A diagram for the king

“A man’s gotta know his limitations.”

– Harry Callahan

I recently read the latest novel by Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King. Eggers, in case anyone doesn’t know, is the celebrated author of, among other things, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What, and Zeitoun. I had read and greatly enjoyed What Is the What and Zeitoun, so I was pleased to receive A Hologram for the King as a present, and I looked forward eagerly to reading it.

Sometimes the anticipation is the best part, and that was the case with A Hologram for the King. The worst part was the actual reading. I suppose every author is entitled to a few misses, and Eggers clearly knows how to exercise that right. The plot in Hologram is as follows: some people spend a few weeks waiting around for something to happen, and it never does. Meanwhile, the main character is depressed about his age and increasing irrelevance. The end. Sorry if I’ve spoiled it for you.

If Hologram were merely a disappointingly average novel, there would be nothing to write about here. Mr. Eggers has succeeded, however, in introducing a new genre to American fiction:  the grammatical tragedy. As I read it, I was struck repeatedly by an astonishing but unavoidable truth:  this man can’t write.

I don’t mean that he can’t tell a good story—obviously he can, even if this wasn’t one of them. I mean that he actually doesn’t understand basic rules of English grammar and diction. It is doubtful that he could pass a sixth-grade grammar test (if such things still exist—I suspect they don’t, and that may be the problem).

It was subtle at first.  I read this on page 12:  “There had been a man next to him on the flight from Boston to London. He was drinking gin and tonics and monologuing.”

Some time ago I railed about the use of “dialogue” as a verb and asked rhetorically whether someone engaged in a one-way conversation could be said to be “monologuing.” I never imagined anyone would take me seriously.

Well, maybe he wasn’t serious. An accomplished writer might toss in an obvious misuse of the language as a bit of playful irony. Maybe he was mocking people who say “dialoguing” by pursuing it to its logical extreme. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

All doubts were resolved soon enough, and not to his benefit. The following sentence appeared on page 20:  “Alan was told that Reliant, along with a number of other vendors . . . , were to prepare their wares and present them at a site to be determined . . . .”

This was not playful irony. This was simple incompetence. A singular noun—“Reliant,” the name of the company that employed Alan—takes a singular verb. We learned that in first grade. A few years later, maybe in fourth grade, we learned to stay focused on the subject and not be distracted by intervening parenthetical phrases. Although the closest noun to the verb is the plural “vendors,” the subject of the clause is still the singular “Reliant,” and it still requires a singular verb (and a singular pronoun):  “Reliant . . . was to prepare its wares.” If you don’t understand this, you should stay away from long sentences.

If he had diagrammed the sentence, he would have seen his error. That, however, would require him to know how to diagram a sentence, a skill that I’m sure his schoolteachers considered quaintly obsolete.

I’ll skip over a number of lesser goofs and go to page 242:  “Alan expected Yousef to lay on his stomach.”

When my daughter, Meg, was seven, I took her to the doctor, who asked her to climb onto the table and “lay down.” Meg hesitated as she and I exchanged glances. The doctor caught us and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Meg said, shyly but confidently, “Lie down.” I have never been so proud.

I didn’t fault the doctor. I don’t care (much) about her grammar. On the other hand, if she could not remember the difference between a bacterium and a virus, I would be alarmed. Similarly, I don’t care whether a novelist knows how to set a broken arm, but if he doesn’t know the difference between “lie” and “lay”—well, he should have his license revoked.

Of course, one ought to have enough self-awareness to avoid the problem. If your language skills aren’t up to the standards of a seven-year-old, maybe you shouldn’t be writing novels in the first place. There is something to be said for understanding one’s own shortcomings.

At the same time, this does give me some hope, in an odd way. If someone like Dave Eggers can publish a novel—which was a finalist for a National Book Award!—then there is no reason to think I can’t play first base for the Red Sox or play the piano with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, because obviously skill and quality of performance count for nothing. All that matters, as I mentioned last time, is having a good publicist. I need to get me one of them.

We haven’t finished. On page 247 I found this: “’Can we stop?’ Alan asked, before he had fully formed the reason why.”

“The reason why” is one of those fingernails-on-the-chalkboard expressions that must never be spoken, let alone recorded for the world to see. It is sufficient to say or write “the reason.” If “the reason why” is in your vocabulary, it would be best for you to avoid talking or writing.

On page 298, the coup de grace:  “No one outside of he and Zahra cared about what would happen . . . .”

There is nothing to say. All I can do is sputter.

Curiously, I don’t remember this problem with his other books. Maybe he was drunk when he wrote Hologram—that would explain the story, as well as the grammar. Or maybe he had better editors for his other books.

Which brings me to my final point. Perhaps the most surprising sentence in the book is this one, in the acknowledgments:  “Extra thanks to McSweeney’s editors Ethan Nosowsky, Jordan Bass, Andrew Leland, and Michelle Quint, who had to read this book many times, and whose edits were surgical and brilliant.”

Surgical? Brilliant? There are four people who should be fired, if not jailed. Four of them read the book many times, yet none of them found anything wrong with “No one outside of he.” What, exactly, is the job description for an editor at McSweeney’s?

As I considered that question, it occurred to me that I was not familiar with this publishing company, so I did a little research. (This took five seconds. What did we do before Wikipedia?) Here’s what I learned:  “McSweeney’s is an American publishing house founded by editor Dave Eggers.”

Well, that does answer a number of questions.