The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers

An illustration from the book. There are several beautiful 2-page layout illustrations like this in the book. At the end of the book, there’s a “Note About the Art” that says “The paintings in this book are classical landscapes by artists long departed. Shawn Harris, the frequent collaborator of this book’s author, added Johannes to each landscape but otherwise left the paintings as they were.” How cool is that?!

A Facebook friend recommended The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers when I posted about having read The Ride of Her Life. The Ride of Her Life made me think about how good it is that God gives us companions like dogs, cats, and horses. The Eyes & the Impossible is narrated by a dog named Johannes. A book full of animals who talk makes me think it’s a children’s book, and that is how some reviewers classify it. But it kind of reminds me of The Chronicles of Narnia and C.S. Lewis’ book Out of the Silent Planet, part of his space trilogy, where I don’t think about the characters being animals and think of them as characters, albeit characters that have special powers unique to the animals they are.

Johannes is called “the Eyes” because he reports what he sees. The book is set in a park and starts with a note that “no places are real places.” Because I know Dave Eggers lives in the Bay Area (not to brag or anything, but I’ve been at a couple of his book signings and talks at Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park, CA), I couldn’t help imagining Golden Gate Park landscapes and features as I read it.

In this park there is a hierarchy and the Bison are at the top. They are the rulers of the park and Keepers of the Equilibrium. If a decision has to be made about the animals and their world, the bison make it. There are three bison in an enclosure in the park. Johannes runs all around the park every day, meets with other animals, especially his friend Bertram who is a gull and can provide vital information, too, with his ability to see from the sky.

The book is an exciting story. The animals are threatened by humans, construction, other animals, and all kinds of stuff happens. Like the C.S. Lewis books, I felt like there was a deeper meaning than just the story itself—although Eggers makes it very clear that “most crucially, no animals symbolize people…Here, the dogs are dogs, the birds are birds, goats are goats, the Bison Bison.” That felt true, and I often thought there were deeper meanings within the words.

One place this happened was when Johannes could not get to sleep and he recited “what he knows is true:”

God is the Sun.

Clouds are her messengers.

Rain is only rain. (page 43)

In another place, Johannes says:

The sun only wants you to bask;

that is all she truly wants;

it pleases her to no end…

I suppose it’s unsurprising that those passages made me think of God. We bask in his love, like the sun, “that is all she truly wants…”

As the story develops, Johannes’ mind is blown when he learns there’s a huge world outside the park. It reminded me of how we humans are so limited, too. Not only is there a vast universe we cannot imagine, and are stunned by the images we see, the relatively small glimpses we get of what’s out there, but who knows what infinite wonders God has not revealed to us yet?

Even if you don’t get “distracted” by these kind of spiritual thoughts, the story is exciting, and funny, and creative. Experiencing the world through these characters is a kick, “a total delight,” as one of the “blurbers” wrote. And you get fully caught up in the plans Johannes and his friends hatch to go beyond the borders of the only world they know.

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Dave Eggers autographed one of his books at one of the times I saw him at Kepler’s. (This photo is at Barrone’s Cafe, right next to Kepler’s.)

I also wanted to say a little about Dave Eggers. I am impressed by him, not only his writing, but also the work he does to encourage young people. Take a look at his website. I first heard of Dave Eggers when I read the book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I loved that book. Dave wrote about his parents’ death and his subsequent time of raising his younger brother when he himself was just a teenager. It was great writing and creative, too. I can’t remember why but he wrote part of the book upside-down, meaning you got to one place and then you had to turn the book around to read the rest. Weird, but cool.

As you can read on the website, Eggers started a publishing company, McSweeney’s, and a youth writing center, 826 Valencia. I’ve heard him speak a couple times at Kepler’s Bookstore and he seems to really be fighting the things he finds changing society for the worse. He wrote a book called The Circle, that tells the story of the way having no privacy can ruin lives. He does things with his publishing company that cannot be done in regular publishing, such as multiple cover designs. He started an institution to help under-privileged kids get matched up with scholarships to help them make it to college. He has done so much to take action for what he believes, not just words.