(dave e): epistolary back-and-forth

August 13, 2003

epistolary back-and-forth

possibly much later than most, i just found gabe hudson's dear mr. president letters project at mcsweeney's.

i could spend all day reading those.

one thing i notice, though, is the collective rush to write like dave eggers that is evident all over mcsweeney's. not just in these letters; many of them are not at all egger-ish. i love eggers' style (although i was less taken with you shall know our velocity than with his a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, which is my favorite memoir), and in all fairness, i'm not really a regular mcsweeny's reader (and even if i were, it would be nary impossible to cover all the material they publish). but it's kind of lame to see everyone imitating so unsubtly. i don't know what you call the style... it's sort of victorian flourish meets heartland pragmatism meets 1890s advertising copy meets CAN-YOU-TELL-THAT-I'M-BEING-IRONIC?! knowingness.

but, like i said, i could spend all day reading those letters.

i think i'm using parentheses too much.

dang it. that last thing, the "i think i'm using parentheses too much" sentence... that's a faux dave eggers move. a silly and artificial flourish, too self-aware for its own good. funny to the author, no doubt, but almost as bad as writing that includes its own criticism, just like this little diatribe. f***ing contagious. sheesh.

Posted by dave at August 13, 2003 1:11 PM | TrackBack

Comments

With all due respect to postmodern irony, I think that a certain Tristram Shandy -slash- Laurence Sterne made said self-conscious narration a personal hobbyhorse long before young Eggers was a twinkle. If you know what I mean...

And having known you prior to Mr. Egg's Staggering, I can quite assure you that your mastery of self-awareness precedes your knowledge of said work. Which is why I could spend all day reading (dave e).

Posted by: Jason at August 13, 2003 1:25 PM | Permalink to Comment

aw, shucks... whatever i can do to make this blog better for you, j, you just let me know. don't be shy.

ahwosg owes much to tristram shandy, for sure. but the imitation i'm talking about at mcsweeney's has more to do with prose style than with the presence self-consciousness and irony. i think eggers has his own narrative voice, and i think it's not only an imitation of sterne's. the irony, the hyper-self-referentiality, and all that argues for connection between sterne and eggers, but the mcsweeney's gang are imitating their founding father more blatantly than he's doing sterne.

notice, though, that i write for this fairly anonymous blog, and they write for mcsweeney's. mebbe i should shut my trap.

Posted by: dave at August 14, 2003 10:33 AM | Permalink to Comment

You will recall, as well, that Jedediah Purdy's diatribe against the culture of irony came out at about the same time as Egger's celebration of it. Let's not confuse exemplars and fathers, eh?

Plus, a lot of the McSwys writers are merely noms de plume for that other dave e.