JESSICA ONI
Staff Writer
In his new short story collection “How We Are Hungry,” best-selling author Dave Eggers explores one of the most common of human impulses: the tendency to over-think everything. In the hands of Eggers’ neurotic characters, everyday situations transform into hilarious, action-packed adventures. It is not so much the stories that are being told as the manner in which they are being told that makes these tales so fascinating.
The collection begins with “Another,” a story whose experimental nature sets the tone for the tales that are to come. The unnamed narrator, a twice-divorced, middle-aged American, begins his tale comically, saying “I wasn’t interested in the things I was usually interested in, and couldn’t finish a glass of milk without deliberation.”
The entire story takes place in the narrator’s mind as he rides a camel through Egypt, escorted by a fierce Egyptian man who speaks only a few words of English.
“It was a beautiful time, everything electric and hideous … But something or everything was wrong,” he says.
During his ride through the desert, the narrator’s mind shifts from scenario to scenario as he contemplates the intentions of his mysterious guide, Hesham, and the unfamiliarity of his surroundings. As the day goes on, the narrator begins to sense some sort of non-verbal, inexpressible connection to Hesham, concluding that “however disgusting we were, however wrong was the space between us, we were really soaring.”
Eggers’ collection has a unique pace-setting aspect to it as he continuously and successfully varies lengthy stories with shorter ones.
The second story, “What It Means When A Crowd In A Faraway Nation Takes A Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him From His Vehicle And Then Mutilates Him In The Dust,” is not much longer than its title, which could be a story in and of itself.
Were it not for its third-person narrative voice, “The Only Meaning Of The Oil-Wet Water” would read more like a series of diary entries than a short story. Pilar, the tale’s protagonist, is a 30-something-year-old female who fears her youth may be coming to a close. Yet, as the story’s narrator ironically points out at the end of the first paragraph, “There is almost no sadness in this story.”
Pilar flies to Costa Rica to visit one of her few remaining single male friends, a guy purposely named Hand.
The story’s outrageous, yet well-placed descriptions read like directions in a stage play or screenplay: “Pilar walked: with her toes pointing northwest and northeast, like a dancer. Pilar laughed: in a throaty way, and loudly, while her eyes devoured. Pilar knew: when something would happen and when something would not.”
The narrator describes everything from the lyrics to an “unsung song to Hand,” to a dialogue conversation between a pack of horses and their shadows.
One of the funniest aspects of this tale is that the narrator continuously explains his intentions, saying things such as, “This story is equally or more about surfing. People are no more interesting than waves and mountains.”
One of the collection’s most
memorable, yet highly experimental tales is “Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone,” a story about story writing. Within this Tuesdays With Morrie-like tale, the narrator sets up a plot: “Around 8,000 words. Quick-moving. Simple language. No descriptions of rooms or furnishings.” He also describes possible character names, as well as conversations that should take place within the context of the story.
“After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned,” the final story in the collection, proves to be the most daring of all, as Eggers takes on the narrative voice of a dog.
In the end, it is Eggers’ distinct, yet slight voice that carries each of these stories. His unique descriptions of places and people are almost magical as he describes something as simple as sunset, saying: “the sherbet light that soon enough, with a shrug, would relinquish the day to night.”
Readers are gracefully transferred from the mind of one quirky character to the next by way of protagonists that are at once unique and universal. Within the contexts of their own stories, they are all superheros.
The only flaw of the collection is the inclusion of the story “Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly,” which drags on for 60 needlessly lagging pages as the narrator hikes Mount Kilimanjaro.
Hunger hangs over the heads of every character in “How We Are Hungry.” Yet, Eggers makes no attempt to satisfy appetites. Rather he portrays hunger in a way that makes it seem unbelievably human and undeniably hilarious.
02-09-2006
