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Title: You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers ISBN: 1-4000-3354-3 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.66 (87 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must-Read -- Or at least Pretty Darn Good.
Comment: You Shall Know Our Velocity is Dave Eggers' follow-up to his Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius from 2000. While I really liked his first book, it seemed to get rather mixed reviews. A lot of people whined about how "self-obsessed" he was, and how it was "just about his life," but come on, it was basically a MEMOIR, that was the POINT, what do you WANT him to talk about. Still though, I can sort of see what they're saying. Some people want books to be more plot-driven, and I guess if that's what you like then, yeah, you probably thought Genius sucked. What I loved about it though is how, through the book, you felt like you really knew Dave. He's got this great, easy, first-person style that makes it feel like he's talking directly to you. He's also totally hilarious, and occasionally has these moments of, just, total brilliance that make you cry and admit that, yes, he is a genius.
So anyway, I think You Shall Know Our Velocity might have slightly more widespread appeal than Genius did. It has a little bit more of a plot at least, it's not openly just Dave talking about his life. He keeps the extremely personal first-person technique though, and you get the feeling that a lot of the stuff he's writing about is again coming straight from his own life. The main characters are two best friends, Will and Hand, who are trying to come to terms with the recent death of their other best friend, Jack. Will, THE main character, the one telling the story, also has a lot of money he doesn't know what to do with. He has the idea that getting rid of all the money, giving it away to strangers, will have some kind of cleansing effect - get rid of the misplaced guilt he feels for Jack's death, make him understand things better. So he embarks on a one-week trip around the world with Hand, planning to give away $30,000 by handing out treasure maps and taping cash to donkeys.
I can't really explain why I like this book so much. It's like - you know how you want all your friends to write books? How their postcards and stories on the internet and notes taped to your door are great, but what you would really love is for everybody to write long, awesome, incredible BOOKS? That's what this book is like. You don't actually KNOW Will/Eggers, but it doesn't matter. He's constantly having these ideas ridiculously similar to ideas I've always had and doing things I've always wanted to do, and his writing style is just so personal, that you feel like you know this guy, that he's your best friend.
Staggering Genius was incredibly sad at times, and someone told me that Velocity left them terribly depressed, so I was sort of worried about reading it. The book focuses a lot on death, so it IS pretty paranoid and depressing at times, but I thought that as a whole it was actually pretty, um, "uplifting", though not at all in a corny or roll-your-eyes kind of way.
I would recommend this book to basically anyone who likes to read (and if you don't I hate you). It's hilarious but not stupidly and obviously so, and is also very moving at times. An all-around great book. Two other quick Amazon picks, both lesser-known, are: [email protected] by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating: 3
Summary: Darn Fine Writer; Pretty Decent Book
Comment: This is no question in this reader's mind that Dave Eggers is a talented and engaging writer. There are sections of this book, as there were in AHWOSG, that are amazingly conceived and executed, as perfectly written as anything I've read. When I get to one of those sections -- be it a paragraph or 20 pages -- I feel like I'm in the story, it's so personal and sincere. However, and with Eggers there always seems to be a however, there aren't enough of those sections to overcome an only better than average plot and really "bad" editing to lift this book into 4 or 5 star territory.
Still, I happy to admit I did enjoy this book. The characters are consistent and truly imagined. The self-doubt and confusion of Will is easy to understand, though his inner conversations tended to get on my nerves a little bit and parts of this internal dialogue tended toward preachy. The fact that it literally took mne around the world is worth something too.
Go ahead and read this book. It's worth it. Just be prepared to find a lot of typos, bad pagination, etc. I suppose those are the perils of self-publishing, but they do detract from an otherwise well-done novel.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gooey . . . but in a good way
Comment: I think the thing that is most impressive about Dave Eggers writing is that you can read a paragraph at a time, and you never really lose the feeling of the work. YSKOV is like that. I read it over the course of several months, literally stealing a few minutes everyday to read a couple of lines. The plot, which is more literary device than driving force in this book, just oozes along as you dive into the psyches of the two main characters.
It's like reading 'Ulysses' . . . if you go too fast, you get lost. And just when you think you can't go any further, Eggers gives you a Monty Python "...and now for something completely different" section to give your aching synapses a breather before heading back into the fray.
On the whole, an excellent book, especially if as a reader you don't mind if plot is secondary to experience. If you'd rather read a book than feel it, try 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' first. In short: great book, rough read.
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Title: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers ISBN: 0375725784 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 13 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 (Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2002) by Dave Eggers, Michael Cart ISBN: 0618246940 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 (Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2003) by Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith ISBN: 0618246967 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Vintage Contemporaries Original) by Michael Chabon ISBN: 140003339X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Everything Is Illuminated : A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer ISBN: 0060529709 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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