Thursday, March 14, 2013
Eggers comparison
pp 90. "So we usually eat on the coffee table. If the coffee table is beyond clearing, we eat on the family room floor. If the family room floor is covered with plates from the night before, we eat on my bed." (and the half-page leading up to this)
pp 178 "We do not know why he wants to do this, to get in a car with four strangers and run naked on a beach and be photographed doing it, and come to think of it, we do not want to know."
Both of these are weird and funny predicaments that Eggers ends up in, and they show a sort of incompetence that he uses to undercut his anger at being criticized for being inept (or actually being inept). In the first, Eggers is unable to serve a meal on the main table because of the ping-pong net sawing it in half. Of course it's far too much effort to unhook one side, walk a few steps, and repeat. Why do that when there's so much room in other spaces. You know you're living when you recline and dine sprawled on memory foam. The Romans ate while relaxing, and they did some good shit, so it's clearly part of Eggers' desire to impart culture onto Toph, and not because he's lazy as hell.
Likewise, as the nude photoshoot idea is deflating in a kind of freefall of expectation, Eggers gets what he wants in a willing participant. But on further rumination, is that what he really wants, this weirdo? I think it's a really funny spot to kind of backtrack and make a joke about this Prince-Albert clad enthusiastic exhibitionist. I just had the urge to use lol at the end of the last line, then realized that doing so would eliminate the modicum of academic respect we're still trying to preserve. Close call though, in all honesty.
So both of these passages are in a similar style, kind of plain writing in covering a clearly funny premise. Overindulging in language would negate the humor, so Eggers reigns in the length and allows the funny to roam free. Considering most of his style is verbose eccentricity, this shift allows the humor to shine through and made both of these moments stand out amidst a sea of hyper neurosis.
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Great final thrust. I wonder, specifically, how he's writing in a plain way, or in an insurance-salesman kind of drone about absurdity.
ReplyDeleteI think in the first passage it's a small kind of irony--the repetition of the phrases laying out the process, as if such a small, domestic thing deserves almost-legal diction. In the second, it seems as simple as "do not" instead of don't. He's choosing to write somewhat robotically about an insane moment of his life, therefore letting "the funny roam free."
In most cases, we know how to do these things without thinking about them consciously. But in revision, this is the sort of stuff we can add in.
Is the way Matt's characterizing Eggers's stance here similar to how you're all seeing it? Could it also be argued that he's unsuccessfully flat--and relying too much on persona tricks--when he should be trying to evoke the bizareness of a situation with more careful images and some slow, essayistic commentary?
I agree with Matt in this instance. I think that Eggers can be quite over the top and this passage is flatter but I wouldn't call it unsuccessful at all. I think it does, as Matt suggests, lets the funny shine. We all know Eggers could do something differently here but I like what he decided to do and I think the flatness of the situations (more so the first) allows for the humor to show but not overwhelm-- I think it reflects that the whole dining situation is just kind of a silly daily thing- a daily chuckle, if that makes any sense.
ReplyDeleteEggers' good use of humor aside astounding emotion and energy is what makes his memoir stand out. Matt, you did a fine job pointing this out. I also appreciate that in your analysis of the passages, you mimic the very thing you're talking about: "The Romans ate while relaxing, and they did some good shit, so it's clearly part of Eggers' desire to impart culture onto Toph, and not because he's lazy as hell."
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