flash fiction that is a little more focused on emotional incisiveness than it is on the typical flash fiction sudden epiphany; eggers often locates moments of great sadness and tragedy and microscopically looks at one emotional aspect. a wife and husband has lost their child, but when a friend who loses his wife seeks to comisserate with them, they respond only with anger. eggers is great at capturing this sort of thing. he is also very silly, and those short stories - for example, one about what kind of literature bears like to read - offsets the weight of this book. its good, short, and sharp. you can read it in an hour.

My first Eggers - he gives all his stories very arch titles, which I have always found a bit off-putting but the actual emotions and mental lives of his characters are compelling and (to me) realistic. These are short stories and I appreciate the fact that they don't end with a bang - unlike Flannery O'Connor or someone where the characters putter along for a few dozen pages and you're not sure what it's leading to until someone unexpectedly gets decapitated.

I'm sorry, Dave Eggers. I am so, so sorry, because I love you (yes, personally), I love AHWOSG, I love You Shall Know Our Velocity, and I love What is the What. But I did not love this book.

At first I just thought I didn't like the shift from novel to short story, but I can handle it from Wallace, Alexie, and Fitzgerald, so that can't be it. These are just not very well done. To be honest, I felt like Eggers was coasting on his success here. Once you've published something like AHWOSG, everyone will pretty much buy anything you write, and find excuses to like it. Which is what I did, for a while... but the truth remains: I read this book once, put it down, and never picked it up again, not even to look at the pretty cover.

And I know I sound ridiculous, but the threesome-with-a-one-armed-woman story just bothered the shit out of me on so many levels.

My faves: 'Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone', 'Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly' and 'Another'.

'Up the Mountain' was an absolutely captivating story. I enjoyed how the protagonist was purposely nondescript because I was able to project my own emotions onto her as she progressed through her journey. As the narrator explains, thousands of people have gone on the same journey as Rita, and thousands more will go on it after she has finished. She is not unique in any way, but rather an insignificant piece of the mountain. Her story is meant to reflect the collected stories of others - she experiences tragedy, despair, hope, sickness, and longing just as others before her have.

Some other stories were less captivating, but still had the token slightly aloof storytelling style that Eggers is so well known for. He asks the reader in 'Notes for a Story' to temporarily suspend their disbelief in order to progress the story. I feel like this is the unspoken agreement he has with his other works. Eggers successfully blends reality with a touch of impossibility to create his own unique voice as a storyteller.

My favourite three stories were

The one written from the perspective of a dog, he talks about hanging out in the woods with his dog friends and running and is just real stoked on life. Then when he is running in the woods one day, he falls down and dies but he is still conscious inside of his dead body and then he goes to doggy heaven.

The one about the guy who did not want to die alone so he arranged this event in a stadium where people could be with him when he died. The only page of the book that I ear-marked had a quote on it saying "There has not been a beautiful death in the history of mankind". Felt like crying towards the end of the book, I was sitting in the sun on the front steps at my granddad's house. It made me feel nice.

The other one was about a woman climbing some big ass mountain, can't remember which one. I really enjoyed the narrative, it seemed like the longest story in the book. Ye. Idk.

Dave Eggers es uno de los mejores escritores jóvenes norteamericanos del momento. Perteneciente a la next generation, junto a autores de la talla de David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen o Jonathan Lethem, Eggers ha sabido buscarse un hueco entre tan grandes compañeros.

Eggers nos habla en ‘Guardianes de la intimidad’ del absurdo de la vida contemporánea, del sinsentido de la época que nos ha tocado vivir. Mediante frases cortas, precisas y elegantes, el autor nos deslumbra con sus ideas e inteligencia a la hora de abordar las historias de estos cuentos. Porque Eggers escribe muy bien. Aparte de algún que otro cuento experimental, la mayoría de relatos son de corte convencional, regalándonos escenas realmente memorables. Dave sabe bien lo que quiere transmitir y sabe llegar al lector en cada uno de sus cuentos, mostrándonos lo que hay en ellos, y más importante, lo que hay más allá de ellos.

Encuentro varios puntos en común en sus cuentos, empezando por la presencia constante de animales, desde caballos hasta ovejas, pasando por extraños pájaros. Y también el comportamiento de los norteamericanos en países extranjeros, como Tanzania, Egipto o Escocia, pero sin dejar de lado las historias que suceden en la misma Norteamérica. Eggers busca el Cuento Total, y a fe mía que en algunos de ellos lo consigue. Reseñar también los títulos de los cuentos, perfectamente escogidos.

Estos son los quince relatos incluidos en ‘Guardianes de la intimidad’:

Otra. (**) El protagonista llega a Egipto para pasar las vacaciones, en busca de algo exótico, y cree haberlo encontrado en un guía y sus caballos.

Lo que significa que una muchedumbre de un país lejano atrape a un soldado que representa a tu país, le dispare, lo saque a rastras de su vehículo y luego lo mutile entre el polvo. (***) Brevísimo relato de apenas una página, y una dura reflexión sobre la guerra vista desde la lejanía.

El único significado del agua oleosa. (***) Hand y Pilar se encuentran en Costa Rica para practicar surf. Son viejos amigos. Pilar, con una vida insatisfecha, cree que puede tener algo con Hand.

Sobre querer tener al menos tres paredes levantadas antes de que ella llegue a casa. (***) Otro brevísimo pero significativo cuento.

Trepar a la ventana fingiendo bailar. (*****) Mi cuento favorito del libro, en el que se narra el viaje de Fish, el protagonista, para visitar a su primo, que ha tenido otro suicidio frustrado.

n  Fish está conduciendo, abofeteándose para mantenerse alerta, y mientras cuenta para asegurarse de que Adam lleva siete. Uno: las muñecas (con una sierra pequeña contra sus brazos delgados y blancos como el papel). Dos: veneno (bebió cera para el suelo servida en un vaso de tubo transparente). Tres: disparo al estómago. O a un lado del estómago; la bala le rozó, atravesó la ventana y llegó a la iglesia episcopaliana de la casa de al lado. No hubo muertos ni heridos, pero Adam se sintió tan mal que, cuatro: se apuñaló en la pierna con una cuchilla de carnicero. Cinco: intentó meter un secador de pelo en la bañera con él dentro, pero por lo visto el aparato era a prueba de suicidios –se apagó solo y Adam se quedó tiritando en el agua, que se había enfriado mientras él reunía el valor para suicidarse-. Seis: ¿cuál fue el sexto? ¿Empotrar un coche contra un árbol? No quedó claro si el accidente había sido intencionado.n

Espera furiosa, floreciendo. (****) Otro breve cuento, en el que una madre soltera espera impaciente de madrugada el regreso de su hijo.

Silencio. (*****) Erin invita a Tom a un viaje por Escocia. Erin le está muy agradecida a Tom por su apoyo en los últimos meses, y Tom espera mucho de este encuentro. Muy buen cuento, donde salen a relucir ciertos secretos.

Tu madre y yo. (**) Pequeña fábula donde un padre cuenta a su hijo todo lo que han hecho por el mundo y la humanidad en su conjunto.

Naveed. (***) Stephanie reflexiona sobre las relaciones sexuales que ha mantenido hasta ahora, y no le convence el número.

Apuntes para un cuento de un hombre que no morirá solo. (****) Eggers nos muestra la construcción de un cuento desde el inicio, un cuento que tratará sobre un hombre que no quiere morir solo.

Acerca del hombre que comenzó a volar después de conocerla. (**) Pues eso.

Montaña arriba, en lento descenso. (*****) Rita llega a Moshi, Tanzania, con la intención de subir a la cima del Kilimanjaro, y siente mucha seguridad en lo que va hacer. Esta será toda una aventura, donde conocerá a la gente del lugar, tan distinta a ella (o no), aventura que le ayudará a decidir sobre su vida futura. Se trata de un cuento impresionante.

Hay algunas cosas que debería callarse. ¿?

Cuando aprendieron a aullar. (***) Reflexión sobre las generaciones más recientes, que no habían conocido lo que era el Dolor hasta hace bien poco.

Después de que me lanzarán al río y antes de ahogarme. (***) Esta es la historia de un perro narrada por él mismo, un perro al que le gusta correr.

(en dat terwijl ik nog twee verhalen te gaan heb)

This was the second time I read this book.... because I forgot I read it a first time. It wasn't until I read "The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water" that I realized that there were only a couple of these shorts that actually resonated; the rest were white noise. I have read nearly all of Eggars' words, and I love them, with all of their quirky self-awareness and expirementation (and yes, even sometimes pretention). I think Eggars has a way with words that I have only seen in a select few other writers, so even if some specific stories are misses for me, the collection will always be a hit. I will gladly forget all of the other stories all over again if it brings me to re-read my favorites.

DNF.
A escrita destes contos é fluida, mas o conteúdo é chocho.

This felt like a “whatever” book. And I loved it.

Whatever— as in Eggers is just writing whatever the fuck he wants. I’m here for it.

In this collection, Eggers (Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) is obviously straddling the line between being a writer__and a very talented one at that__and being the spokesman for the new age of self-conscious writing. Reviewers are unanimously unhappy with a few of his literary pranks here. "There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself," for example, offers up five blank pages. But when Eggers throws off our expectations and starts writing, he shines. His longer stories are original, witty, and truthful. As his characters search for transcendence, Eggers and his readers are right there with them.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

I really enjoyed this book, but I'm a huge Dave Eggers fan. I'd probably enjoy reading Dave Eggers's grocery list. That said, some of these stories probably aren't as well thought out as an Eggers's grocery list, as he alternates 'legitimate' short stories with one-to-two page 'stories' that are little more than second drafts of a writing exercise.

However, the stories that were good were quite good, and 'Quiet' and 'After I was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned' (which was my introduction to Eggers long ago, via Nick Hornby's 'Speaking with the Angel' anthology) in particular stuck with me for a long time.

Eggers has his usual cutesy bits of pretension ('There are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself' for example is just blank pages), but I'll admit, I enjoy those types of things probably more than I should, even if they are a little too precious.

In all, a must-read for hardcore Eggers fans, skip-able for most everyone else.