Five things I didn't know about Dave Eggers

and apropos of nothing:

Vanessa Kensington: You know I meant, did you use a condom?
Austin Powers: No, only sailors wear condoms baby.
Vanessa Kensington: Not in the '90s Austin.
Austin Powers: Well they should, those filthy beggars. They go from port to port.

 

Nice quote from Gallo and yes, chessnuts are lazy.
You are also correct that "The Jump" is a reference to the opening section of ESPN the Magazine.

 

My mistake. Gotta get up on my ESPN the mag sections.

 

I agree, Alma, that YSKOV was a bore. I don't know if it was a total disappointment or failure, but it was boring, and I'm not sure what the point was. It had some nice moments in the beginning -- I particularly remember a scene where the main character and his buddy Hand are driving through Africa listening to Huey Lewis' "Do You Believe In Love" -- that I enjoyed immensely, but those moments were few and far between.

I don't think, in praising Eggers, anyone believes he's on the level with Fitzgerald or Oates. That's hardly fair. But think about Gatsby for a second, since you bring it up. It wasn't really considered anything special until five years after Fitzgerald was dead, which was 25 years after he published it. It sold something like 20,000 copies while he was alive, and he died penniless and drunk. It's hard to say what will be considered great thirty, forty years from now. I sort of wonder if there is some novel floating around that has been basically ingored that my kid's kids are going to be reading in English class, talking about how great it is.

What we're dealing with is a talented writer who, with his latest book, may have found a level of maturity that's going to produce great art for years to come. Instead of comparing him to someone like Fitzgerald or Oates, the most apt comparrison is someone like Zadie Smith, one of his friends and contemporaries. Both have produced one promising book, (HBWOSG and White Teeth), one stinker (YSKOV and Autograph Man) and one really good book (What is the What and On Beauty).

Zadie Smith said something in an interview awhile back that I thought was incredibly honest and brave. She said she knew she was talented, but that she also knew she wasn't talented enough to ever be considered one of the greats. That was a hard thing to accept, but in her heart, she knew it was true. I think the same thing is true of Eggers. He's not Scott Fitzgerald. He's not Philip Roth or Don Dellilo. He might not even be Jeffery Eugenidies. But he's certainly more interesting the Brett Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Donna Tartt or any of the previous generation's promising young writers.

 

DD, you're right on.

 

DD,

Eggers' work is nowhere near as good as Ellis' Less Than Zero. That book remains a study in focus. A lot like Didion, Nathaniel West.

I strongly doubt Velocity is considered anything several years from now, if only because critics don't look at books like that anymore. At any rate, Genius is an excellent, fun book, but very few univerisity non-fiction classes teach it or its virtues. They're still stuck on the abuse memoirs that gained traction in the 1980s and continue today.

Gatsby's greatness is, honestly, not immediately recognizable. You read it once, and think it's nice. Twice, it has layers. Five times, and it's greatest American book of the 20th century. One of its greatest virtues is that it's short; it doesn't need 500 pages, like The Corrections, to tell you about five people. Then again, I like An American Tragedy quite a lot.

 

Alma, we'll simply have to disgree on Ellis. I'd put HBWOSG and What is The What up against Less Than Zero and American Psycho any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I'm curious, because I have much respect for your opinion, who you think in Eggers' generation has the potential for literary transendence? You've expressed your reservations in the past about Franzen, and I have some of my own, but who out there has the potential to make the leap? What are your thoughts on Eugenidies? Or Michael Chabon? Or Zadie Smith? Or David Foster Wallace? Or Nicole Krauss? Or Jhumpa Lihiri? Eventually, someone is going to have to step up carry the torch, because Roth, Tim O'Brien, Tobias Wolff, John Updike, Toni Morrison, Didion, Oates, Thomas Pynchon, Dellilo, ect. are not getting any younger, and it seems obvious that Roth, Didion and Wolff are the only ones in that group continuing to produce stuff worthy of their talents. I'm certainly not counting on Jonathan Safran Foer to do it, nor, realistically, Eggers.

Certainly you must see some things you like from my generation of writers. There may not be a Fitzgerald, a Hemingway, a Nabakov, a Dressier or a Flannery O'Conner among them, but I refuse to believe the great American novel dies with Roth.

 

I ordered the new Eggers' book from Amazon a few days ago, selected Amazon Prime and it's sitll not supposed to get here until Nov. 17 to Nov. 27. I realize that Eggers distribution system might not be the best, but that's still pretty weak ...

 

That's too bad. You can get in stores right now. I read the first 100 pages last night.

 

DD,

Have you read any of Kiran Desai's work? She just won the Booker and is good.

 

I have not, but I will check her out. I'm always looking for good female writers. Love the different perspective.