It’s like we’re all attempting to write honestly about growing through our third decade with smirks on our faces. Smirking in the face of honesty or fear. Everyone is even becoming lazier with the twisty explanations we throw out, when we should be, as writers, searching for aptness and truth; enhancement rather than decoration… And our exaggerations! Oh how we love to get hyperbolic. And please, believe me when I say that I truly do love to. Maybe that was Eggers’ fault. I’m even a fan of using ‘literally’ as a bit, as an obviously extreme stretch. But don’t preface the word with the initiation of a simile. Was it like that? Or was it that? Or are we using ‘like’ in the Valley Girl slang fashion because it’s cool to be like totes moderne? That’s a silly veil and we all use it a bit too often. But if we keep writing like this (yes, we, for I too am guilty of this laziness) then that’s what we’re gonna keep writing. And we’ll know nothing but jokes and how to wink behind peoples backs.
I see what you’re saying here, and agree in part. I also think it’s possible to do both: to be sincere and then look at your life with a smirk in the same day, in the same hour even.
