Natthawat Jamnapa Jamnapa من عند Wat Kaeo, Bang Phae District, Ratchaburi, تايلاند من عند Wat Kaeo, Bang Phae District, Ratchaburi, تايلاند

Absolutely my favorite book of all time, I read it at least twice as a grade schooler, living close to the Mississippi river as a kid it captured my imagination and I immediately identified with Huck Finn, the child lost to Victorian society, but free from the constraints of ignorant prejudice -- while at the same being considered of the ignorant class himself. Mark Twain's crowning work as far as I'm concerned.

Reading the book jacket, one is struck by the fact that Nabokov accomplishes what Dave Eggers is always trying to accomplish: heartbreaking! touching! horrible! grandiosely self-regarding! genius! And yet he doesn't have to trot out the oh-so-beautiful tragedies of his parents and his family--and hide the terrible things he's done to them; look it up--to get our sympathy. Instead, he actually emphasizes the terrible things he's done and reels us in despite those atrocities. An altogether higher form of sociopathic genius. Apparently the parallel version Nabokov wrote in Russian is just as good. Still, aside from using it to bash Dave Eggers, what is there to say about this book? I'm not sure.