- - - - Copyright 2002 San Francisco Chronicle
- - - - Eggers book a study in generosity Reviewed by John Freeman
- - - - YOU SHALL KNOW OUR VELOCITY By Dave Eggers McSweeney's; 371 pages; $22 - - - - Dave Eggers has pulled a fast one on big publishing in the past two years. As his groundbreaking memoir, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," galloped up best-seller lists, the talented author fired his agent, beefed up his literary journal, McSweeney's, and ventured into publishing himself. Now, in a move that puts him in company with Thomas Paine and Walt Whitman, Eggers has self-published his second book, a novel called "You Shall Know Our Velocity," which will be sold only through McSweeney's Web site and at select independent booksellers. Such a risky venture has enormous potential to backfire. This seems unlikely, however, given Eggers' cult status and the fact that somehow, in addition to running a successful literary journal, promoting his first book and starting up 826 Valencia, a nonprofit tutoring center in San Francisco, Eggers has managed to craft an entertaining and profoundly original tale. It concerns two young men -- one rich, one not -- who decide to travel the globe in a week while giving away $32,000. "I had gotten some money about a year before, in a windfall kind of way," says Will Chmielewski, the novel's garrulous 27-year-old hero at the beginning of his yarn, "and had been both grateful and constantly confused about it. My confusion knew no limits. And now I would get rid of it, or most of it, and believed purging would provide clarity." And so off we go, on a manic ride through several continents, like "Cannonball Run" with a Red Cross angle to it. Will and his childhood friend, Hand, gather their bags, head to the airport and pick a site at whim. Their first stop is Dakar, Senegal, where they begin to realize how complicated their task is. They try to give money to women who turn out to be prostitutes; later, they attempt to give money to a student who turns out to be a con artist. When a man helps them along the roadside (they get a flat), it turns out he doesn't even want their money. Handing out money, it develops, is hard work. Will and Hand's deliberations about whether or not to give, or how to give, read like snippets from Tom Stoppard's 1967 play, "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead," in which the two henchmen Claudius sends to kill Hamlet spend an entire play bickering with one another. Here are Will and Hand trying to get rid of a pouch full of greenbacks: "We could drop it through their window," I said. "No," Hand said. "Why?" "Let's do the goat." We had to. Hand got the pouch and applied new tape to its side. We were ready. "You come at him from the front," Hand said, "and I'll sneak up the side. You distract him." "With what?" "Make some hand movements." The goat was watching me now. He was on a long leash. "Like shadow puppets?" Silliness aside, Eggers makes a strong argument for the arbitrary quality of wealth, and how difficult it is to redistribute it in a way that is not equally arbitrary. And though he coats this meditation on generosity in his helium-inflected humor, there is a self-reflexive sadness, too. Here is Will, wearying of signing so many travelers checks: "I got sick of my signature. I couldn't do it anymore; I hated my name. I had signed 90 checks and rubbed my tired hand like they do on commercials for arthritis. And slowly I realized I would have to sign again, each time I used or cashed one, in the presence of the teller or clerk. Five hundred and eighty- six times my signature would claim this money. Mine! Mine! Swoop! Swoop! I hated the fact of this money and couldn't wait for its dissolution." Writing from a deeply personal place is nothing new. "You Shall Know Our Velocity" is a book about Dave Eggers, but it's also about quite a bit more. So if you want to ponder the ethics of generosity, personal and global, "You Shall Know Our Velocity" is an excellent place to begin. But if you want to know about Dave Eggers, you might be better off buying a glossy magazine. - - - -
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