Before I get into the story of this book, and what I thought about it, I have to start with this. I LOVE the paper it's made of!! Really! It makes me want to write, in a typewriter, and live in some far off place, the color, the texture, wow, I tried to find out what they used but there is no information on the subject. I think I probably finished the book because of that wonderful paper it is made of. With paper like this, how can I even consider going on to electronic books?

Now, for the story. It got on my nerves! So much urgency! so many unplanned flights, oh, and the money, it's such an important element in the story, and that gets a little old. Give away money, travel to as many places as possible and just give it away. To people who "need it" argh! Money money, changing checks, exchanging currency. It seemed to me so, mister dollar visits poor countries and gives them a little of what they need, is that really, mister Eggers, all that people really need? And is that, in your opinion all that your story needs?

But I love that paper!!

My favorable impression of this book is based partly on hearing Dave Eggers speak at the Newport Beach Library. I found his regular-guy persona to be very charismatic, his commitment to the work of the "826" tutoring centers to be inspiring, and his enthusiasm for the written word to be refreshing.

"Velocity" is funny and touching, and not what I expected (in a good way). The blurbs say this is a story about a couple of guys who travel around the world in order to give away $32,000 in one week. So my expectations centered around expecting them to be running toward something, when in reality they are doing nothing but running from.

The narrator is Will, who is traveling with his lifelong friend Hand. These two are emotionally adolescent and sometimes manic 27-year-olds who, for the first time in their adult lives, are confronted with mortality. Through a haze of airports and hotels and rental cars we learn of the defining events of their lives while seeing Africa and northeastern Europe.

The duo's backstory has to do with the death of their best friend, which also led obliquely to Will's getting beat up. Girlfriends and family play only marginal roles, but this is so much more than a "buddies hit the road" story.

Being "charitable" turns out to require much more effort than they planned, and the two are frequently accosted by touts and prostitutes. Their schemes to give away the money become wackier; at one point, they think that taping a pouch of cash to the side of a goat (so the money can be found by the goat's owner) is a workable idea. Like Will and Hand, I was left wondering what it means for Americans to come into a "poor" country and give away money.

The theme of mortality manifests as lost time. Will and Hand are constantly thwarted by airline schedules and visa requirements that prevent them from traveling where they want, when they want. They become frantic when forced to wait. For Will, being still means confronting the voices in his head.

The book, particularly the ending, was bittersweet. I enjoyed it a lot, and recommend it!

I'm a little torn here, because I feel like I was supposed to like this book, so part of me wants to pretend that I didn't like it. It just seems so blatantly directed at exactly who I am, a late 20's person confused about what direction to take in life. It's like a movie where you know they are trying to make you cry, and you do cry, and then feel bad about it because you know that they played you like a fiddle.
But as much as I'd like to resist it, I am a fiddle and this book played me. I identified very strongly with these characters, and this blind desire to keep moving, and have only important, true, enlightening experiences. This idea that every moment that you arent experiencing something new you are wasting your life....I know that isn't true, but I feel it too sometimes. And this book is a perfect summary and explanation of that feeling.
Plus it really goes to the core of how it feels to be a relatively priviledged person today, who knows that he should be trying to help less fortunate people, but has absolutely no idea how to really go about doing that. The idea of randomly handing money to people has a certain romantic charm, and Mr. Eggers walks a nice line between acknowledging that yes, it can be romantic and charming, and it can also be incredibly awkward and wrong.
A great book. Great.

Interesting premise, certainly. "$32,000 must be given away in a week, around the world. But why?" Works for me. I love road-trip stories, and Eggers is a good writer. Good choice for a book group, as there is much to discuss. There are flashes of great writing, and some of the encounters with strangers abroad are funny, some poignant, but many weren't especially interesting to me. And I kept thinking, want to get rid of money that was too-easily earned and you're feeling guilty about it? Well, don't spend a ton of it on plane tickets, hotels etc. There are plenty of folks at home, in Chicago, who are needy and deserving, right? And (for the purpose of story telling) the encounters are potentially as interesting and revealing as those abroad. Toward the end, the 'madcap antics' were a bit too much for me. Steer a car with your tongue?-- maybe if you're fifteen and drunk. After days of repeatedly complaining re having no winter coats, after running around in the woods at night in the freezing cold, they go into a store and buy what? Coats, finally? No. Pants. Because apparently they got scuffed, jumping from tree to tree, to cross something off the bucket list-- or was it a more a long-held dare? I forget. There are excuses that more or less justify the narrator's scattershot mind (recent traumas-- he suffered a severe beating, the loss of a close friend, and has a heart condition that causes the brain's wiring to go whackadoo ala several Kurt Vonnegut characters). A novel needs a companion of course, but Hand doesnt bring a lot to the table. He's even more immature than the narrator, Will. Ostensibly, as their names suggest, Will, (unreliable narrator though he may be), is the thoughtful one and Hand the man of action. As I said, I loved much of the writing, and found interesting the stylistic touches: the mix, here and there, of dialogue marks and em-dashes; the illustrations (love the flock of birds, one of them encircled. "I want to know what this bird is thinking". Also the occasional interruptions, by em-dashes, of Will's narration.
Apparently, later editions include a 49 page chapter narrated by Hand. I read an earlier edition that lacks that chapter. I'd like to read it, for clues: How unreliable a narrator is Will, anyway? And I'd like to read the sequel story, The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water, published in the collection, How We Are Hungry.

così così è troppo poco, bello è troppo. Discreto, piacevole, strampalato assai, sicuramente non così così!

There's something a little frustrating about Dave Eggers. I genuinely think that he is a wonderful, gifted writer. He captures certain moments so completely and beautifully that I'm astounded past the point of envy. But he doesn't know when to quit. This is a fault I'm finding in a lot of contemporary writers like Michael Chabon and David Foster Wallace; as gifted as they are, they seem to lose their focus in the enjoyment of hearing/reading themselves. Wallace is particularly bad at this (I don't care how many people loved, luffed, lurved Infinite Jest, that book and all its gratuitous endnotes makes me want to dent my desk with my forehead). There were some genuinely lovely parts of this book that make we waffle over the star rating--I really wanted to like Velocity--but overall I'm left pretty ambivalent.

Two close friends decide to travel around the world in a week and give away $32,000 to random people. This includes creating a treasure map for children in Estonia and delivering a bouquet of flowers to a sleeping family in Senegal. Their adventures are comical, and easy to relate to if you've ever gone on a trip with not much planning. The results of this journey are unexpected eye-opening experiences and a few disappointments (Morocco looks a little like Arizona). Through all their travels and cash giveaways, the pair are trying to resolve something in their past. When I started to review this, I wasn't sure what rating it deserved. But by over-analyzing it a bit (much like the main character), I've determined this is a fantastic read. And it makes me want to go traveling again.

Welllllll.....What I loved about this book was the imagination, the humor, and the inspiration. Eggers must have had a great time writing this, his first novel. But geez, where was the editor. I could have lost 100 pages--esp. in the last 1/4. I skimmed the last eighth of the novel and I doubt I missed anything. There were hilarious, laugh out loud scenes. It just needed an editor on board who, well, edited. So the four stars is for the imagination and the sense of humor and heartfelt insanity. Even so, it was too long.

My second time reading this book left me feeling even more invigorated by it and perplexed by it and in love with it than my first reading.

Entre el principio de este libro (texto que originalmente era la propia portada):
"Todo lo que se narra aquí ocurre después de la muerte de Jack y antes de que mi madre y yo nos ahogáramos en el incendio de un ferry en el río Guaviare, frío y teñido de taninas, al este del centro de Colombia, con otros cuarenta y dos lugareños a los que ni siquiera habíamos llegado a conocer".
y el final:
"Todo se paró durante un minuto lo juro, pero entonces el sonido y las imágenes volvieron y durante dos meses más, gloriosos e interminables, vivimos".
transcurre el relato del viaje alrededor del mundo durante una semana que Will y Hand emprenden con el objetivo de gastar los 38 000 dólares que Will recibió por el uso de su silueta en una campaña publicitaria. Un viaje en que que Will quiere librarse del dinero, de la muerte de su amigo Jack y de los recuerdos que lo asaltan cada noche y le impiden dormir, mientras que Hand quiere divertirse, conocer lugares nuevos y ayudar a la gente local. Una empresa esta última que resultará mucho más dura de lo que ambos habían imaginado.

El estilo narrativo es fundamentalmente el diálogo alternado con monólogos interiores de Will, que es quien narra una historia que resulta divertida, confrontante y conmovedora aunque también confusa: ¿son Will y Hand dos jóvenes hedonistas sin sentido alguno de la responsabilidad, o corren por el mundo porque quedarse quietos en este momento de su vida simplemente no es una opción? El libro no aporta respuestas a estas preguntas, si es que tales respuestas existen las tendrá que encontrar el lector dentro de su propia experiencia y de su propia conciencia.

Dave Eggers es el último intelectual comprometido de nuestra época. Pero no solo aborda sus obras con valentía y honestidad desde un auténtico compromiso moral y social, además lo hace con un talento narrativo de gran altura que hace que sus libros realmente funcionen como obra literaria. Eggers es famoso por su biografía, por su revista, por sus acciones y por sus declaraciones. Ya va siendo hora de que se haga también famoso por los libros que escribe.

Yazarla ilk tanışmam.. yer yer keyif aldığım yer yer sıkıldığım orta halli bir romandi. Yakın bir arkadaşlarını kaybetmiş iki arkadaş ellerine geçen parayı harcamak ve insanlarla paylaşmak için uçağa atlayip bir haftalık bir yolculuga çıkarlar ve olaylar gelişir :)

I’ve been reading You Shall Know Our Velocity (currently re-titled to Sacrament) for over a month. Usually, when school is out, and it is, I average about a week to a week and a half on any given book. I haven’t finished it and I must tell you, the problem isn’t me. For once.

I’m half-way through the book and thus far, aside from traveling to a few countries and trying to tape money on goats (I’m pretty sure it was goats), nothing has happened. I know that the main character’s face is severely messed up and bruised from some fight. His best friend is named Hand. And the main character doesn’t really like his mother or want a shit load of free money. Aside from this, I know nothing else.

Now, I have heard great things about Dave Eggers so it is truly tragic that the first time I give him a chance I am disappointed sorely by his book. (A friend who runs his own site told me to try Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius instead, but we shall see). You Shall Know Our Velocity is going nowhere as far as I can see and I’m having the hardest time talking myself into reading it.

In fact, I’ve started a different book in the meantime that is very engaging and brilliantly written (the review to that will come soon). The incentives to finish You Shall Know Our Velocity simply are not there.

I think I’m going to give up on it.