If I Rote It: Waht Is It Made?
this book is apparently stupendous.
I’m still not sure what it is people have against him or against his first book, which I still think was very good. I think people resented his celebrity a bit. His second novel wasn’t good at all, but I was surprised to see this new one tackling this subject and to garner the advance praise it has.
As far as his celebrity goes, at least he’s gone on to do good things with it and the money he made.
i loved his first two books.
this one sounds great.
during that whole million little peices/ Oprah smackdown thing i kept asking myself why the dude didnt just do an Eggars in the first place and save himself all that misery.
yeah i agree with akm, AHWOSG is great “...our Velocity” is very bad indeed but still i think he’s an interesting figure and a pretty good writer.
why didn’t you guys like YSKOV?
Because it isn’t about anything. He’s a reasonably good writer with an interesting point of view, but he needs to have a strong story.
i thought it was about two dudes flying around the world giving money to people.
it’s kind of about eggers’ reaction to the money he got from the first book, but it seems to have been written in kind of a fever during that period as well, not very focused, and definitely not well proofread, copyset, or edited.
during that whole million little peices/ Oprah smackdown thing i kept asking myself why the dude didnt just do an Eggars in the first place and save himself all that misery.
dude has/had a serious problem with Eggers and talked a lot about how much harder he was than him, and how real his shit was.
interesting. i never knew that.
I’m still not sure what it is people have against him or against his first book
I can give you the exact point where I objectively concluded that Eggers is a colossal self-important yobbo full of stale old shit. The chapter in AHWOSG where he loses his wallet, blames some Hispanic kids, and then discovers that he left his wallet at home.
Fuck him and his McSweeney mafia. Let them anonymously self-review their spooge on Amazon.
He’s a bit of a hack—a gimicky memoirist in an age of gimicky memoirs. The only thing that sets him apart is that he’s a bit younger, hipper and more self-aware, and yet his self-awareness doesn’t seem to lead him to be self-editing.
I remember getting annoyed in the exact same way about the wallet incident. I did like a few bits from that book—in fact I might even say there was a decent book buried in there under all the crap.
the first book was good when he was writing about his time at home and the last five pages
never considered reading him until now
i don’t see what this has to do with whimsical drawings of staplers ... rubbish.
The chapter in AHWOSG where he loses his wallet, blames some Hispanic kids, and then discovers that he left his wallet at home.
I thought it was quite good of him to be honest enough to say “look how much of a kneejerk dickhead I was here.”
Also, even if it makes him a cock it doesn’t alter the book from being good. Which it is, and in fact I took great pleasure in liking it precisely because of a few people on ILX who’d sneered about the whole McSweenys mafia.
I’d hate to think how much good writing we’d lose if we had to dimiss it on the basis the author was a complete asshole.
yeah, i liked the incident with the wallet and the dudes on the beach. i thought it was pretty self-aware. in the preface he mentions that that was one of the more accuratley-told incidents in the book.
YSKOV has my favorite moment where a book with a mysterious title reveals itself in the text ever.
I must admit I wasnt as much a fan of “Velocity”. There was something in the way he conjured up all the places they visited that had no magic in it. I felt depressed reading about Burkina Faso or wtf he was, thru his eyes. It made me never want to travel anywhere again!
It had the complete opposite effect on me!
Heh. Yeah I don’t know why I reacted to it the way I did. Maybe I wasnt in the right mood that day.
I’d hate to think how much good writing we’d lose if we had to dimiss it on the basis the author was a complete asshole.
otm. And yet, Eggers does have a self-importance about him that turns a lot of people (even and especially people who know him personally) right th’ fuck off.
I still might buy this book, though.
I have no idea whether or not Eggers is an asshole—all I know is that he writes like a pompous asshole, and that inevitably colors his work (and the reception of it).
I don’t think I made it to this wallet incident in the first book. I think I gave up within a couple of chapters of him taking his brother in. Ugh.
all I know is that he writes like a pompous asshole
Yeah, that’s what I meant. People who know him report even worse.
Some Catholic, quick: find me a quote on doing good works without humility.
This is the best I can find:
The poor man, rich in faith, who
toils for the love of God and is generous of the little fruit of his
labors, is much nearer to heaven than the rich man who spends a fortune in
good works from no higher motive than his natural inclination to
benevolence.
-from “The Groundwork of the Christian Virtues”
by Archbishop Ullathorne
1945
But that doesn’t really work. The problemis that we suspect that Eggers is doing good deeds to make up for the fact that deep down, he knows he’s a bit of a prick.
mcsweeney’s has published a lot of rubbish books (probably) but they also published this
which is the best novel I’ve read in years
why is that a problem as a reader of literature?
(xp)
Well, his literature has its own special problems. But he’s more than a writer — he’s a personality in the publishing industry, and not one that everyone respects.
Possibly because of his ashtray personality.
yeah but just to circle back to the main point, should the level of respect a writer garners in the publishing industry really affect your opinion of his books?
Depends. How many of the regular readers of Eggers are also aware of his other public endeavors? A lot, I would guess. So what’s getting books into hands? Why are we still reading?
sure, sure. his personality and various antics keep him in the public eye, i guess... but people aren’t reading his books because they think he’s a nice guy.
BUT I THINK MAYBE THEY ARE. Because his writing by itself wouldn’t do it. He’s his own publicity machine. That’s the genius and the tragedy.
you think people read his books because they think he is nice? and because people think that, the fact that you think he is not nice thus affects your own opinion of his books?
You think I don’t read the books because I don’t like him as a person?
i’m confused
Apparently Dave Eggers hates everyone.
you think people read his books because they think he is nice? and because people think that, the fact that you think he is not nice thus affects your own opinion of his books?
No, no. I think people read his books because they think he’s a good writer. I personally think they’re wrong. But hey, who am I? (If that’s what we’re really arguing.)
Meanwhile, his press and self-made publicity has turned him into something he is by many accounts not — a nice guy, a great philanthropist, a kind of person to attach your undying fandom to.
You think I don’t read the books because I don’t like him as a person?
No, dude, I’m on your side. I think you don’t read the books because he’s just not that good.
But I have to say one more time, this new book sounds really interesting.
But that doesn’t really work. The problemis that we suspect that Eggers is doing good deeds to make up for the fact that deep down, he knows he’s a bit of a prick.
Which is fine as long he sticks to doing so within his own sphere of endeavour: writing. When he joins forces with Bono, then I will have a major problem with him.
i read that as “when he joins forces with a Bonobo”
Eggers = Wanker
A Staggering Work of Well-intentioned, Sincere Genius, No Really, Guys, Seriously!
who knows, maybe it’s a decent book...
no pomo
Excerpt here:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1546275,00.html
His prose style is pretty awkward and amateurish when you strip away the schtick:
He first pushes the coffee table closer to the entertainment center, reducing the space between the three objects: me, the table, and the shelving. Now he drags a chair from the kitchen. He places this near my head. From the couch he brings one of the three large cushions that sit upright. He stands the cushion up against the seat of the chair. Bringing another chair from the kitchen, he places it, with a couch cushion soon resting against it, at my feet. He has effectively eliminated me from his view. My view is now limited to the ceiling above me, and the little I can see between the windows of the coffee table. I lie, finding myself impressed with his architectural vision, until he surprises me with the blanket. The bedspread from my room is carefully spread over the couch cushions until it forms a tent over me, and this is too much. Michael, I have little patience left for you. I am finished with you, and wish you could have seen what I saw. Be grateful, TV Boy. Have respect. Have you seen the beginning of a war? Picture your neighborhood, and now see the women screaming, the babies tossed into wells. Watch your brothers explode. I want you there with me.
Ugh.
Not seeing where the schtick is in that paragraph?
Yeah that is basically one of the worst paragraphs I have ever read.
xpost—That’s my point—Eggers sans schtick = paragraph upon paragraph that should never see print. It’s as though he labored intensively to obstruct any potential flow and obscure any clarity of description all while using mostly one and two syllable words and probably thinking his writing to be “spare” and “direct.”
Oh okay, gotcha. I think the paragraph does flow pretty well and it is fairly clear. This paragraph a little further down on the page is better I think:
Through the doorway I saw a kind of airplane, coming low over the village. It was a fascinating kind of plane, black everywhere and dull, unreflective. The planes I had seen before resembled birds in a rudimentary way, with noses and wings and chests, but this machine looked like nothing so much as a cricket. I watched it as it flew over the village. The sound was rich and black, louder than anything I had ever known, the vibrations shaking my ribs, pulling me apart.
I agree that that’s a much better paragraph, but there are still a couple of wincers in there for me—1) “in a rudimentary way” 2) “pulling me apart”
He has the capacity to write well but he always seems in need of a better editor.
He has the capacity to write well but he always seems in need of a better editor.
Yeah. This is my biggest problem with him. He like, re-released YSKOV with a new title and 50 extra pages or something and called it Sacrament? Dude, get thee to a fuckin editor.
jaymc, you should submit that to McSweeneys’ Convergences Contest.
it might be the same designer. I’ll check at home
I’m going to guess no—I think I remember seeing other stuff with that woodcut print look around the same time.
Is there really a contest?? I LUV U LAWRENCE WESCHLER!
around the same time
You mean within the last four months?
xpost Haha, did The Eraser come out that recently? How quickly I forget.
The problem with all this stuff (which is different than the general problems with Eggers’ leaden prose) is that it can’t find the right voice — at once it wants to be literary and faux naif and also convey the hidden truths refracted through speaking in a second tongue and also be firm and workmanlike hemmingway unflinching. So there’s a special mess going on. Why “a kind of” airplane? How can a voice that says coming low over the village“ also say ”like nothing so much as a“ (which is by the way a terrible empty phrase) and then simply say ”I watched as it flew over the village.“? If he’s watching, why is the next sentence about the sound!? What does it mean for a sound to be ”black“? Why ”I had ever known“ instead of ”I knew“? Maybe there is a black sort of sound, but is it a vibrating sound? A vibrating sound would be orange, maybe.
How about this para:
But it was strange. Adults were running from the machines, falling, screaming. I looked at the people running, though I was too dazed to move. The volume of the machines held me still. I felt tired in some new way, as I watched mothers grab their young sons and bring them back into their huts. I watched men run into the high grass and throw themselves to the ground. I watched as one of the crickets flew over the soccer field, flying lower than the other machines; I watched as the twenty young men playing on the field ran toward the school, screaming. Then a new sound pumped through the air. It was like the cutting and dividing of the machine, but it was not that.
Why is there the semicolon that late in the game? I assume its to accelerate the rhythm, but it just sticks out. Why did they run ”toward the school, screaming“ instead of saying they ”ran, screaming, toward the school“. Why does he need to keep mentioning he watched. Why can’t the parallelism just be with ”as“ or even better yet, fade away. How does a sound pump through the air? Like a sump pump? Things don’t even pump themselves through anything! They need to pump something else? What exactly is it that the sound is pumping through the air then?
The last sentence of the preceding para is: ”I saw other boys in the village staring up as I was, some of them jumping, laughing and pointing to the crickets with the chopping sound.“ So where’s the ”it“ that was strange? There is not ”it“ — just more filler. He already established that it was an airplane that looked like a cricket — the character doesn’t need to keep calling it a cricket, either — that’s what people do when they don’t know what it is, not when they just are reminded of something else. If he was staring up, then how did he see the other boys, by the way? Wouldn’t they have been, y’know, level? Did the crickets have the chopping sound or the boys? Just the jumping ones, or all the ones?
Ok, enough, you see the problem here.
Have you guys read the new “controversy” re: Egger’s intro to the anniversary edition of Infinite Jest? Now, it’s a whole mountain out of a molehill considering it is conceivable a person might change their mind about a book, movie, album, or anything over the span of ten years, but basically Eggers is getting some obscene amount of flak thanks to the fact that the intro is, as intros usually are, a lavish blow job offered to David Foster Wallace, whereas Eggers’ reviews of the book were all pretty close to complete savagings of DFW’s writing style.
It’s just kind of funny. I mean, I think the dude is a douchebag and a terrible writer, but I solve this by not reading his stuff anymore, but there are just some people who HATE him and look for any reason to start a Eggers jihad.
The point being, he’s shooting for plenty of effects, and falling terribly short. It feels like a bad movie script. There’s empty language and imprecise language all over the place and he tries to justify it as somehow in the “real” voice of the character, except then the character comes busting loose with something like “finding myself impressed with his architectural vision” and you know that the voice is hopeless anyway.
So also it feels like an American actor slipping in and out of a poor, say, Scottish accent.
xpost, ally links plz!
He already established that it was an airplane that looked like a cricket — the character doesn’t need to keep calling it a cricket, either — that’s what people do when they don’t know what it is, not when they just are reminded of something else.
I think it’s an effective use of the parallel, it’s a poetic image.
Other than that, yeah I agree with everything you said just about. Except for the pumping. And I think the “it” refers to the situation.
Go here and scroll down a ways sclover
the anniversary edition of Infinite Jest
These words actually cause me more pain than anything else on the thread. (Not because of ‘oh how the time has gone’ nonsense but because the concept is annoying.)
Eggers jihad, you’re right Ally. People hate that dude. He should just write his books and not do any press at all. No matter what he does, he’ll step in shit. I think people can change their minds about books, and that’s cool. But Eggers gets nailed to the cross because of who he is. The new intro is a total blow job, but deservedly so.
xpost: Seriously? Infinite Jest is mind blowingly awesome and I will buy you a copy for you to read, if you will agree to try to read it.
The concept of the ‘anniversary edition’ for something so recent, not the book itself, which I found for a buck years back and has been sitting patiently on my shelf since then. What did the publishers do, digitally remaster it with extra tracks?
Oh okay. I think the 10 year anniversary is just a b.s. marketing thing in a way. They probably had to reprint anyway, and I think they just want people to read it?
I should also mention, yeah, the “it” obv. means “the situation” but then why doesn’t he just say that? And furthermore, what’s the “but” in “but it was strange” there for? I mean weird cricket airplanes are coming out of the sky and everyone is curious and looking up and you need to qualify the fact that this was strange with a “but” as though outside of the rattling gunfire this was an everyday occurance?
He needs an editor.
I really just couldn’t make it through Infinite Jest at all, DFW bothers me as a novellist. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again on the other hand is hilarious.
Yeah, the short essays I’ve read from him are all a treat.
being a talk radio fan, HOST is one of the best things ive ever read.
xpost
It took me two times, too. The first time was when it first came out, I gave up after 25 pages. Then I tried it like 5 years later when I had very little else to do and it kicked my ass. I’ve been thinking about big books a lot lately, you have to put up with a LOT of bullshit (boring sections that would go on for a page at the most in a normal size book stretch on for 10 pages in big books) but in the end it is soooooo worth it. But if you don’t want to put up with the footnotes and stuff I can see where it’s offputting and annoying.
Seriously it’s a really really awesome, hilarious (very very very funny) book.
Allyzay “Doris Lessing” Eisenschefter
Okay, I missed the nickname at first there. (Am I the only one to have read all the books in the Canopus in Argos series?)
I tried reading Infinite Jest once at 17 and again at 23, and both times I gave up at around page 100. Love the essays, though.
I love DFW as an essayist, haven’t picked up Infinite Jest since high school, when I made it through MAYBE 100 pages
xposts
I just picked up Infinite Jest after about a year hiatus (I only read the first 100 pages), and am now charging through all 900 pages (footnotes and all) and am finding it terribly enjoyable.
I’m waiting until I’m 29.
It’s the footnotes that drove me nuts! Maybe I will try it again, since it gets such high praise from MW and certainly I got used to dealing with footnotes during the nonsense that was school.
Take the 2 bookmark approach. It helps.
The first 100 pages are rough(the Canadian spies bored me senseless). But now I can’t stop reading it, to be honest.
x-post — You have to use footnotes there. It’s required by law.
The problem is that they’re not even footnotes most of the time: they’re endnotes. Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine is like half composed of footnotes, but they’re easy to digest because they’re on the same page as the regular text. No flipping.
(Also: Baker’s novella was written in like 1989 or something, and everyone acts like DFW invented footnotes seven years later.)
The footnotes get fun after awhile. I had two bookmarks, one for my footnotes, one for the book. Keep in mind that DFW would probably be the first to admit that he is a rat bastard for using all those footnotes—he’s intentionally manipulating you and probably cackling as he does. And seriously, possibly one of the funniest books ever.
my university library does not have a copy of Infinite Jest.
waht
Interlibrary Loan to the rescue.
xpost- As for footnotes, the Filmography of James O. Incandenza is the best thing ever.
DUDE Molly yes. The Canadian spy sections are THE WORST. Apparently he wrote them last? He should have cut them.
yeah jaymc, I hear you. Poor Nicholson Baker.
Interlibrary Loan to the rescue.
I was going to say. (The desk is right behind me to the left.)
Molly once again I can’t agree with you more. The filmography is the greatest thing EVER.
DFW is a masterful writer whom some consider to be fatally flawed. But Eggers is just a hack.
I read somewhere that John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) is trying to put out a film version of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
Fun with Teeth!
Poultry in Motion!
These are all band names waiting to happen.
test
sterlclover, of course it’s your right to read anyway you choose, but I can’t help but think that going through a book worrying about things like Why did they run “toward the school, screaming” instead of saying they “ran, screaming, toward the school”. really has to ruin the reading experience.
In everyday conversation,I could say “She walked confidently down the street”, “Confidently, she walked down the street”, or “She walked down the street confidently”. I’m sure one of those is more gramatically proper than another, but in the end, they all get the meaning across, they each have different rhythms that might sound more attractive at the moment of writing or saying it, so who cares?
It’s like listening to music for notes that are out of the key instead of just letting yourself feel the emotion of it.
Keep in mind that DFW would probably be the first to admit that he is a rat bastard for using all those footnotes—he’s intentionally manipulating you and probably cackling as he does.
Reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaallly? How deliciously perverse! (Sort of an essential part of the turn-off, personally.)
Ahahah, if we needed to reprint INFINITE JEST, we would just do that. It’d be a hell of a lot cheaper than a whole new jacket and increased page count, that’s for fuckin’ sure.
“She walked confidently down the street”, “Confidently, she walked down the street”, or “She walked down the street confidently”. I’m sure one of those is more gramatically proper than another
they all suck with the word ‘confidently’ in there
It’s like listening to music for notes that are out of the key instead of just letting yourself feel the emotion of it.
Yeah, but out of key notes jump out at you, and so does bad writing. That’s the whole point.
even back when little sterl read ij right when it came out i was somewhat dubious about its reread value even tho there were, as i recall, some very well executed passages. haven’t followed his work since as much as i should. the essays i found for the most part pretty irritating in a sort of making-things-more-complicated-than-necessary way with the exception of the lynch one, which was v. sharp.
ij, the thing is, always felt as sprawly and adolescent as its main character, and i guess read as a book being about that its pretty good, but when ppl. try to read more into it is when i go batty and get more turned off dfw qua dfw than i should.
always liked that “westward path of the empire” short story tho, as well as some of the other material in “girl with the curious hair.”
now onto the thing about eggers putting adverbs at the end of sentences, repeatedly, delimited by a comma. doing so adds finality, firmly. it’s as though the thought is complete and then as a coda, there’s the afterthought, dangling. doing so interrupts the flow in the middle of paragraphs, jarringly, pointlessly. also, it implies that the closing adverb isn’t central to the thought which isn’t the case in the screaming sentence, irritatingly.
It sounds like trash-novel writing, verily.
ok i note sometimes its the adverb and sometimes an adjective or even a clause, clarifying.
there are no design credits on “the children’s hospital” so I don’t know if stanley donwood did it or not.
it would be nice if it turned out the children from the hospital did it.
“(Am I the only one to have read all the books in the Canopus in Argos series?)”
maria has. like ten times. but she’s a freak. she tried to get me to read them and i looked at her like she was made out of the funny papers.
:-D
Ten times, I’m impressed. There are passages I still remember from when I read them as a teen.