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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

You Shall Know Our Velocity - Dave Eggers

Jawsus-son Starship

14:58 / 18.02.06

How can we not have ever talked about this book? Surely to goodness this can only be an oversight, not some vast, far reaching conspiracy to rid the 'Lith of the McSweeney clan? Or is it just that you read it and it left you cold?

matthew.

01:49 / 19.02.06

Well, Heartbreaking Work or whatever, left me really really cold. I hated it. I hated it with every fibre of my bean. So I avoided this book. But maybe it's different? Is it?

Jawsus-son Starship

08:00 / 19.02.06

well, if you hated Hearbreking ... then you'll probably hate this. But why?

Feverfew

17:17 / 19.02.06

I enjoyed this when I read it, I seem to remember.

However, it's not so memorable that it immediately stands up and reminds me of why I should read it again.

If I can find my copy, I'll re-read and re-post.

matthew.

23:01 / 19.02.06

I thought I would like the playfulness of the narrative, but it drove me nuts. I keep yelling at the book, "I know you're clever. Fucking move on. I get it."

matsya

23:25 / 19.02.06

Heartbreaking got too caught up in the self-analysis of Eggers' grief, and the self-awareness of that self-analysis, while offering this metatextuality and his difficult life-circumstances as an excuse for his bad behaviour and self-indulgent jags. There was no sense of progressing beyond this spiral, which made it a much less interesting read than his obvious intelligence and playfulness as a writer promised. So for me it was the size of the let-down that caused my disappointment as much as what actually was in the book.

So I didn't go anywhere near Velocity. Sounded to me like it was too much a bit same-same with slightly less autobio in it.

But having said that, why do people think Velocity is worth reading?

Jawsus-son Starship

09:10 / 20.02.06

At it's best it's crazy good, dangerously good. And then at toher times it's so forced and feels like it could getr really bad any scond. And then it gets good again.

lonely as a cloud...

10:36 / 20.02.06

Although I enjoyed Heartbreaking..., I really didn't enjoy Velocity too much. The idea that the main character was going to die soon after the end of the book kinda put me off for some reason, and most of their travels seemed very banal to me.

Baz Auckland

12:58 / 20.02.06

I really enjoyed Velocity, but I think it was for really personal reasons... the book in general I wasn't that impressed with, but there were two sections that made it an amazing book for me.

SPOILERS?

The first was when they were swimming in Senegal with that lady who went on about the 4th world, and the people without roots perpetually travelling, and the second was when they were in Estonia and Hand told the story of the Jumping People. For some reason those sections really struck something in me.

I noticed that in the paperback edition, Eggers changed some parts, but I haven't been able to re-read it to see if anything's different. I did see that in the hardcover, the last words 'I lived! I lived!' whereas in the paperback he changed them to 'I lived. I lived.' I much prefer the original version...

ShadowSax

17:34 / 20.02.06

i read a chapter from "velocity" that was published in the new yorker, after enjoying the first 3rd of "heartbreaking" and then reading the rest of it despite the high degree of confounding, frustrating and spiraling suckiness in the last 2 3rds. the chapter of "velocity" that i read in the new yorker was unreadable and made me remember the way i felt after reading an advance chapter of foer's first book in the new yorker, which was mild enjoyment then stunned confusion after finding out that he had written an entire book in that oh so clever and thoroughly inane narrative style.

clever is cute, unless it's hiding a cheap inability to express a complete and original idea, in which case it becomes less cute and becomes unreadable. clever should never be used as cute anyway, it should advance the plot.

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