|
|
|
A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers
|
|
|
A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers
"I originally wanted to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius because my friend said it was funny! And I do enjoy funny books, and I've read Erica Jong, I've read David Sedaris, and I thought, hey, that's what I need, something light.
The plot is about a young guy in his 20's who's suddenly - is himself an orphan and has to take care of his like nine year-old brother. He has to suddenly like become a single dad and raise someone else while he himself is in a very immature point in his own life. It's very obvious throughout the entire book that it was written by a guy in his 20's, because the sense of humor and the topic matter and just what goes on in his life is very much kind of the slacker - I don't want to say slacker, but the 20-something, post-grad lifestyle.
Perhaps the problem I had with the book is that I've never been a 20-something guy who has quite this intense personality as this writer. It is non-fiction; it is his own life, so you can't criticize him for having that life experience. But I probably never had to raise a child when I was 21, or I didn't have quite the same drive to be on MTV Real World. I didn't quite have the same obsessions as this guy, so maybe that made it hard to appreciate the book in its totality. I guess you want to finish it because you want to know if his life ended well. You want to know if it ever got easier, you want to know if his magazine ever launched and took off, you want to know if - I don't know, his brother makes it through junior high unscathed, unscarred.
Everybody says it's hysterical on the jacket cover. It is very original in that style, and there are some moments that are just hysterical; but I guess I had a hard time with sentences that have 15 commas, that just go on and on and these tangents that would take up several pages. It'd be like talking with someone, and something reminds him of another topic, and they just go on and on. I'm gonna give it a three out of five, just - part of the problem is I'm a little older than its targeted audience. It's probably much more popular with people in their 20's who can identify, and there maybe people who give it a five 'cause they find it funnier than me."
|
|
RSS feed 
