Genius Notwithstanding....

Yes. I like this book. Yes. This is going to be ANOTHER review of this trendy little book that declares it phenomenal.

Don't blame me. It's not my fault. I couldn't help it.

What were my chances, really, given the style of this book? Self-effacing, quirky, smart, non-committal, so very Generation X (in that despicable need to define everything, this seems to be the word-a-la-mode), I did thoroughly enjoy this book.

I started reading it in the car on the way home from the bookstore, read it as I walked up the stairs, absently tried the key in the lock, read it until it was done, finished, and altogether ready to be put aside. From start to finish, I found this a clever and well-crafted book.

That's not to say that I don't have critique about this book. After four years of university training in the art of critical reading, there are very few books about which I have no comment. I think a lot of authors become popular later in life for a reason--by then, it seems, they often have a more mature self-concept and their observations on life tend to be less conspicuously self-conscious. Eggers swings rapidly from a sort of embarrassed self-realization to an indulgently youthful absorption with his own wit. That, in itself, is startlingly honest...and so didn't offend me much.

Every criticism of the book has been previewed by the author. He seems to be capable of acknowledging his own failures as a satirist, author, and general human being...and if that is presumptuous of him, so be it. Beyond his comedy, his wit, his intellect, though....Eggers is actually a fantastic writer. He is capable of portraying a sort of blunt realism that the reader may find both difficult and at the same time compelling. His considerable detail into the deaths of his parents is twisted with comic observation at the most inopportune of moments, with chronically functional descriptions (nothing peaceful about death here), and with a lightness that ends up betraying the depth of the emotional impact of such an event. Having been myself placed in a parental role towards my siblings at various times during my life, I found this aspect of the book extremely easy to relate to. It's hard to be young and full of one's-self and ready to eat the world alive....and try to be both role-model, caretaker, and friend to a younger person.

Eggers' command of language is well-documented in his many vivid descriptions of the people in his life. They turn out somewhere between saints and demons-very much how people really are...but the important part is that the author is capable of painting them so clearly with words. And Eggers is a master of pointing out the comedy in the everyday--what can be openly and vividly hilarious about playing Frisbee...but at the same time, carry with it an inner dialogue about growing up and sibling relationships.

I tried not to look at this as a coming-of-age story or a tale of what-it-means-to-be-young-in-the-90s...but rather a vaguely autobiographical text with a touch of honesty, some very journallistically keen observations, and a touch of humor. I think it's dangerous to make this work more than it is...because it wants to be truthful and genuine very very much. There's a lot of room in the world for Eggers style of wholly irreverent writing...manifested by the increasing popularity of "McSweeney's" (the print/web journal he edits)...and I think we'll be seeing more of him.