I got two books of short stories for Christmas: one by Dave Eggers and one by Jonathan Lethem. I feel like they're so superficially similar, with their self-conscious coolness and their weird character names, but I just like the Lethem so much better. Eggers I appreciate, but the stories don't make me smile.

Eggers' best work was "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius," even if it did force me to call my memoir, hypothetically, at least "A Triumph Of The Human Spirit" I have a minor literary crush on JL.

I've liked a couple of Eggers's short stories -- "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly," e.g. -- but found his style in A Heartbreaking Work of Blah Blah a bit too much.

Lethem, when he loses me, he really loses me, but when he wins me over, we do pretty well together. I tend to find him stronger with novel-length than with the short story, but I expect that's influenced by his earlier short stories, many of which are incomprehensible.

Whew, Nutty, glad it's not just me..."Fortress of Solitude" knocked me out so I read a bunch of his other things, and the shorts are, in some cases, well-phrased exercises in WTF? But I'm not Sci-Fi Gal so I thought I was, you know, "showing myself" Still bitter that I didn't think of a band called the "Subtle Distinctions" first because I think that is the Best Thing Ever.

I've liked a couple of Eggers's short stories -- "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly,"

I thought that was really good, but I can't say I liked it.

the shorts are, in some cases, well-phrased exercises in WTF?

Dude, Eggers SO MUCH MORE. SO much.

I've never found Lethem terribly self-conscious. Maybe there's more of that sort of thing in his short stories? I haven't read those in a while. If you like his stories I'd think you'd enjoy his novels -- they're definitely a little odd, but they don't come with big banners attached that say "Look! This is daring and experimental! LOOK! Not that I care if you do."

Dude, Eggers SO MUCH MORE. SO much.

I'm with you. I find it difficult to make sense of the phrase "as self-conscious as Eggers" except as a whimsical way to say "something that self-evidently cannot exist in our reality."

I've read a couple of Lethem's novels, and definitely liked the more real-world ones much much better than the more fantastic stuff. But I'm seriously almost as low-brow as a person can get and not get all of her books at the drug store. Some of the short stories in this collection (Men and Cartoons) feel like mostly playing with an idea, but in a way that I can enjoy.

Girl in Landscape is a western in space, if you're into that sort of thing.

In a "Little House on Altair" way.

The weird part is trying to compare Eggers with Lethem at all -- in so many ways, they are nothing alike. And then you realize that they are grouped together, in a lot of people's minds, as are ten other names that show up in McSweeney's and the Georgia Review and Zoetrope. Really, though, I think they all have their own tangents, and are compared so often because they're both youngish writers who have cracked the New Yorker set.

Which is like comparing people because they stand on the same commuter platform in the morning, waiting for a train. I guess it's a function of how small the short-fiction world is, in part; if five people are all dabbling in the same vague areas, they must be a Movement.

Really, though, I think they all have their own tangents, and are compared so often because they're both youngish writers who have cracked the New Yorker set.

Well, and for me because I was given books by both of them on the same day. Edit: And I don't tend to read short stories, so I'm especially noticing them.