Bo's review
How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers
This collection is more straight forward, simple, and 'literary' than Eggers' first two, which, no matter how intensely i intermittedly liked them, always seemed sort of flawed in their intent. Like 'You Shall Know...', he often writes here about the intersection of world politics & morality that happen in his young, naive, and occasionally selfish idealists. But this use of issues & 'hot topics' doesn't come off as gimmicky or opportunistic. The effect is that the stories are all the more powerful and affecting, because few others are writing fiction that is as alive, relevent, and restless as he is now. A story like "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" articulates some of the profound and uncomfortable hierarchies that rank the importance of human life in a global world, with fluid borders.... The moral of this story and of others' here may seem obvious at first glance, or without Eggers' attention and care, but he's writing about real and important things, and ...more
