In my mind? Jealousy. Competitiveness. Because people are often stupid & petty when they decide someone appears to be succeeding in ways they wish they were. A lot of people have to knock someone like Eggers down to make themselves feel superior. Bothers them that he shows confidence. Human nature, unfortunately.

In my mind it's because Eggers seems stupid and petty, or at least condescending and self-congratulatory and petty. I also read "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" when it came out, and I like a lot of the writers in Eggers' circle, and I was very excited to like him. But I just couldn't. His book, being a memoir of sorts, didn't make me think very highly of him. It's been aeons since I read it, so I can only say that I remember thinking the title was the best part.

Maybe what I didn't like was the "Real World" obsession? Or the apparent sense of self-pity? I'm not sure. Really, it's probably not fair for me to comment, it's been so long.

It's possible I could go back and read him now and adore him, you know?

Yeah, it's been a long time for me too. The "Real World" ramblings weren't my favorite.

It's coming back to me a little. I do remember a self-congratulatory tone in the book and in an interview I read a while back.

It just didn't ring true. At all. (Heartbreaking Work.) I was glad it was busted.

Mind you, I don't think he's the best writer, but I feel that way about a lot of people. So that's why I don't get the hate either really.

Hrm. The Eggers detractors do seem to be motivated by jealousy, a bit. I personally don't like his writing at all, and I can't explain why. Mainly because it doesn't really ring true to me, I think.

Hmm, I'm probably not the best judge of good writing. I do remember wanting to finish, so that's a good sign that I found it entertaining. But, I've finished a lot of books that were crap.

Oddly, other than the fact that he continuously portrayed the role of the only man on earth that had ever lost his parents, I remember the diet of Eggers and the brother the most. The cut up apples and hamburger patties. It's funny, I always remember the food. Other than that, I remember liking the parts where he got almost manic and pissed. Long ramblings of wanting to kick ass and stuff.

When a putrid turd like this is the second sentence of a book, I don't tend to read much further.

"Exhaust from the dryer billows out of the house and up, breaking apart while tumbling into the white sky."

Umm, no. Obviously, a sentence like that says something to someone, but frankly, I create enough pretense in my life on my own.

Also, I adore plenty of writers of whom I'm very, very jealous. The much-maligned and undoubtedly overhyped Jonathan Safran Foer, for instance. I'm so jealous of him that I want to tear him to shreds.

But I still adore him.

I don't understand not liking writing because it's good. Sometimes I don't like myself because I see writing that is good. But, you know, if I've not written a brilliant and bestselling novel yet, that's my own damn fault, not Dave Eggers's.

/me cries into drink

I find Eggers smug and holier-than-thou (literarily) and full of himself. McSweeney's is a good example. It was clever at first, but then it turned into the same old schtick, which was really only funny and interesting for a brief period. Just like Eggers.

I'm not jealous of him at all. I'd hate to be as self-congratulatory and, in the end, as empty as he is.

(He's got interesting ideas on publication, design, though. Maybe he needs a new line.)

I don't like him because he's all irony and I'm looking for at least some sincerity. I saw him speak in Seattle (a long time ago) and he'd interrupt his reading from time to time saying "so what's going on tonight after the reading.. what are you guys doing after this?" in this sort of regular-guy way that made you think maybe he just wanted to hang out and have a beer with you. So, during the Q & A, a pretty attractive looking girl asked him "Can I take you out on the town tonight?" and he was sort of like "What?" and she said "Well you keep saying you don't have anything to do. Can I take you out?" and he just sputtered and hawed and said that well actually he was meeting some friends but thanks for the offer....

I like his writing, he's talented. I was sad to read that his sister -- who obviously had her own problems that were hers alone as well, don't get me wrong -- killed herself. At some point she was going through a very hard time partially centered around the fact that her super-famous brother had written a book about HIM taking care of his younger brother when their parents died and gave HER caretaking of the kid short shrift. There were some ugly online scenes about it, if I recall correctly. I may not recall correctly, however. While I sympathize with anyone dealing with a family member with a mental illness, he did not really deal with the issue very gracefully.

While I'm happy that Dave Eggers seems to have been able to build the life he wants for himself, the level of artifice that seems to go into the products of that life (always having to check, as a reader, "is he serious?") is more work than I want to go through for what I wind up getting when I engage with it.

I think his literacy projects are wonderful and I bought several things at the superhero supply store in support of that.

But I think his writing is smug, pretentious, and/or boring, which is actually worse than anything. And that is a simple reader's opinion, there is nothing for me to be jealous of, other than his good works.

I wanted to like him, but I just wasn't that impressed. He just didn't deliver. Which wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for all the hype.

Jonathan Safran Foer wrote Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, right? I really enjoyed the audiobook of that, I have to say. More than anything I've read by Dave Eggers, actually.

I do find McSweeneys a bit to precious and full of itself, but I actually like knowing that Dave Eggers has at least made a point to start charities and use his fame somewhat postively and give back to the community here & there. So personally, I don't have any problem with him. No matter how he writes or how arrogant he is, he just doesn't inspire it in me. He seems to be somewhat unselfish here & there. On the other hand, I very much liked Truman Capote, F Scott Fitzgerald & Earnest Hemingway's writing... but from the biographies I've read they were often narcissistic, patronizing assholes who were toxic to most of the people around them. So there ya go.

I didn't read A Heartbreaking Work, but I read a book of his short-stories which I really enjoyed. But I don't frequent any literary circles and don't keep up on my own much, so I missed all this Eggers-bashing until I saw it come up on mefi. Same with Jonathan Franzen--I really enjoyed The Corrections, but since I came around to reading it 5 years after its release I missed the initial hype and the backlash. And for that I'm glad.

Hmmm---this is the first I've learned about his sister. I liked AHBoSG, but what Jessamyn relates about what he did at a reading is just shitty. In contrast, James Ellroy likes to yank chains (and his interview with Deborah Solomon in the New York Times Magazine several years ago is a good example of that), but he doesn't come off like he wants to be your buddy when he has no intention of doing so. A friend of mine was a poetry editor at McSweeneys...I'll have to see what he thinks.

I liked parts of AHBoSG, but I thought it needed an editor. Maybe 12 editors.

I liked AHBoSG, but couldn't get into another book of his and abandoned it early on.

I think he does have a very high irritant factor for the reasons people have mentioned. Also I met someone who went to his school, and he does seem to come from a very privileged background, richly loaded with career-assisting contacts.

It wouldn't be a problem, but he seems to portray himself as a wacky, happy-go-lucky, just-plain-folks guy who's pulled himself up by his bootstraps... there seems to be a bit of a dissonance between him and the image he cultivates.

But he's collaborating on the Where the Wild Things Are movie with Maurice Sendak and Spike Jonze!

That aside, I don't much like his written tone. He lacks manners.

I don't like him because he's all irony and I'm looking for at least some sincerity.

I know what you mean, but on the other hand, he's said repeatedly that he wants to help dig modern writing out of the irony ditch. I don't know if that's a reaction to his own work, or if he just doesn't recognize that he's doing it.

I have pretty conflicted feelings about Eggers. This essay of his is one of my all-time favorites. I think he's a good-but-not-great writer (A Staggering Work was good, but You Shall Know Our Velocity was full of elements that no editor would have allowed if the author wasn't established and beloved), but an excellent promoter; that disconnect is probably what causes a lot of the discontent with him. People feel like he's more influential than he should be (but this ignores the fact that, on balance, he's a force for good).

Personally, I owe a lot to him. The stuff I've had in McSweeney's is by far my most-read work, and being picked for a couple of Eggers-edited anthologies did wonders for my clip-cred. On the other hand, I've also had the frustration of having a piece accepted by McSwy's, working with their editor on a final version that I liked quite a bit, and then having Eggers personally log into the site and castrate the humor about an hour after it had run. His site, his rules, but that experience annoyed me.

I figured the reaction was due to that book coming right up from the same streets his competition is still walking. Like that one square in SF that he describes, and I remember hanging around there when I just got out of undergrad. As opposed to coming from some far away place, or being the result of a long and full life.

Because people are often stupid & petty when they decide someone appears to be succeeding in ways they wish they were.

simply put: "LEAVE DAVEY ALONE!!!!"

lawlz

interestingly, Frey said the "haters" were envious of him, too -- conveniently forgetting his many crimes against truth and the English language.

sadly, to ignore legitimate criticism and consider it a byproduct of jealousy is a classic reflexive reaction of the insecure.

there are plenty of writers who are much more successful -- critically and financially -- than Eggers and don't get a millionth of the shit he rightly gets. why people don't envy them? answer: because there's a shitload of legitimate criticism to hurl at his books.

the problem is that -- even more in his case than in poor Foer's -- he's just somebody who had one pretty good book in him, his first, and nothing else. not a tragedy, but you cannot really hustle an entire career out of a single book, unless it's Invisible Man, and god knows Eggers is no Ellison.

Foer, after shooting all of his ammo with his first, quite interesting book, only has a peculiar kind of laughable bathos left. Eggers instead is preaching a bizarre mix of childishness and lame, aw-shucks hipness to the converted.

and speaking of insecurity, Eggers -- probably out of sadism, too -- has also created a publishing phenomenon made of writers who are mostly much worse than he is -- you name them, McSweeney Books is basically a freak show (with the exception of Lydia Davis)

(I hereby concede that I've read both of Foer books -- like, the ink-on-paper in a book version, maybe the audiobooks were better, I don't know -- the three Eggers books, and I've leafed through most of McSweeneys issues reading a story here, a story there: so I may be biased by my actually having read these people's stuff )