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March 11, 2007
"A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius" (2000)
by Dave Eggers:
EGGING_ON
"Everyday a world-clearing sort of
revolution, a bloodless one, one more
interested in regeneration than any sort
of destruction. Every day we start with
a fresh world -- or, better yet, each
day we start with this world, the one we
know, and by nine, ten a.m., we've
destroyed it."
"You just--"
"I know. I just contradicted myself.
So okay, there would be a certain amount
of destruction, but it wouldn't be at
anyone's expense, or against anyone's
will."
-- p.144
BURNING_PHILOSOPHY
This idealistic spiel is a
set-up for a few things.
(1) Immediately afterward the
two of them are hassled by
some Latino kids for the sheer
fun of hassling.
(2) They decide to start
a magazine, which quickly Though, with all that
goes down a rathole of business about "Might"
meaningless smart-ass magazine, you can't be
neo-ironic crap *too* hard on Eggers,
because he's trying to
play up their stupidities
for laughs... but still:
what the hell were they
thinking?
What a throughly
dumb, gen-x, mtv
brained project.
One of the things
that's odd about
reading this book
is that Eggers
and I are not
members of the
same tribe.
BETH_LISICK
He and his friends
hang out at some
He mentions the lame-ass "south
Zeitgeist only beach" micro-
in passing (as brewery.
a "biker bar"
that's painted He drives every
STAGGERING_SAN_FRANCISCO *purple*, can where, and whines
you believe about getting
it?). And he stuck behind
gets the busses.
Valencia location wrong
@ Duboce, by several He considers
which is blocks. moving to Soma,
north of and decides to
14th St. skip it because
I think that there's too much
part of Eggers leather stuff
problem is that there, and too
he's stuck on much "cement".
the idea that
he needs to (Funny what
raise-up his happens
kid brother when every
right, and one tries
despite much to drive
evidence to everywhere.)
the contrary,
suburbanites
have trouble
shaking the
idea that
TREAD_OVER depriving a
child of the
suburban
experience is
a form of
child abuse.
Dave Eggers constantly begins
going in a direction that makes
me cringe -- oh great, more pomo E.g. his little brother repeatedly
self-referential Cleverness -- breaks character and lectures him
as the voice of his conscience (or
But he pushes through this, he rather, the voice telling him
piles on the words, and does not things now obvious to him in
stop at that "look how Clever I retrospect).
am" moment. He *does* something
with the gimmick, he doesn't
just rest on it. PUSH_THROUGH
And that, I think, is one
of the most impressive
things about his writing. (But when quoting
Eggers, neglect EGGING_ON
not the ellipsis.)
A book about a guilty self-consciousness,
a feeling that everything should be
natural and innocent.
SPONTANEOUS_COMBUSTION
A repeated theme is feeling guilty about
planning on using experience as fodder for
art...
Guilt at sacrificing
someone else for art, I sometimes think that
when your martyrdom the trouble is that many
complex requires that artists don't really
you sacrifice yourself. know anything but art.
They may lament the
(There are specialization of the
times I'm technical world, but
glad I was they're boxed into
born WASP.) their own speciality.
They can conceive of
nothing worth doing
"And we will be ready, at the end of but a personal art,
every day will be ready, will not say an autobiographical
no to anything, will try to stay art, and so every
awake while everyone is sleeping, moment is reduced to
will not sleep, will make the shoes the question of
with the elves, will breathe deeply "can I use this?"
all the time, breathe in all the air
full of glass and nails and blood, Is this a moment
will breathe it and drink it, so worthy of elevation,
rich, so when it comes we will not be is this a moment
angry, will be content, tired enough elevated enough to
to go, gratefully, will shake hands lift me,
with everyone, bye, bye, and then is this a moment
pack a bag, some snacks, and go to worthy of being
the volcano --" -- p. 433 frozen into the
crystalline eternity
of art?
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