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The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, Society & Culture, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.511.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2019

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I’ve wanted to have Dave Eggers on the show for a while now. Eggers has not only written a vast range of books (a deeply ironic personal memoir, a heartwarming novel about a Sudanese refugee, a futuristic story about a tech dystopia) but he's also founded the national tutoring nonprofit 826 Valencia, started the literary magazine McSweeney’s, co-authored the screenplay of Where the Wild Things Are, and much more. I’m fascinated by people who are able to do a variety of wildly different things, all successfully. Dave Eggers is one of those people.  So, we start this conversation by discussing Eggers’s life’s work, his recent book The Captain and the Glory, and Donald Trump. But then — somewhere around the halfway point — the conversation transforms into something I can only describe as, well, therapeutic. Eggers doesn’t own a smartphone or have wifi in his house, and hearing the way he talks about the internet, social media, and our relationship to them put me in a sort of quasi-meditation state that I can’t describe adequately with words. This one is a little strange, but it may just make your day. It certainly made mine. Book recommendations: The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton  The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton  The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton If you enjoyed this episode, you may like: You will love this conversation with Jaron Lanier, but I can’t describe it Cal Newport on doing Deep Work and escaping social media My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com. Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits: Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld Researcher - Roge Karma Engineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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1:04.0

With the best comedy, it comes from a sense of moral clarity to some extent.

1:11.0

And the best satire is a form of moral outrage, you know, sublimated into the shape of comedy.

1:24.0

Hello, welcome to the client show in the box media.

1:34.0

So I just had the strangest conversation.

1:39.0

I've wanted to have Dave Egger's on the show forever. Like forever, like for years.

1:44.0

I've been fascinated by him for years. I've read the harping work of staggering genius when it came out.

1:50.0

I read a bunch of other novels, but like watching him over time, he created like the 826 series of pirate tutoring centers and McSweeney's and the believer.

1:58.0

Then he began writing these books like what is the what where he was doing this reportage in very earnestly tongue-a-story of other people's lives.

2:06.0

And the range of things he's done over time, the circle.

2:10.0

I'm just so fascinated by people who are able to stay creatively that alive and to start things that remain creatively that distinct.

2:17.0

So I want to talk to him for years. And he's just bringing out a new book, a satire of Donald Trump called the Captain of the Glory.

...

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