Post-modern irony.

Summer is here, and for some reason, I feel the need to devour novels like I did before I entered college. I'm catching up on past NY Times bestsellers. Currently, I'm working on The Corrections, and I just finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The list of books I'm interested in keeps expanding - Middlesex, Assasination Vacation, Gravity's Rainbow, Running With Scissors, Naked... A Long Way Down looks awfully promising. And I still have yet to read Catcher in the Rye. Who knows when I'll actually get to The Da Vinci Code? (not going to bother with a url tag for that one)

Anyways, the jury is still out The Corrections. Recently, I've been trying to withold judgment on a body of work until I'm done with it, but so far, I find it difficult to empathize with these characters. Yeah, yeah, Mom's real overbearing, Dad's going crazy, my life's a mess, yadda, yadda, while I just want to scream, get over it! Everyone's family is judgmental, crazy and overbearing. I've learned if you just shut up and let them talk about whatever they want, you can go home, laugh about it, and everyone's happy. Note: this only applies if you don't live with or in the same geographic area as one's parents, or no horrific family trauma has occurred. If not, my apologies. The children in The Corrections live on the East Coast though, and the parents live in the Midwest. Keep in mind that I'm only done with about a third of the book. My opinion will probably change.

A.H.W.O.S.G. (as it's known by its author, Dave Eggers) is a memoir that is indeed heartbreaking, staggering and perhaps even genius. It captures a certain zeitgeist about being in your twenties during the nineties in the Bay Area, while detailing grief over parental loss, as well as the joys and stresses of parenthood. The book's nonlinear stream-of-consciousness narrative is often smugly self-referential, but because Eggers can be self-deprecating, hilarious and nakedly genuine, he can been forgiven. Zack often complains that irony is overused nowadays. I think that for the most part, he's right. But when used properly as a literary device, it can be extremely effective. The book's first chapter, for example, begins with his beloved mother's last trip to the hospital as she's dying of stomach cancer on New Year's Eve. Eggers doesn't try to gloss over the ugliness of the disease, nor does he oversentimentalize the experience. The next chapter begins with Eggers coaching his little 8-year old brother, of whom he's assumed parental duties over, to sing Journey as they drive along the 101. The contrast makes Eggers' grief over his mother's death all the more powerful, while highlighting his use of wit and irony as a tool to deal with the tragedy that has befallen his family.

How very postmodern. I highly recommend this book. I have passed it on to Zack. If you haven't read it yet, you can borrow it after Zack's done.