Worst Book of the Year Award: Eggers Misses Opportunity to Not Underwhelm

Is The Circle by Dave Eggers the worst book I have read this summer?

Yes.

It's a disappointment, to say the least. Because I'm a big Eggers fan, ever since first reading his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius in my late teens. And then my brother giving me his copy of What Is the What to borrow, which blew my mind.

So while browsing the bookstore some weeks ago and seeing this newly released novel from last year, and the multitude of praise from every publication in existence, including renowned New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani, I willingly forked out the $15 to make a copy of it mine.

Trust in Eggers, I thought. He's going off on the internet age of today, where people blindly allow technology to control their lives, diminish the value of privacy and intimacy and actually living and making experiences count. He's pointing out the problems of living through a screen, making all information available through social media in an eager, dangerous, naïve, egocentric need to be seen and heard and acknowledged by everyone.

Trust in anyone who goes to great lengths to spell out the truth for the unthinking masses.

I'm on board with the subject of his latest novel. But the execution just seemed horribly wrong. For one thing, the story is 500 pages long. Due to a lot of excessive repetition and the redundant explanation of how impulsive and reckless the innovative minds that lead the sheep generation deeper into the abyss of a totalitarian society are, the story becomes too dull to patiently endure. Don’t know what Vanity Fair’s reviewer was on to call it “elegantly told” but it wasn’t that. “Tediously described” is more accurate.

The characters are unappealing, especially the naïve, submissive female protagonist, Mae, who is such an idiot I kept thinking after some time, "Come on, dude...Really?" But perhaps that's what Eggers was trying to convey anyway, that having one's life revolve around the internet and social media day in and day out makes one into a monotonous, robotic instrument. Add to the fact that the dialogue was implausible and grating, and I just had to relent and finally allowed myself to lose interest halfway through the novel. After 300 pages I just started skipping paragraphs and pages impatiently, something which I rarely do, determined still to see how it all ends for naïve, hopeless Mae.

I think it was Stephen King who once wrote in his bit on writing advice, that some writers, however talented they are, can't write realistic dialogue for shit.

And it was Douglas Adams who opined that a book doesn't have to be longer than it should. He pointed out with accuracy that American writers are in the habit of writing extremely long novels, when you can say something in less words. I too, agree.

I'm still a Dave Eggers fan, but The Circle was pretty bad.