to re-read it, though.
I didn’t enjoy it in what felt like a very personal way. I thought all the irony mixed with all the faux irony wound up creating a book that told you not to read it, and why not. It’s as if he’s just saying what he actually thinks, but doing so with an ironic look on his face, which is supposed to make you feel differently about what he’s telling you he actually does think. The title is a great example of this – is it supposed to be funny that he’s arrogant? Is it supposed to be funny because he really isn’t arrogant, because he doesn’t think it’s a work of genius, which makes it hilarious that he called it that because it totally isn’t? Does anyone believe he thinks it’s a shitty book and he thinks it’s funny that he called it heartbreaking?
I’m in the same boat where I can tolerate all kinds of literary wankery, but only because the people who literarily wank are often genuinely geniuses. This read to me like somebody who wanted to do all the weird fancy-pants tricks, but was only doing them because he wanted to, not because he knew something about them we don’t.
I absolutely loved it when I read it in my late teenage years. I haven’t reread it, but I have read most of Eggers other work, and on the whole I’d say he’s incredibly talented but his output is uneven. Some of his work is absolute dreck, and I’m not sure where I’d end up on A Heartbreaking Work… if I were to read it again today.
I think the best of his writing is the short story collection How We Are Hungry.
The Circle was probably the worst thing I’ve read that he wrote. I didn’t get A Hologram for the King. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but whatever it was missed me entirely.
