If you’re anything like me then you are terribly afraid of drugs and don’t have any intention to do them ever in your lifetime…but you’re still very curious about the effects they might have. Well, if that’s the case, then reading this book will give you just the mind-trip that is necessary to solve that hunger for a few days (maybe even weeks). Tao Lin’s appropriately entitled debut novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee messes with your mind in such a way that can only be compared to mixing many different types of drugs, sitting in your living room, and staring at a lava lamp (aka, it’s really weird, fun and cool at the same time).
The book’s title, Eeeee Eee Eeee comes from the onomatopoeia for the sound that dolphins make (as believed by the book’s main character, Andrew). Andrew is a recent college graduate who delivers pizzas for Domino’s while constantly questioning and assessing the world around him. Andrew is a loner. He doesn’t have many friends, and his family doesn’t understand him in the slightest, so instead, there are bears, hamsters and dolphins for him to talk to. They understand him. They relate to him. They are smart, and they know how to console Andrew. They live precariously amongst the humans in the world, showing those who believe in them (mostly just Andrew) the ironies that our world has to offer, while showing that having an open mind can be beneficial in life.
Oddly enough, nothing really happens in Andrew’s life. He sleeps, he wakes, he dreams and he thinks, but he doesn’t ever actually live (other than inside his own head), yet throughout the entirety of the book, Tao Lin still finds a way to make the occurrences in Andrew’s life incredibly interesting to those reading about it. It’s not just any novel that you will read about a bear destroying the main character’s car, writing his own debut novel and accidentally crushing Sean Penn’s head (various other celebrities “accidentally” die in this novel as well).
Although almost every page of Eeeee Eee Eeee feels like a quick game of random word association (causing the ridiculous mind trip mentioned above), Andrew and his “friends” still encounter the most basic of human emotions in each and every scene, making Eeeee Eee Eeee incredibly easy for anyone to relate to. Reading Eeeee Eee Eeee will be quick and (mostly) painless (reading it myself took only a day or two, because it was almost impossible to put down at times). And, if you end up reading Eeeee Eee Eeee and enjoy it, then you should check out some of Tao Lin’s other phenomenally interesting (and mind altering) books.
This sounds awesome!