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Oakmont
Book
Group
The Oakmont Book
Group is comprised of students and teachers who meet regularly to discuss a
shared reading. The Group, through consensus, selects a book to read and
then meets over a pot-luck to discuss the book.
Our next Book Group
selection is
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by
Dave Eggers:
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Dave Eggers is a terrifically
talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make
of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius?
For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you
even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules
and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page
acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow
chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a
stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:").
But on to the
true story. At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a
"single mother" when his parents died within five months of one
another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of
labor, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old
brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor,
decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers
worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting
babysitters, and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings
between making his brother's upbringing manically fun and performing
bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea
of suitable |
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| bedtime
reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.)
The book is also, perhaps less
successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world
(in an ironic, media-savvy, Gen-X way, naturally). In the early
'90s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might
Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might,
the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park, and his own
efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing
doesn't age very well -- but then, Eggers knows that. There's no
criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A.H.W.O.S.G.
already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us
regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's
still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting.
All this self-consciousness
could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers' skill
as a writer -- and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story --
that it doesn't. Currently the editor of the
footnote-and-marginalia-intensive journal
McSweeney's (the last issue featured an entire story by
David Foster Wallace printed tinily on its spine), Eggers comes from
the most media-saturated generation in history -- so much so that he
can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt
for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just
Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him.
Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and --
especially in its concluding pages -- this memoir as metafiction is
affecting beyond all rational explanation. -- Mary Park for
Amazon.com |
For the
potluck/discussion, bring one of your favorite desserts to the Guidance
conference room on June 9 at 2:00 p.m. Questions? Check with Mr. Anderson.
Previous Book Group
Selections have included:
- The Golden Compass
- A Christmas Carol
- Carmilla
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- The History of
Love
- The Road
- Everything is
Illuminated
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- Under the Tuscan
Sun
- Frankenstein
- I am the
Messenger
- The Kite Runner
- The Dante Club
- Dracula
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All Oakmont students
and faculty are welcome to join the Book Group for enjoyable book discussion
and tasty food. For more information, please contact
Mr. Anderson.
Oakmont Library Home
May 13, 2008.
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