Eeeee, eee, eeee

by Tao Lin

Confused yet intelligent animals attempt to interact with confused yet intelligent humans, resulting in the death of Elijah Wood, Salman Rushdie, and Wong Kar-Wai; the destruction of a Domino's Pizza delivery car in Orlando; and a vegan dinner at a sushi restaurant in Manhattan attended by a dolphin, a bear, a moose, an alien, three humans, and the President of the United States of America, who lectures on the arbitrary nature of consciousness, truth, and the universe before getting drunk and playing poker.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, American, Humor, The United States Of America, Literature

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Tao Lin is the author of the novels Leave Society, Taipei, Richard Yates, and Eeeee Eee Eeee; the memoir Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change; and the novella Shoplifting from American Apparel, among other books. He posts on Substack and lives in Hawaii.

Reviews

[Noah Cicero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I might have been the first person to read this book except for tao lin: that makes me better than a lot of other people: when I read this book, my penis grew very hard, I broke a wooden table with my penis: Tao Lin wrote this book in a library and maybe in nowhere PA, in a town with a place called "Ming Moon" I ate there, he told me about his childhood and how he loved the song, "Sweet Home Alabama", he said he liked to replace the word "Alabama" with Florida, cuz he is from Florida you know, he had an alligater as a pet, he called them "gators", he taunted me about how Ohio State keeps losing to Florida in national championships, I punched him in the face, we made up, and had deep penetration.

[Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was truly godawful. Hipster pretention at its absolute worst. I went in honestly expecting to like this-- I was incredibly optimistic. The optimism began to wane several dozen pages in, and finally I only finished it out of determination to WIN over this piece of crap. And once I WON, I threw it across the room in frustration.

If this book had a face I would punch it.

[Kristijan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Da li ste ikada gledali film "Ta divna stvorenja" tj. "Animals are beautiful people"? U njemu ima scena u kojoj majmun u pustinji otklapa kamen, ispod njega vidi zmiju, uplaši se i padne u nesvest (u međuvremenu se kamen vrati na zmiju). Kada se osvesti on opet uradi istu stvar i tako u krug...

E tako sam ja ponovo pao na sinopsis na koricama knjige...

Evo šta mi je bilo obećano: montipajtonovski humor, razorna društvena kritika, zabava, koplandovski stil, rani bret-iston-elisovski stil, beket u tragovima, nešto kafkaeskno, nešto totalno erlend-luovski.
Da odmah razjasnimo sve: odrastao sam na Monti Pajtonovcima, volim knjige koje su kritički postavljene prema društvu, volim Koplanda, Iston Elisa, Beketa i Kafku u doziranim i ograničenim količinama, a Lua prosto obožavam. Knjiga je, što se mene tiče, pala na svim tim momentima. Autor pokušava da namigne svima njima, ali taj namig ispade poput onog treptanja kada čovek kome slabi vid treptanjem pokušava da "izbistri" sliku. Roman je, dakle, pokušaj "izoštravanja" slike, koju na kraju ne vidimo...

Glavni lik bi po mnogome mogao da liči na Selindžerovog "lovca u raži" ili na Luovog "naivka", ali koliko su njih dvojica simpatični, IiiiiiiiiEndrju je naporan, dosadan mlati***** koji je toliko iritantan i za koga se čitalac ne može vezati. I ostali likovi deluju totalno plastično i neubedljivo, oni plivaju u svojim depresijama, razmišljanjima o samoubistvu ili ubistvu drugih, ispraznim pričama o Džampi Lahiri i njenom Puliceru, itd. Paralelno sa ljudskim svetom postoji i svet inteligentnih životinja koje se pojavljuju u "realnom depresivnom" svetu - svetovi se ukrštaju i likovi prelaze iz jednog u drugi. A inače životinje su odgovorne za ubistvo mnogih slavnih ličnosti (kojih? - pročitajte sinopsis :P)

Dakle, imamo hrpu depresivaca koji ne znaju šta će sa sobom, svetom i sa ostalima. Pitaju se da li da žive, da li da se ubiju, da li da ubiju nekog drugog. Usput se sreću sa losovima, delfinima koji svako malo proizvode zvuke iz naslova Iiiiii iii iiiii, hrčcima, medvedima koji se teleportuju, šamaraju losa i prekrivaju mu glavu ćebetom i vanzemaljcima...

E da, zaboravih da naglasim da glavni lik stalno razmišlja i preispituje sebe u nekom kvazi toku svesti zbog čega zasigurno i Džojs i Vulfica a i svi autori koji su gore pomenuti ili su pomenuti u samom romanu imaju želju da našamaraju autora i prekriju mu glavu ćebetom i viču mu iiiiii iii iiiii na uvce...

Previše WTF momenata u čitanju knjige, previše nabacanih stvari, previše depresije, previše spominjanja slavnih ličnosti i ubijanja istih, previše želje da ovaj roman bude nešto više od skupa reči na papiru... previše besmisla i haosa...

Prava papazjanija koja na svu sreću kratko traje. Čitati na vlastitu odgovornost, u nedostatku bilo kakve druge literature. U slučaju da posedujete ovu knjigu, idealno mesto za nju je negde na najvišoj polici, pozadi, iza drugih knjiga :D

I da, kao što je Knjigoholičarka napisala - više ćete se nasmejati tražeći knjigu sa ovakvim nazivom u knjižari od prodavca, nego dok je budete čitali :D

[Brent Legault · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me first say that I love and admire the title of this novel. I love and especially admire that each line of e's is a different length: 5, 3, 4. I can't explain why this appeals to me.

Next let me say that the design of this book, inside and outside, is nearly sublime. A notch below sublime. Subsublime. Melville House has a knack for these things.

I think I love and admire the title for its asymmetry but I don't know why asymmetry should appeal to me more than symmetry.

It just does.

Now, the novel. There's a lot of pressure to love and admire this novel. The pressure comes from within. Nobody I know has read it. Nobody but me is telling me I should love and admire it. The pressure is there even so.

As Miranda July writes on the back cover, this novel is frequently hilarious.

But it did not kick (my) ass and say thank you afterwards!, as Amy Fusselman, author of The Pharmacist's Mate so cleverly puts it. Neither, for that matter, did The Pharmacist's Mate.

About the style. It is everything in this novel. It is a lifeforce. More so than in most novels. It is, by turns, loveable, hateable, loveable, hateable, hateable, etc. My feelings about it change from page to page.

Sometimes I think Lin is trying to destroy all intellect, that the mind affronts him. Then he writes something smart.

Othertimes I think that Lin is a secret, subtle genius. Then he writes something or ten things that disabuse me of that notion.

He loves the word depressing or depressed. He uses it every third page. He also loves sad. That's on every third page, too. These words are empty and enraging. Like wonderful and fantastic, they mean nothing and do not gain meaning through repetition. They just get emptier, if that's possible. They are like a spike in my inside ears.

About the pressure to love and admire this novel. It's much like the pressure I felt to love and admire the movie Gummo way back when, when it came out. I felt and was made to feel somehow inferior if I didn't love and admire it. I felt and was made to feel that I just didn't get it.

That's how Eeeee Eee Eeee makes me feel. And that? That makes me sad. Sad and depressed.

[Jimmy]

I submitted this to Better Book Titles today. Hope they'll accept it:



It's just a joke :) no hard feelings, Tao fans!

[Steve Sarner]

No Star Rating Possible.

Sara’s blue Popsicle was confused.

I am as confused as her Popsicle about this book.

Eeeee Eee Eeee is an acid trip in your hands.

I don’t work for Dominos. Maybe I could but probably not. At least not in Orlando.

Sometimes I make illegal U turns too but have only killed 1 squirrel. That I know of anyway. I ran it over. Were there more? Maybe, it was an accident and I’m sorry.

This book was recommended by a friend and I started reading it.

Goodreads is good like that. Getting recommendations from friends. Or maybe in this case bad like that.

Badreads. That is a different name. Otis would not like that.

After 10 pages I almost quit. It was weird. I mean really weird. A 1 star.

Then I gave it another chance. Sometimes I can be weird too.

That’s when I was confused like the opaque blue popsicle.

Now I wanted to rate it 5 stars as the most insightful thing in the world.

That’s stupid – it is clearly not the most insightful thing in the world.

And I went Eeeee. Eee. Eeeeeee. Ok – that is where the title originates. Not really the dolphin. Or the moose either.

I get it. Or do I?

I’m not depressed – maybe I should be. Maybe I should make a u turn.

There was a Bear. And a Dolphin. I said that already. It was dark.

I try to avoid driving. I’m pretty good at that.

Guess that means I’d be a bad Dominos driver. Since I don’t like to drive. I don’t like to fold boxes either. Except those 6 pack wine discount boxes at The Safeway. I like to fold those cause that means I am buying a 6 pack of wine at The Safeway. 10% discount, at The Safeway.

Do they do that at Walmart? I can ask Andrew, or Sara. No I can’t – they are fictional.

Honda Civics are strange. I don’t know why but it says so. In the book. The Eeeee book. With Andrew and Sara. But not really because they are fiction.

You got to look close. Real close.

Like this.

“Most people say “why not” and later on when it comes time to act say “it’s too hard” without ever trying to actually do anything.

That’s kinda profound. Like a peperoni pizza with Jalapenos. That’s Lisa’s favorite . Pepperoni. She says so when I call to order. I don’t really call her to order a pizza but sometimes I wish I was. Actually, Lisset suggested the jalapenos.

Maybe I should work at Dominos and deliver pepperoni pizza to Lisa and Lisset. And Eunice too. Wait, I can do that now at work anyway.

There is no escape. Even for the President or the substitute teacher. Not for the dolphin, bear or moose. Maybe the Alien.

They say this book will kick your ass. I don’t know. Maybe.

But, it will kick your brain.

[snackywombat (v.m.) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Tao Lin's novel is like going on an acid trip led by Thomas Pynchon and Richard Scarry. This book is determined to take you places and it will not be content with your contentedness. Not something to curl up with, rather it's something you read and hope that the subway doesn't come because you are not sure if you are going to be able to pick back up where you left off. Yet it comes and you open the book back up and you think: well, I wasn't quite sure what was going on anyway. There is so much whimsy that all you really want by the end is for Andrew and Ellen to get together and for him to stop thinking about that stupid Sara and for her to stop weirding everyone out so much. There are elements of Borges as well--like the dead-pan, scholarly whimsicality--but it's hard to compare this to anything because the style and voice are so unique. The concepts Lin threads throughout the novel are similar to that dream that you keep dreaming on the cliff just above sleep. His words are interesting and haunting--you will end up going through the stages of grief (disbelief, anger, all that) and then ultimately understand the uniqueness of what you have experienced, even if you weren't totally let into that very bizarre experience.

[Dane Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like words. I like books that arrange words in nice ways. I borrowed this from the library because, at first glance, it seemed to arrange words in interesting ways. I thought it felt brisk and pleasant and lightly weird. What I fell into was a nasty, disgusting, violently awful world that felt like a Marcel Dzama painting and a Blaise Larmee comic without heart simultaneously exchanging picturing of glittering pandas on tumblr. It hurt really bad to read this. It made me want to live my life in an opposite way. I am probably the exact target audience for this book yet it made my throat close forever.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no preconceived notion of this book, my third experience of Tao Lin. I loved Shoplifting from American Apparel yet Richard Yates gave me a headache. Having already bought all of the novels I thought I should definitely keep reading in the hope that something else marvellous may happen. But nothing really did.

It's experimental literature, it doesn't lend itself to traditional terms such as enjoy or plot but it does make an attempt to be one of my favourite types of fiction - human study through slice-of-life drama. This is definitely slice of life stuff, with a surreal twist.

Andrew drives around doing pretty uninteresting stuff and making obervations of life. Through this and the behaviour of other characters such as Bear, Dolphin, Hamster and Steve, Tao Lin sheds light on the human condition, the nature of loneliness, isolation, boredom, 21st century allergies, and trying to find an identity for yourself amongst all this pain, suffering and selfishness.

The first half of this book was pretty hard going for me, it was starting to irritate and felt like it was going nowhere/round in circles but a subtle style change occurs partway through and I found myself actually interested in these people and what Tao Lin was actually saying.

Much less work than Richard Yates but not as enjoyable to read as American Apparel.

[Andrea Glazer · Rating 1 out of 5]

The dumbest book ever. I had such high hopes, and it was awful. There was nothing clever or funny about it. It was just irritating. I think I quit about 40 pages in.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absurd, depressing and sincerely insincere. Plus there is a Jawbreaker quote, which is awesome because there are never any Jawbreaker quotes in books.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manic boredom, dreamy ennui, unshakable bloodlust, ossified loneliness, strobing like laser tag in a vacant outparcelled universe of non-existence. It wasn't unfun and I will read more Lin because I bet he can do better. A bit like if Ben Marcus wrote for Teen Buzzfeed. Actually, it may be the precocious exemplar of The Incipient Paraliterature of Viral Distraction, i.e., "I really need to get my life--oh dolphins!--um. Together. Yeah. Well. Can I borrow money for lunch? I spent my allowance on a signed first edition of The Satanic Verses. Or was it Jumanji?"

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whenever the author approaches something that could be an interesting story line, he interupts it with dolphins, bears, moose, and/or hamsters. However, he did use very good punctionation, so he has that going for him.

I am not sure if I am most angry at the author for writing it, the publisher for publishing it, or Meera for suggusting it.

[Danger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my favorite book with only vowels in the title.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay so a third book review in just a few days, not bad for how far apart they have recently been.

This book is closer to Zachary German than Lin's novella. It is also a lot closer to andersen prunty. In a way it reads a lot like zerostrata, why is no one noticing that having a conversation with a bear is weird. I mean they do notice giving half your pay to a dolphin is weird, but really why is the dolphin not in water. But really do we care? I think not.

Unlike his other book temporal integrity in this book is total and utter crap. I am okay with that, but I don't think everyone would be. A lot of the metaphors in the book are actually facts but you can't tell they are facts till a wrap up in the end. It is almost like the resolution of the book isn't the plot but it is letting the reader in on all the creepy shit he forgot to tell them about earlier or half implied and half denied.

Life in this book seems more meaningless and hopeless in this book but perhaps that is because andrew lives in florida and that context just feels meaningless and hopeless.

I think this book is clearly why Tao Lin is compared to German. It hits stoicism in a really interesting way. It still doesn't completely remove emotion the way that German does, but it manages to heavily minimize it so you don't notice it when it comes along. It screams the marching banner of the "lost" generation "RATIONALIZE OR DIE" in a fun and playful way. Nothing is shocking nothing is surprising everything just is. In some way it makes the whole bizarro movement make more sense.

[calima · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favourite genre of book ever and best title maybe ever also.

[Megan Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read "Eeeee..." in 30-60 minute installments while walking ~3.5mph at a 15.0 grade incline on a treadmill in 2009. I remember feeling like I hadn't read anything like that before, where it seemed like the author was writing from a place of hopelessness/dissatisfaction with the world that lead them to ask questions like "why do I feel unhappy so often, why aren't there more choices for me?" and "what if a bear approached me while I was sitting in my car and took me to an underground world of dolphins?" but paid maybe more attention to the second question because it provided a more constructive (or at least more interesting) way of thinking about their life. I also liked how the prose style seemed to want to mimic how thoughts and feelings interplay (i.e. Andrew will see something which reminds him of a memory with Sara, so the sentences will be something like "Andrew looked out the window at the tree. Sara sitting in the tree, laughing. Sara's face.") to directly relate an experience and sort of ignore it in the context of it being the subject of a book.

I also noticed and liked the scene where Andrew and his friend see a waitress at Denny's who they went to high school with and leave without paying and that the story "Sasquatch" in "Bed" is written from the perspective of a waitress at Denny's who sees people from her high school enter Denny's, doesn't want to wait on them, and watches them leave without paying.

[Alejandro Saint-Barthélemy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book title of the millennium, and I truly believe this in my heart of hearts.

I like the title as much as I hate the cover (check the Spanish edition, much better, unironic, with a dolphin and not a bear, since, ya know, it's dolphins the ones who say eeee eee eeee).

The title itself is not only the best part of the book but a contemporary art masterpiece by itself.

You wouldn't believe, as the creative type myself, how jealous I am of that title for a contemporary novel.

The novel is highly readable avant-garde (and if it's a little depressing, well, there is too much art out there already for making us happy, such as video games, movies, fashion, porn, commercial pop music... [don't ask books to make us happy to, please, for the love of God).

This book has been accused of silly (can we escape celebrities? What Warhol found out back in the 60's is that we cannot, and things ahve gone wild in that department, with more celebrities than ever nowadays), hip/hipster, and of ruining a stale/serious/costumbrist working class hero plot (yeah, 'cause books are much more than toys for adults) with dolphins and bears (fiction, imagination, creativity, the reminder of the fact that you are reading a book [a toy for adults, I must repeat]) when all those 3 things are exactly why it is good.


NeXTmodernist seal of approval.

[tao_lin3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book. I can read this book in any mood and enjoy it, I think.
The words all have meaning that my brain can process. After I read the words I feel emotions. Each sentence makes me feel emotion.

I will read this again later on and probably more times later on.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

i laughed alot and was happy when i read it. i finished it in like an hour.

[sofka · Rating 3 out of 5]

should've read this while under influence of some kind cause this feels like getting out of the club piss drunk and having a piss drunk conversation with other piss drunk people outside

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think you have to be high to read this. I'm all for non-linear, stream of consciousness, experimental fiction but fuuuuck this guy.

What a let down.

[Pernille]

Shit-eating grin is probably my favorite quote ever.

I like Andrew and the way he thinks. I think the way Tao Lin portrays people and their thoughts is very similar to how people think in real life, they just don't express it out loud. I recognized a lot of my own thoughts and feelings in the book.. but they are things I didn't think the rest of the world were walking around thinking as well.
Not everyone is like that of course. But while the book is about depressed, lonely people it is also strangely uplifting. It gives me hope in a really weird way. Like everything is going to be okay eventually.
I just don't know how yet.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

The reviews for Tao Lin's work have been extraordinary, so I must be a damned idiot. Some kind of story line, syntax, sympathetic character, action, resolution, or point would have been appreciated. If Tao Lin wants to write about his own nihilistic philosophy, he should not do it under the guise of legitimate fiction. Oh, and there are moody, talking bears and dolphins.

[C.B. Daring · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's quite possible this book just went over my head...or it's possible that this book has nothing at all of interest to offer. I was once an Art school student and maybe the book would have "spoken" to me at that point, but I was also in high school and a self-indulgent little brat.

[Jennifer Stec · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst book i've ever read. It was as non-sensical as a dream. A bear suddenly appears in your car and talks to you......but it wants to detonate a bomb somewhere with your help...and in the meantime you have a crush on some girl you work with. Noooo...i couldnt take it.

[Safa · Rating 4 out of 5]

that was like going inside my head. it's messy, surreal, hilarious, unfathomable, autistic, and unpredictable. i like it, picasso. we follow Andrew and his abnormal thoughts as he encounters people, bears, hamsters, and dolphins who squeak eeee eee eeeee. it's so funny and serious at the same time. pretty much the way i perceive life. the writing,on so many times; sounds aimless, unbothered, and nonlinear; other times, it was a long prose. ah, can we talk about the title and how interesting it is? it made me laugh so hard when i first got into the part where the title was in the book just to find that the latter is as interesting as its title. i simply love it. Ah, and the time when Andrew was coming at Jhumpa Lahiri,  i can’t. it was so hilarious.  such a funny book.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is definitely worth reading. It's a quick read and contains some of the most novel writing I have ever seen. I assure you that you will stop at least once and think "I have never seen a sentence like that in my entire life". That's a gratifying feeling. But there is a lot of literary value to this book-- see below:

This book is to absurdity what Super Flat Times is to nausea. Both are examples of what happens to characters who are stuck in a world apparently devoid of meaning and significance. The characters in Eeeee Eee Eeeee-- humans, bears, dolphins, hamsters, an alien, and the President of the United States-- are frequently funny and spontaneous, as well as prone to teleportation and sudden bursts of cartoonish ultraviolence (if only in their own heads). But none of the characters ever seem to do anything, so there's a "Waiting for Godot" kind of kinetic inaction that saturates the entire book.

There is an underlying sense of ennui and boredom, as well as a pervasive desire for meaningful contact with others that can't quite be fulfilled (the bears and dolphins perpetually find themselves awkwardly reaching out to others and failing). Plus a number of celebrities are murdered throughout the book, often for no particualr reason... Elijah Wood and Sean Penn come to mind, but there are others.

If nothing else, check this book out to see what the President's ringtone is. It just seems appropriate, but I'm not sure why.

[Zadignose]

I was entertained by this, sincerely. It's coldly psychotic.

It's more interesting than almost anything mainstream.

The book has fantastic elements and prosaic elements, and they intersect somewhat haphazardly. There's philosophy in it, mostly monist. One can't tell for sure to what extent it should be taken seriously, but probably it should be, at least a little bit. Sarcasm is sometimes employed in such a way that one cannot tell whether it is sarcasm.

It's non-chronological.

Characters sometimes come off as though they were all aspects of one character... though there's some (illusory?) differentiation. A reflection of the book's monism? Or an artifact of the book's origin in the mind of one author?

Mostly it has personality, and the personality is entertaining and likable, as a sort of life-critic/straight-faced-jester.

Oh yeah, it's also very much about missing someone, and loneliness, and depression, and the humor of doom.

I could have done without a couple of the weird animal scenes, maybe, but what'reyagonnado? They're an integral part of the book, and without them, it would be a very different book, so my choice is to simply accept the book for what it happens to be. I liked meeting the president.

Tao Lin is worthy of life.

[Southern Discomfort · Rating 1 out of 5]

When will this trend end??

Yet another 20'somethin' yr old author who writes like the modern version of Bret Easton Ellis...texting.
Formulaic, contrived, a big yawn.

Tao's style is kitsch, embarrassingly kooky and off-beat, snarky and obvious that owes more to the ironic images on 50/50 t-shirts in canary yellow and soccer green of robots administering enemas, ham sandwiches, coyotes obscured in a cloud of mist, or anything equally as 'tongue in cheek' and 'indie' screen printed on them that you find at your local Urban Outfitters, than it does to any dialogue that Jason Schwartzman has said in any Wes Anderson film.

Talking bears and dolphins. Oh and, Sean Penn makes a debut armed with knives trying to fight the bear.
Wow. How quirky. Crazy.
I'll grow a beard and drink some Pabst to that.