‘You Shall Know Our Velocity’ by Dave Eggers; Penguin Books India; Rs 395;

IN THIS GARRULOUS novel, two young Americans from Milwaukee, Will Chmielewski and his friend, the feckless and provocative Hand, set out on a journey of expiation and redemption after the sudden death of their closest friend Jack in a horrendous road accident. They believe that their grief will be assauged by undertaking a round the world trip in a week and the distribution of around 32,000 US dollars, gratis, to the needy. In the event, the duo soon discover the impossibility of covering the entire globe in seven days and the piecemeal donation of all that money isn’t also a piece of cake. The journey, curtailed by the self-imposed deadline, takes the two friends, besides small towns and villages, to Dakar in Senegal, Casablanca and Marrakesh in Morocco, Tallinn in Estonia and Riga in Latvia.

Along the way, the two devise ways and means, sometimes amusing, of giving the money away to unsuspecting beneficiaries: a beggar woman with a baby, a young basketball player, a dealer in bric-a-brac, a man who helps them fix a punctured tyre, and two aging sex workers. There’s also a sum buried in the ground with a treasure map located in the vicinity. The ‘selection process’ is random and whimsical. The Quixote-like figures are engaging enough: Hand with his tall theories on everything under the sun and the vulnerable Will, his face battered, his body bruised by thugs let loose on him after Hand needlessly provokes a fellow shopper in the small town of Oconomowoc where they had gone to pick up Jack’s belongings. And some of the incidents are amusing in themselves. But the central premise of the novel, as the blurb suggests, ‘a sly allegory for American intervention abroad’, stands on brittle ground. It isn’t also clear why it is so very imperative to accomplish everything in seven days, the only commitment being that Will has to be back in time for a wedding in Mexico City. Why not ten days, even a month?

The motivation to embark on the pilgrimage is itself blurred with the burden of guilt absent because neither Will nor Hand are in any way responsible for the death of their friend. The author has missed out on this central core that could have lent some poignancy and tension to the journey. If the novel is indeed making a comment on foolhardy American intervention abroad or on American insularity, we have only a few remarks by Will to convince us of that connection. Will concedes that ‘we know nothing; the gaps in our knowledge were random and annoying. They were potholes—they could be patched but they multiplied without pattern or remorse’. And on another occasion: ‘I acted too often with unprovoked aggression and now it is enacted upon me’. These few links are much too tenuous to weave in that larger canvas.

 In the end Will achieves some kind of catharsis, but the haphazard and quite uneventful journeys and the arbitrary nature of the donations makes it all appear contrived. Ultimately, Will doesn’t have a convincing response to his mother’s sensible questions: ‘Don’t you think it’s all a little condescending?’ she asks. ‘Why not just bring it back here and give it to charity?’

The publisher’s intentions are probably as noble as that of the do-gooder duo with the ‘Editor’s Choice’ branding of the book. But at Rs 395 and 350 pages long, will there be many takers?

Pp 350.

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