The problem with Dave Eggers
I have just finished The Every by Dave Eggers, the follow up to his 2013 novel The Circle.
The Every inhabits the same world as the earlier novel, but instead focusses on a new tech giant called The Every which is formed via the merger of The Circle and an eCommerce giant referred to only as ‘The Jungle’. As its name suggests - its reach is significant, it’s technology being used by nearly every person in every facet of society.
Just like The Circle, this book has at its core a set of clear warnings for the reader. A warning about what will happen to society should it cede control to big-tech. A warning about what happens when everything is measured and measurable. About what happens when nuance and subjectivity is attacked. A warning about what happens when free will is removed. It also asks, albeit implicitly, a very provocative question about whether a total removal of individual freedoms is the only effective way to stop climate change.
This is a book full of big, interesting ideas. But, sadly I found it to be a strangely dissatisfying novel - much in the same way I found The Circle dissastisfying.
It’s too long. It could take a 200 page haircut (though that would sadly require the loss of one of the stories better set pieces around how long a reader will concentrate for). Its ending is limp, though my suspicions are that it was aiming for a climax to rival that of its thematic antedecent 1984. Eggers struggles to make his dialogue sound natural and his characters feel two-dimensional. I didn’t come away caring about anyone in the story. Maybe that’s fine - and maybe that’s his intention. That the characters are, to paraphrase a quote I’ve read about Christopher Nolan, a cipher for the plot and nothing more.
Another novel by Eggers entitled Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is amongst the only books I’ve ever willingly left behind in a rental holiday home, adding it to the bookshelf alongside a copy of The Da Vinci Code, Barack Obama’s autobiography and a very very tatty copy of Atlas Shrugged. It infuriated me.
Why do I keep doing this to myself you might ask?
Because I think Eggers has brilliant ideas. Great, big challenging ideas. And, because of this, I’m always intrigued when he publishes a new novel. Despite the obvious anguish it seems to cause me. McSweeneys, the literary journal that he founded, is a thing of wonder. Each volume is a lovely artefact, full of brilliantly curated articles, essays and fiction. He is a brilliant thinker where literature and words are concerned, perhaps he’s just not the most talented writer. He writes in a functional way. A way where the words are a means of delivering the point he’s trying to make and not much else.
“Writing isn’t a conveyor belt bearing the reader to “the point” at the end of the piece, where the meaning will be revealed. Good writing is significant everywhere. Delightful everywhere.”
I have tried to get back into the habit of writing regularly. I have done this for a number of reasons. I enjoy it, it helps me work out what I think, but also I want to improve.
Eggers highlights a particular issue around artistic craft and what it takes to move from being merely good to being perceived as truly great. The threshold for true greatness lies beyond being incredibly imaginative or insightful. Similarly, being a fantastic technician is not enough either. You have to be both. When something is incredibly well crafted and furthers our understanding of what it means to be human, these are things that move us and stick with us. These are the things we hold onto for dear life.
