As a piece of art, I have to give it to Dave Eggers. AHBWOSG is carefully composed, wonderfully constructed, funny, poignant, and moving. But it’s also a pile of emotional bullshit that took me ages to read, and I couldn’t get away from it fast enough once I had inhaled the last intentionally-breakneck run-on paragraph. I have now moved on, immediately and purposefully, to “Men Explain Things to Me.” But back to the “Staggering Genius,” which is a memoir, slightly fictionalized, as Eggers explains […]
So Close to Awesome
The Circle by Dave Eggers, is an interesting, if slightly obvious premise. A clear play on the power of the major players in the social media and technology business (google, Facebook etc.), the Circle is a look at the terrifying possibility of a total global takeover by these companies, and how it could happen with the general consent of the people. The story focuses on Mae Holland, a recent graduate who lands a coveted entry level position working for the Circle, a major technology firm that got its […]
Perhaps not Staggering Genius, but Heartbreaking and Profound
After reading his The Circle and then his latest, Your Fathers, Where Are They…?, I decided it was high time to go back to Egger’s first major work and see what all the fuss was about. Written when he was a mere twenty-two, this memoir/novel describes a difficult life starting with the death of both his parents from cancer within a month or two of each other, when Eggers is just 21, his younger brother Toph is just eight, his sister Beth is in law […]