Taka's review
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
Boy, you nailed it!
I did enjoy reading this "somewhat" autobiographical novel, but it was definitely a bit of a ramble. I think Eggers was 'trying too hard' to be experimental and edgy. He was trying to piece together a jigsaw pattern of events(real or imagined?)while attempting to create a cohesive theme. He succeeded at times, failed at others.
It was way overhyped... he hasn't met with the same critical applause since.
Still, I enjoyed it overall.
However, after reading your review, I felt compelled to downgrade my original rating from 4 to 3 stars!
ahaha, thanks for the comment. Glad you liked it and made your rating for this overrated book drop :-P
I still don't get why it was bruited so much and billed like it was really a work of staggering genius when in fact it wasn't at all (maybe they just believed the title?), given its just-above-average contents. I really thought after reading it that all the reviews in the book and on the back cover are so wide of mark that it was quite nonplussing.
Taka's review
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Taka's review
rating:
bookshelves:
japan_jul07-present,
post-modern_lit
More like 2.5--
Dave Eggers has a unique, experimental style in the spirit of modernism cast in simple, colloquial language quite reminiscent of David Foster Wallace. There are definitely very funny parts, and some of the scenes and episodes are interesting and beautiful, but overall, I felt it to be, as the author admits on the first page, "kind of uneven." I really didn't care all that much for many of the episodes (esp. the Real World interview part), and didn't know what to make of them because most of them are disconnected and lack cohesion. While it was interesting, easy to read, funny and ridiculous at times, I wouldn't say, as The New York Times Book Review has it, "Exhilarating ... Profoundly moving." As a matter of fact, I wasn't really affected, much less profoundly moved, by the narrator's plight.
A reviewer says that this criticism about the unevenness of the book is already included in the book and yet he still manages to make it interesting. But...more
Dave Eggers has a unique, experimental style in the spirit of modernism cast in simple, colloquial language quite reminiscent of David Foster Wallace. There are definitely very funny parts, and some of the scenes and episodes are interesting and beautiful, but overall, I felt it to be, as the author admits on the first page, "kind of uneven." I really didn't care all that much for many of the episodes (esp. the Real World interview part), and didn't know what to make of them because most of them are disconnected and lack cohesion. While it was interesting, easy to read, funny and ridiculous at times, I wouldn't say, as The New York Times Book Review has it, "Exhilarating ... Profoundly moving." As a matter of fact, I wasn't really affected, much less profoundly moved, by the narrator's plight.
A reviewer says that this criticism about the unevenness of the book is already included in the book and yet he still manages to make it interesting. But...more
Boy, you nailed it!
I did enjoy reading this "somewhat" autobiographical novel, but it was definitely a bit of a ramble. I think Eggers was 'trying too hard' to be experimental and edgy. He was trying to piece together a jigsaw pattern of events(real or imagined?)while attempting to create a cohesive theme. He succeeded at times, failed at others.
It was way overhyped... he hasn't met with the same critical applause since.
Still, I enjoyed it overall.
However, after reading your review, I felt compelled to downgrade my original rating from 4 to 3 stars!
ahaha, thanks for the comment. Glad you liked it and made your rating for this overrated book drop :-P
I still don't get why it was bruited so much and billed like it was really a work of staggering genius when in fact it wasn't at all (maybe they just believed the title?), given its just-above-average contents. I really thought after reading it that all the reviews in the book and on the back cover are so wide of mark that it was quite nonplussing.