A staggering work

I see why Dave Egger's "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" has been referred to as "manic-depressive." Bouncing from highs to lows, spun off in a story-telling style that is as intelligent, manipulative and melancholy as it is humorous, Egger's memoir drained me. His "unusual approach" to recounting a specific time period of his life works well because his life was as quirky and unusual as the story (ies) he tells in the book. Eggers' life as a publishing entrepreneur is particularly well-suited to the techniques he uses because these same techniques are used in McSweeney's, his magazine; they are also the same sorts of techniques Gen X grew up on-- sarcasm, self-deprecating humor, indifference, melancholia and depression.

This is not to say any other generation has lacked these traits, it's just to say that many times Gen-X is associated with popularizing these things and making them "cool." What Eggers has done is combined these personality devices and characterizations and figured out a way to put them on paper that remains true to the essence of his young adulthood.

In much the same way Gen X and the dot.com/publishing bubble of the 90s revolutionized those sectors, Eggers injected a particularly clever degree of snark and entertainment into the publishing industry and the memoir genre. Although I am not a fan of Eggers and felt that the ending of the story could have come much sooner, I do believe his ability to craft something from the resources around him and capture a whole time period (and life, in Topher's case) and societal mood speaks volumes to his ability to create and do so as an original. In setting up "Heartbreaking Work" as he did, he's subtly infusing the story with several elements of his life that made him him, elements that contribute(d) to his story.

Personally, I don't like to sustain humor in my writing. I like a turn of phrase, a witty bit of dialogue, a bit of snark, but I'm not the kind of person who writes to entertain in the same way Eggers has in this piece. I feel like self-deprecating/dark humor, while entertaining, is indicative of a deeper problem within the humorists life and a reliance upon passive/aggressiveness to get attention. I'm talking real-life people, not just authors-- so this kind of humor/voice is something I am wary and distrustful of when I encounter it in any form.

For Eggers, however, I think his book reached people, precisely because so many people rely on these attitudes to get by in our society. For example, say a co-worker is having a bad day. Instead of saying he wants to talk about it, he might begin cracking jokes about how much of an idiot he is, or how much he wants to take the boss out and beat him up. On their face, these things may be funny in their presentation, but underneath the words, there's a desire to connect (in the first case) and a malicious need for attention (in the latter). Colleagues laugh and perhaps join in on the ribbing, not knowing what else to do, and everyone leaves the table bewildered about the social interaction that just went on. So, regarding Eggers... I read "Heartbreaking Work" in rapture about 1/3 of the way through, then gave up on because it began to alienate me, not help me see anything new and endearing about the human condition.