As I was doing my reading for this week, two particular passages stuck out to me. The first passage says "Flashbulbs of course, and the screaming of things, mostly things like We Love You Bill, because everyone does love him now, because he is in the Bay Area, and he is our man, he says things we believe and is so thrillingly articulate and he knows we love him and has come here to bask, in Berkeley even, at Chez Panisse, our town, our restaurant and here he is, to be adored and received and thanked and urged on. Because we are in Berkeley and the president is here we are, Toph and Kirsten and I- at the white-hot, center of the entire world and history to date."
The second passage says, "But Toph can't see, because suddenly some ugly rat bastard has shoved himself in front of us. It's unbelievable I want to push this gut over, want to throw him to one side. How could we wait for so long and be so devoted and ready, only to have this round-backed asshole devour our chance for an audience with Bill?"
In the first passage he is so happy and so excited to see the president in his town, but then in the next paragraph he is so angry and wants to beat someone up. His mood always changes so quickly. He can be happy and then instantly sad or mad or just ranting on about different things. These mood changes make the reader feel like they are in Eggers mind. Eggers writes what ever he is thinking in that moment, and that's why his mood changes all the time. The way he changes his tone in these two passages reminds me of when I get into a big crowd. At first your like "This is awesome! There's so many people!" And then the crowd starts to get bigger and it gets hotter and people start pushing you, and then you get angry. That's what's happening here. At first he is so excited that the president is there and then he's mad because Toph was pushed out of the way. These passages show a constant stream of thought as the crowd gets larger. The tone changing keeps the thoughts moving and really shows what Eggers was thinking at that time.
This volatility seems to be one of the main topics of the book.
ReplyDeleteVolatility of youth + volatility of grief.
We do seem to be getting a kind of immediacy in the writing, but we know that that's generated by drafts and drafts, by revision and polishing.
There are ways in which we create that sense that what we're writing is emerging organically. It's hard. Sometimes we're too close to something to write about it in that way, but once we have some space, we can put ourselves back into the intensity of the moment while also having some perspective.
The writer Thomas Larson discusses these kinds of "Sudden Memoirs"--yesterday's events that we're writing about now--and says of Eggers, "He gets sucked back into the past as he writes about it."
He also says, though, that this writing doesn't feel as though it's being "jotted down" as it happens. So, there might be a difference. We feel like we're in his head, but it's also pretty clearly communicated, so we don't sense that we're getting a full stream-of-consciousness, which would include bizarro thoughts about laundry and song lyrics and all that.
This is a filtered stream, if you'll allow the metaphor!
Anyway, good post!
DW
I agree with Dave here. I think the Eggers does write in a kind of filtered stream of consciousness. It is real, it seems at first the he's just jotting id down immediately but if you think of most of his passages they are somewhat reflective while at the same they seem to just be raw emotion. I think this is attributed to what Dave quoted from Thomas Larson, "he gets sucked back into the past." I think that he is thinking about how it should be written, the structure, yet he is also fully involved in the scene he writes in order to give us such emotion.
ReplyDeleteI guess a lot of Eggers' style is building up situations and emotions and then narrating as things crash around him. Ecstasy flanked by agony. The book, and eggers' life, is an emotional rollercoaster so it makes sense that he presents in this whirlwind way.
ReplyDeleteThis passage also gets at Eggers living vicariously through Toph at times. Just like we talked about in class yesterday, it would be awesome to have a photo of you watching Reagan's inauguration as a baby or an autograph of Jimmy Stewart that your dad had. This is similar: Eggers can see just fine, but he wishes that he had a memory of meeting the president as a little kid. I don't mean to say that Eggers is being selfish, but the book definitely deals with unavoidable vicariousness, especially considering Eggers is raising his brother.
ReplyDelete