http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/magazine/dave-eggers-fiction.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10356248/The-Circle-by-Dave-Eggers-exclusive-extract.html
What is the greatest threat to our freedom today?
Our feeling that we’re entitled to know anything we want about anyone we want.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/10356543/Dave-Eggers-interview.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2013/11/03/google-wants-the-governments-data-on-you/
― Milton Parker, Monday, 4 November 2013 19:36 (eleven years ago)
This looks bad. It probably is bad. It is written by Dave Eggers.
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 19:42 (eleven years ago)
I'm always wary when 'literary' authors take diversions into SFish concepts. There are plenty of dedicated SF authors who write very well, why would I read something by a moonlighting 'proper' writer instead of them?
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Monday, 4 November 2013 19:47 (eleven years ago)
Guys, this is a book by Dave Eggers.
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 19:49 (eleven years ago)
margaret atwood liked it: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/21/eggers-circle-when-privacy-is-theft
― mookieproof, Monday, 4 November 2013 19:49 (eleven years ago)
I basically loved every last exaggerated, overdone caricature and untenable speech in this book. Even at the end, when the setups for the metaphors become so topheavy and mechanistic that you can't believe the whole thing isn't falling over, you take them in and realize that's exactly the only thing that could have happened. It's common wisdom now that the one thing Orwell quite predicted was our complicity, that we'd gleefully be turning the cameras on ourselves. This book manages that update beautifully.
It's getting pushed so hard (NYT Magazine using an excerpt from a fiction book for its cover story is kind of crazy) that it's a natural reaction to want to hate it, and there's no shortage of online backlash pieces. It's tempting to arm yourself with those before reading it, but they've all got pithy, derisive plot spoilers cynically designed to spoil everyone's experience, so I invite you to be wary of things like that Wired piece ("What the Internet Looks Like if You Don’t Understand It").
Haven't read anything by Eggers since the very early daily posts of the McSweeney's website. Haven't made it past his book titles, frankly, so I can't tell you whether or not he's reformed the tendencies that bug people (all the other ILX threads on him are hatefests). But as a fan of the most paranoid era of 1970's conspiracy / science fiction filmmaking, there's no way I wasn't going to read this, and probably no way I wasn't going to love it either.
― Milton Parker, Monday, 4 November 2013 19:59 (eleven years ago)
the excerpt reminds me a little of tom wolfe. who i also hate.
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 20:12 (eleven years ago)
that atwood review is lol terrible. half of it is on some undergrad name analysis shit, cmon lady.
― adam, Monday, 4 November 2013 20:28 (eleven years ago)
the nonstop hatefests are weird to me. you shall know our velocity wasn't very good but all of his other books are very good.
― akm, Monday, 4 November 2013 20:29 (eleven years ago)
Isn't Atwood also best known for writing a sophomoric dystopia?
I never actually read her so I'm kinda trolling here.
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 21:08 (eleven years ago)
she is best known for that book (which is good) and also some other books (which are good)
― akm, Monday, 4 November 2013 21:12 (eleven years ago)
I liked some of the ideas in Oryx and Crake but found the actual execution irritating.
never read a word of Dave Eggers.
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 4 November 2013 21:19 (eleven years ago)
about equally entertained and irritated by a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but thought it wound up less than the sum of its quirks. plus too self-congratulatory by half. read most of a collection of his short stories a couple years back. some quite good ("up a mountain coming down slowly"), some annoying. haven't been tempted to return.
― pervilege as a meme (contenderizer), Monday, 4 November 2013 22:26 (eleven years ago)
he's always a lot more obvious and less original than he thinks he is being. I guess he has a knack for very easily and digestibly spelling out the zeitgeist.
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 23:24 (eleven years ago)
and also, just look at his douchey facehttp://assets.nybooks.com/media/photo/2013/10/30/atwood_1-112113.jpg
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 23:25 (eleven years ago)
his store on Valencia does good stuff, I'll give him that
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 4 November 2013 23:27 (eleven years ago)
"Yeah, I'm not even gonna shave for my author photo. Not even gonna trim my fugly, can't-grow-a-beard Wooly Willy facial hair."
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, 4 November 2013 23:27 (eleven years ago)
hurting you almost made me snork hot tea
― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 5 November 2013 00:26 (eleven years ago)
discount franco
― pervilege as a meme (contenderizer), Tuesday, 5 November 2013 00:30 (eleven years ago)
apropos of nothing, the title dude in zeitoun is a recurring character in new orleans local news as he like, tries to hire people to kill his wife whom he beats in public.
― adam, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 04:52 (eleven years ago)
i dont dislike eggers but this goes p badly off the rails in the last 1/4 or so; the inevitable film will be really dreadful, its p impossible to see it any other way
― johnny crunch, Monday, 11 November 2013 23:32 (eleven years ago)
the ny times mag excerpts are, smartly, prob the best sections of the entire book imo
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 12 November 2013 00:03 (eleven years ago)
Posted: November 4, 2013 at 10:26:22 PMabout equally entertained and irritated by a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but thought it wound up less than the sum of its quirks. plus too self-congratulatory by half. read most of a collection of his short stories a couple years back. some quite good ("up a mountain coming down slowly"), some annoying. haven't been tempted to return.
Can I just say LOL at criticizing a book titled "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" for being too self-congratulatory
― Immediate Follower (NA), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 01:24 (eleven years ago)
It's common wisdom now that the one thing Orwell quite predicted was our complicity, that we'd gleefully be turning the cameras on ourselves. This book manages that update beautifully.
I"ll go along with this. Really enjoyed it.
― the one where, as balls alludes (Eazy), Saturday, 16 August 2014 10:56 (ten years ago)
I haven't read a book in like 5 years. It would be funny if this was the one I decided to read.
― Jeff, Saturday, 16 August 2014 11:10 (ten years ago)
i hated this book. #1 source of loathing: how eggers made the 'go along to get along' protagonist a dumb WOMAN who had zero identity of her own
― maura, Saturday, 16 August 2014 18:18 (ten years ago)
lol yeah basically she just wanted to get fucked hard by a completely anonymous bot, right.
― Ludo, Saturday, 16 August 2014 19:38 (ten years ago)
My mother read this and the first-person depiction of the female lead was a deal-breaker for her as well. She asked me if i actually knew anyone here in san francisco who was that disgustingly shallow, because she took it personally as a gender insult. As I read the book, there was plenty of mortifying misanthropy to go around but as its all told from the inside of her head, I understand how the fact that she's a vile cartoon keeps the contempt framed on her.
So that did reframe my opinion of the book a bit after that conversation, though my answer to my mom about whether or not people like that actually existed in san francisco was that valencia street sure has changed a lot in the last four years
― Milton Parker, Saturday, 16 August 2014 20:18 (ten years ago)
I haven't read this yet but yeah, that type is practically the majority in the bay area these days (both sexes)
― akm, Monday, 18 August 2014 14:41 (ten years ago)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(2016_film)
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 29 September 2015 20:14 (nine years ago)
first book to literally jump the shark
― Vic Perry, Tuesday, 29 September 2015 20:17 (nine years ago)