Zeitoun
January 11, 2010
Just the other day, I had a compelling discussion with some co-workers on the writings of Dave Eggers. They had argued that, along with a blatant agenda, Eggers had been subject to a kind of hipster aesthetic. This association had apparently deterred both of them from reading anything Eggers has contributed to. While I would never disavow the fact that he has accepted his role as a myrmidon of hipster culture, I do not think such an
identification makes anything Eggers writes less impressive.
His latest book, Zeitoun, is no less disturbing than his previous work, What is the What. It is a powerful indictment of Bush-era politics. And I dare say, to the pundits of Mr. Eggers (yes you, Jeff and Tony) that Eggers’ journalism never seems to fail to deliver in a world willing to overlook tragedies for the sake of its own convenience.
And so I leave this notion up to you. Is Eggers crippled by a connection to a particular subculture? Is his humanity, as both a novelist and journalist, undermined by such an identification? If so, we must say the same for David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, and any other literary figure who at some point had been thrust into the hipster bracket.
