It's not that I don't like this book - I like it just fine. When I finish reading it, I'll feel satisfied, and within a month or two I'll look back on this thing with fond memories of the adventures I traveled with the book's main character. But...
For now, I'm exhausted.
This isn't the first time I've felt this way. There is a certain writing style that just wears me out - it's that McSweeney's/Dave Eggers/Jonathan Safran Foer, high-energy, somewhat-gimmicky, uber-creative, totally-unique, nothing-is-happening-in-this-entire-book-but-the-writing-is-really-snappy-and-fast sort of style, and the funny thing is: The path-to-exhaustion always passes the same landmarks when I read such a book.
I'm currently camped at Landmark Three with this one.
Landmark One: If Only I Could Also...
When I first start in on a book like this, I feel enraptured and enlivened by the let-loose style. I think, "Man. I wish I wrote like this. I wish my style was totally different from what my style is. I wish..."
In fact, a couple years ago I started a manuscript while reading a Dave Eggers book. I decided to experiment with his style of writing, even though it wasn't me. I wrote about 20,000 words before I got sick of it. I went back and read it recently, and - for first-draft writing - it was really very good. Except...If I had written a complete manuscript like that, I would never have been able to read through it a second time.
Landmark Two: How Much Longer?
Usually, this question pops up by about Page 73. I flip to the back of the book and check to see what page the book ends on - which is unnecessary, because I already check this before I begin reading any book. I don't know, maybe I think the ending will have done me a favor and moved forward a couple pages. Usually, it hasn't.
Landmark Three: I Don't Know If I Can!
This usually starts on about Page 79. I start thinking there is no way I can finish this book. I think that every time I pick up the book, and I think it with each new section I finish reading. Sometimes I set the book down in the middle of a section and leave it alone for two days and then pick it up and keep reading right where I left off as if I never set it down in the first place.
Landmark Four: What Else Have They Written?
I did this with Jonathan Safran Foer after I finished reading Everything Is Illuminated (later picking up Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close), and I did it with Dave Eggers after I finished reading A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (later picking up And You Shall Know Our Velocity!). Reif Larsen has not yet published a second novel, but in an interview with the New York Times, he said this of his work in progress:
"This one’s more of a Balkan-Congo thriller with some Norse saga thrown in for good measure. The protagonist is a telegraph operator from New Jersey who’s got some family issues — he starts chasing this underground society of puppeteers that perform surrealist shows about particle physics for populations under siege."
Sounds like something I'll hate by the start of the third chapter. I'm sure I'll buy a copy.
Landmark Five: This Looks Familiar...
Yup. Back to the beginning...
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