A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Amazon.ca: Dave Eggers: Books

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First Sentence
THROUGH THE SMALL TALL BATHROOM WINDOW the December yard is gray and scratchy, the trees calligraphic. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

547 Reviews

5 star:		(214)
4 star:		(123)
3 star:		(80)
2 star:		(66)
1 star:		(64)

Average Customer Review

3.7 out of 5 stars (547 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars As the Title Implies, Jun 23 2003

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"bryan77a" (Cary, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Paperback)

Dave Eggers has put out a truly great work of art here. The story is very touching as Eggers does a wonderful job of bringing the reader right into the novel with vivid descriptions. At times the novel is profoundly sad. Contrastingly, it is hilarious. Honestly one of the funniest books I have ever read.
Listen, there are many great works of literature in the world, with their themes, symbols, and so on. This has that, but it is also incredibly fun to read. So do it.

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3.0 out of 5 stars a writer with a genius for self promotion, May 5 2003

By

Patricia Pelletier (Quebec , Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story (Hardcover)

You've got to give Dave Eggers this, if nothing else, he knows how to market himself. First he wrote this memoir, loaded with irony to appeal to Gen-Xers, continually self-referential to appeal to postmodernists, and centered around his efforts to raise his little brother after their parents both died of cancer, a sure chick magnet. Then, having exposed most of his and his family members' lives to public view (at least in theory) he adopted a Pynchonesque/Sallingeresque reclusive pose, and feigned personal agony at having to discuss the book. All this while cashing in big time on the supposedly "tragic" events of his life. For these savvy ploys alone he deserves to be called a "staggering genius."

The book itself uses a host of postmodernist, ironical, satirical, self-conscious, etc., etc., etc...techniques, which are rather hackneyed and, given the ostensible topic of the book (his family tragedy), quite off-putting.

At the point where every thought, emotion, and action in your life must be considered for how it will appear in print, you've become a fictional character rather than a real human being. And by creating so much distance between the character of Dave Eggers and the supposedly tragic events of his life, Eggers (the author) makes it really hard for the reader to care much. I finished the book unstaggered and heart unbroken, but grudgingly forced to admit that the literary world has a potential new genius, a writer with a genius for self promotion

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2.0 out of 5 stars I Think He Meant Stuttering Genius, May 9 2002

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Walter E. Hall (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Paperback)

The brilliant title notwithstanding, novelized autobiographies require something more interesting than the death of parents (barely etched at that) to make it interesting. At 22, the author pretends to know more and feel more than other less sexy mortals. The narcissism of this exercise becomes tiresome rather quickly. If Eggers were truly funny, he could have salvaged something. But Eggers is earnest, unflaggingly earnest, ironically earnest. While irony is a useful self-deflation device, Egger's overuse of it is instructive. If you need to mock your own work to defang critics, your issue is approval, not world-weary hipness. Readers might be better steered in the direction of Frederick Exley, whose similar novel/memoir A Fan's Notes is immensely and mordantly entertaining. But then Exley was writing outside the shadow of youth, and the tragedy of his failed expectations rings heroically true. Eggers needs to live a life before he starts writing about one.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars And no, you aren't the only orphan among us
Eggers' attitude towards the death of his parents reveals a typical sense of entitlement to others' immediate sympathy, sexual attention or admiration that comes with knowing... Read more

Published on Jun 5 2006 by Dawn Davenport

1.0 out of 5 stars So we get to read his dairy-
While I have to admire what Eggers has achieved, McSweeneys and all his other efforts, I find this book is simply a whiny self indulgent diary of a difficult period in his life... Read more

Published on Nov 17 2005