A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Well, whatever literary virtue there was to this book was severely undermined by the pretentiousness and self-centeredness of the author. I can understand that this was sort of a stream of consciousness narration of how the author dealt with the deaths of his parents (which occurred at a close proximity in time). I just don't like that it seemed like the book took up years of my life. It is vastly longer than it needs to be. Also, stream of consciousness doesn't work well unless the writer really knows what they're doing, and it's fairly evident Eggers didn't know how to handle it that well.
I can sometimes enjoy books written in first person by someone who is altogether unlikable, but the worst sin is being shallow and pretentious at the same time. If I wanted to read an autobiography, I'd rather read one by someone who either knows how to make the mundane entertaining or who has lived a life that's entertaining to read about. That's not this book.
The prose was fine. In most places it was serviceable and in others there were flashes of brilliance, but those were far too few. The length of time he spends on such vignettes as his interview with MTV or his time at Might Magazine was simply agonizing in how pathetic his pandering plea for attention was, and even though his smarmy self-awareness means he knows he's pandering, he does it anyway, all the while thinking he's being cute. It's not. It's just plain awful.
I can't say the book was bad because it really wasn't terribly written. But I couldn't honestly recommend this to anyone either.
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