Periodic check in

My main readers are either under the weather, in the hospital, or soon to be gone, but a blog serves the purpose as a self-reflective as much as a public forum if not more. So here we go again.

My birthday was satisfying. I turned 20 this year. A pointless age of no great legal implications. Still old enough to be charged as an adult and easily drafted into service, but still not quite ready for hard liquor it would seem, eh? Soon after my birthday I came down with an infection in my lymphatic system and was attacked by infectious mononucleosis. You can read more about it at your local library. Or on wikipedia if you're lazy. It decked me out pretty well I must concede and I am only now coming back to my senses. I've gained a few pounds from my lethargy as my doctor said I would. I'm still not really able to do too much physical work so lots of exercise and dieting is still out of the question, much to the dismay of my self esteem. I suppose I'll just have to lean on my comrades like I usually do, much as I hate having to redistribute my weight.

Being exhausted and mostly horizontal has given me the opportunity to read some books I'd put on the back burner as well as watch some films I've been putting off watching. I even got some work on my book done amazingly enough. The subject of literature is where I'll be going today.

It makes for a compelling hero and/or protagonist when they have some sort of defining element of tragedy in the history of their character.

But, what sort of man does it make?

I've just finished reading the breakout novel by Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking work of staggering Genius and these are the nagging gnawing questions I'm left with. When one thinks of the character of Batman they do so with the knowledge of his tragedy in mind. His insane mission is granted a quasi-mystical validity and importance by it. This tragedy that has befallen him has tainted his life and haunts him continually.

This author loses both of his parents and of course expects this clout and sincerity instantaneously granted to him. Although technically a memoir and roughly based on a true story it is still a novel with particular things it is trying to say. The tragedy is not what the character's lives are about, but rather it is a tale of personal growth in the wake of such things; living day to day in a world of seemingly random tragedy. Both parents lost so suddenly, in such proximity to each other, and yet what does the character of the author do? He is not made more mature or somehow wiser by this.

Is the book a tale of human imperfection? A close look at the imperfection that is human nature at its core even in the wake of defining tragedies that in comics and pulp films allow for a lowly creature to be catapulted into the spotlight and cemented to the right side of ethical dilemmas? If this book was written as a work of fiction I would praise it as a wonderful piece outlining the ways mankind can display such beauty as we struggle to exist and carry on in a world where no amount of loss can make you a better person, even if it rips out most of your sanity. But it's semi-autobiographical, and I find myself pitying the author, competent as he is, as a fool who learned seemingly nothing from repeated error.

My quarrel is not with the book's manic-depressive prose or self-obsessed rambling. I find these features a profoundly humanizing element to a story told in a very detached way. The problem I have is with the author himself. It makes the reader sympathetic to a fault and it's not what it could have been. I felt closer to the protagonist during the Frisbee scenes than at any other point in the novel. These self-discovery moments (which this book is essentially one long one) work best when they have some sort of epiphany in them. Eggers tries long and hard to do what is best, but he doesn't seem to actually better himself in any way over time. He merely becomes more pathetic as a stagnant example of wasted youthful excitement in futile efforts mirroring the "revolutionary" acts every new generation has done for 50 years.

This could have been a great novel to inspire the young of today towards prosperity, but if anything, it will inspire them to keep the status quo.