Dave Eggers
Paperback | Pages: 401 pages Rating: 3.63 | 27537 Users | 1636 Reviews
Present Books As You Shall Know Our Velocity!
| Original Title: | You Shall Know Our Velocity! |
| ISBN: | 1400033543 (ISBN13: 9781400033546) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Tallinn(Estonia) |
Commentary During Books You Shall Know Our Velocity!
I'm a little torn here, because I feel like I was supposed to like this book, so part of me wants to pretend that I didn't like it. It just seems so blatantly directed at exactly who I am, a late 20's person confused about what direction to take in life. It's like a movie where you know they are trying to make you cry, and you do cry, and then feel bad about it because you know that they played you like a fiddle.But as much as I'd like to resist it, I am a fiddle and this book played me. I identified very strongly with these characters, and this blind desire to keep moving, and have only important, true, enlightening experiences. This idea that every moment that you arent experiencing something new you are wasting your life....I know that isn't true, but I feel it too sometimes. And this book is a perfect summary and explanation of that feeling.
Plus it really goes to the core of how it feels to be a relatively priviledged person today, who knows that he should be trying to help less fortunate people, but has absolutely no idea how to really go about doing that. The idea of randomly handing money to people has a certain romantic charm, and Mr. Eggers walks a nice line between acknowledging that yes, it can be romantic and charming, and it can also be incredibly awkward and wrong.
A great book. Great.
Itemize Based On Books You Shall Know Our Velocity!
| Title | : | You Shall Know Our Velocity! |
| Author | : | Dave Eggers |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 401 pages |
| Published | : | July 1st 2003 by Vintage (first published September 1st 2002) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Novels. Travel. Contemporary |
Rating Based On Books You Shall Know Our Velocity!
Ratings: 3.63 From 27537 Users | 1636 ReviewsWrite-Up Based On Books You Shall Know Our Velocity!
I will start this by saying "I love Dave Eggers." My next thought is that his editor(s) all too often don't do him any favors. This thought is not my own - the credit goes to my friend Joanna who said it first - but this 400 page novel should have been maybe 250 pages. I thought the same was true for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. With that said, there was a lot (too much!) that I loved about this novel. My real complaint about the novel is that there was too much of it. I understandi love dave eggers. this is the main character describing how his mind works (he sits at a desk at the top of a grassy hill overlooking a meadow and stream, and the library is inside the hill and is staffed by little pale, oily, hairless people that look like moles):"And as much as I value the efficiency and professional elan of the library staff, I'd begun recently to worry about a new wrinkle in their procedures. For the most part, they're supposed to act on my requests when I make requests,
I heart Dave Eggers. This book is awesome, especially if you enjoy traveling in obscure countries and dissecting ridiculous adventures for meaning. Eggers' style is very sticky and his humor is right in my wheelhouse. I liked this book significantly more than "A Heartbreaking Work..." (which was a fun read nonetheless). Something about the fact that it's a true novel and not quite as self-indulgent and autobiographical.Anyway, I only feel slightly silly saying this is one of my favorite books.
Love the style of the prose, it is at times erudite and at times completely utterly batshit insane! I've only read about 20% so far and this is what I've gathered: Will, the protagonist and narrator posed for a light bulb advertisement (a silhouette of himself fixing a bulb while on a step ladder) by Leo Burnett and as payment for his services received a stock option in the light bulb company. In short he is 80K richer and hasn't figured out what to do with all the money also he got "the shit
Remember those intoxicated days of the the early 2000's financial boom? Positive thinking? Anything was possible? There would always be more money round the corner? Somehow you'd always get by?Or perhaps you weren't quite feeling it, and scoffed at this stuff like Billy Bragg dismissing a decade of glorious synthpop and silly clothes in one anti-Thatcher tirade. Though, on the basis of cosmic ordering infomercials featuring Noel Edmonds, and Kirsty and Phil's Pickfords porn, who could blame you?
Ive been reading You Shall Know Our Velocity (currently re-titled to Sacrament) for over a month. Usually, when school is out, and it is, I average about a week to a week and a half on any given book. I havent finished it and I must tell you, the problem isnt me. For once.Im half-way through the book and thus far, aside from traveling to a few countries and trying to tape money on goats (Im pretty sure it was goats), nothing has happened. I know that the main characters face is severely messed
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