Eeeee Eee Eeee: A Novel
Tao LinPoet and blogger Lin’s debut novel uneasily documents the life of Andrew, a recent college graduate working at Domino’s Pizza while over-analyzing every aspect of his life: past, present and futureless. He drives through the suburbs reminiscing about college life in New York and his ex-girlfriend, stopping occasionally to express his boredom to his best friend Steve. When at one point, Andrew states that he wants to “wreak complex and profound havoc” upon capitalist establishments such as McDonald’s, it feels like Lin is attempting the same kind of attack on organized art. The novel, while short on plot, makes abrupt shifts in setting and point of view, and is pierced throughout by celebrity cameos and surreal touches: bears, dolphins (who say “Eeeee Eee Eeee” to express emotion, in spite of their ability to speak like humans), Salman Rushdie, and the president make grandiose declarations that are heavily saturated with the same sardonic wit displayed by Andrew and his friends. The novel dips dangerously into metafiction, with Andrew in the middle of “writing a book of stories about people who are doomed.” The characters’ repetitive thoughts and conversations become strangely hypnotic, however, and Lin’s sympathetic fascination with the meaning of life is full of profound and often hilarious insights.
| status | Copy #1 (6943): in |
|---|---|
| genre | Literature and Fiction » General Literature |
| publisher | Melville House |
| publish date | 2007 |
| popularity | checked out 3 time(s) |
I read this after reading ‘Richard Yates’, ‘Shoplifting from American Apparel’, ‘Bed’, ‘Cognitive Behavioral Therapy’, and many things posted on the internet by the author: Tao Lin. This was his first published novel. I think the title is the sound a dolphin makes when trying to communicate its deep & profound feelings of [something]. I feel excited when I think of reading the sentences of this book in the future. Sometimes I say “Tao Lin is my favorite author.”