Dave Eggers is the author of ten books, including most recently Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?, The Circle and A Hologram for the King, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern), and a monthly magazine, The Believer. McSweeney’s also publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country and ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization designed to connect students with resources, schools and donors to make college possible. He lives in Northern California with his family.
Dave Eggers is a terrifically talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story? For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:").
But on to the true story. At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labor, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters, and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing manically fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.)
The book is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Gen-X way, naturally). In the early '90s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park, and his own efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing doesn't age very well--but then, Eggers knows that. There's no criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A.H.W.O.S.G. already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting.
All this self-consciousness could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers's skill as a writer--and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story--that it doesn't. Currently the editor of the footnote-and-marginalia-intensive journal McSweeney's (the last issue featured an entire story by David Foster Wallace printed tinily on its spine), Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history--so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him. Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and--especially in its concluding pages--this memoir as metafiction is affecting beyond all rational explanation.
發表於2024-11-06
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
怪纔的荒誕與憂傷。作者很多描寫自己心理幻想的情節給我留下瞭深刻的印象。比如母親癌癥晚期快去世時,她幻想母親去世的情形,葬禮的情形。還有他和塔夫的兄弟之情,那是作為不成熟的爸爸和熱情的大哥的混閤體,他和塔夫的感情讓人嫉妒,兩個人天天在一起玩,他照顧塔夫,關心...
評分等瞭好久,等到中譯本。英文原本中,那些有趣的斜體字在中譯本中看不到。 最過分的是描述有刪減,作為一個譯者: 把人扔進一個巨大的硫酸罐裏,看著他們尖叫,慢慢融化(英文)vs最嚴厲的絞刑,臉色從硃紅變黑紫,再轉成淡紫(中文)。這兩種描述是不是譯者自由發揮的力度大瞭點?...
評分等瞭好久,等到中譯本。英文原本中,那些有趣的斜體字在中譯本中看不到。 最過分的是描述有刪減,作為一個譯者: 把人扔進一個巨大的硫酸罐裏,看著他們尖叫,慢慢融化(英文)vs最嚴厲的絞刑,臉色從硃紅變黑紫,再轉成淡紫(中文)。這兩種描述是不是譯者自由發揮的力度大瞭點?...
評分怪纔的荒誕與憂傷。作者很多描寫自己心理幻想的情節給我留下瞭深刻的印象。比如母親癌癥晚期快去世時,她幻想母親去世的情形,葬禮的情形。還有他和塔夫的兄弟之情,那是作為不成熟的爸爸和熱情的大哥的混閤體,他和塔夫的感情讓人嫉妒,兩個人天天在一起玩,他照顧塔夫,關心...
評分怪纔的荒誕與憂傷。作者很多描寫自己心理幻想的情節給我留下瞭深刻的印象。比如母親癌癥晚期快去世時,她幻想母親去世的情形,葬禮的情形。還有他和塔夫的兄弟之情,那是作為不成熟的爸爸和熱情的大哥的混閤體,他和塔夫的感情讓人嫉妒,兩個人天天在一起玩,他照顧塔夫,關心...
圖書標籤: 英文原版 Dave_Eggers 自傳小說 傳記 美國亞馬遜編輯推薦-100本人生必讀圖書清 小說 美國文學 神作
Work of a genius and weirdo, heartwarmingly funny and heart-wrenchingly sad.
評分Work of a genius and weirdo, heartwarmingly funny and heart-wrenchingly sad.
評分精彩紛呈,看完好想有個哥哥
評分some might not like the author's uneven writing style, especially when you're a post-modernist, he's a post-post-modernist that's why, I have always been a fan of his Best American Nonrequired Reading series, of his non-conventional reading recommendations, this one embarks my reading journey of his own funny and out-of-nowhere adventures
評分some might not like the author's uneven writing style, especially when you're a post-modernist, he's a post-post-modernist that's why, I have always been a fan of his Best American Nonrequired Reading series, of his non-conventional reading recommendations, this one embarks my reading journey of his own funny and out-of-nowhere adventures
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載