peigethesage • read

This is my first trip into the mind of Dave Eggers and it's definitely been interesting. I found some stories to be insightful, thought-provoking and even ingenious while others felt like a cop out or shameless revelation of the creative process. I had to read this book for an independent study so I scanned and pasted all of my favorite stories into a pdf for my teacher and included my reviews. I won't copy the stories down but I'll include the titles. "Once A Year" - The first story in the book which I liked. It’s only two sentences but it feels like a complete story. "The Commercials of Norway" - I thought this was funny. I’ve never read anything by Dave Eggers before this, and I can see that he has a way of explaining a state of being; the first one is explaining a feeling while this one is about the woman’s changing attitude as she gets drunker over the course of time. "The Horror" - I found this story humorous as well. It is a metaphor about life? How we freak out over nothing? Bad and scary things happen to a lot of people, but it may not happen to others. I feel like it’s a reminder to not freak out over stuff, as if this story is laughing at us. "How the Water Feels to the Fishes" - The story which gives its title to the title of this book. Really interesting and surreal how he gives the fish a tone of voice. I really like the ending of it too. "Go-Getters" - I thought this was another story that poked fun at society, this time photographers and artists. Writers too, maybe. It’s a literal representation of the creative process, and is almost double ironic, how she’s creating irony through her photograph while the writer writes about this or the sake of a story. "Deeper" - I don’t really understand the “deeper meaning” of this story (just occurred to me that the title is “Deeper” so, another bit of irony maybe? asking the reader to discover the deeper meaning of the story when there really isn’t any at all), but I enjoy the imagery it evokes and the observational detail about the personalities it describes. "Alberto" - This was probably the longest story in the book. Really enjoyed the backdrop he evoked, as well as the characters. Strange how the father wants to scare the mother than changes his mind abruptly, refusing to answer is son while Alberto persistently asks. Alberto’s reaction to this was unexpected. I expected him to scare the father, and I guess he does by cutting a frog into pieces. I feel likt this is revealing of his behavior too. I like that we don’t know why the father doesn’t want to scare the mom. Seems like something a parent does: tell you something than refuse to explain it further. "You Still Know That Boy" - This is just hilarious. My friend’s brother does that and he’s 20. The last sentence is a really funny way of putting it. "The Bounty" - I liked where this story was going until I got to the end. I guess I expected a better ending, but this feels too contrived like it was supposed to be funny but it isn’t. It felt like an afterthought, which made me wonder about his creative process—did he just give up? It made it more vulnerable and revealing than intended, but I could be wrong. "No One Knows" - I forgot why I liked this initially. Maybe I just found it amusing. "California Moved West" - This is funny too. And I hope that’s true, if that were to happen. "How the Air Feels to the Birds" - Thought this was a nice companion to the fish one. And how different it was—less detailed, entirely different tone. Enjoyed the ending. Concluding thought: This book took awhile to read! I thought I could get to it all at once, but since they’re individual stories, I wanted to digest everything properly and it was hard to just pick up and read onto the next story. It also makes me question what makes a story a story, since these were all really short. Most felt complete though, so I guess that’s what it takes to be a story—to be able to explain an idea in its entirety.