The Blog

Superlatives is where we talk about what we’re currently enjoying, high-school style. This week, we’ve selected our favorite passages from The Circle, a new novel by Dave Eggers.

Best Satire of Food Culture
“The tour continued through that afternoon, with stops to sample food at a culinary class, taught that day by a celebrated young chef known for using the whole of any animal. She presented Mae with a dish called roasted pigface, which Mae ate and discovered tasted like a more fatty bacon; she liked it very much.”

Best Rhetorical Question
“Could she have conceived of the answer to a thousand-year-old problem?”

Best Excuse for Weird Family Members
“Everyone’s bloodline has rough patches, I’m sure.”

Best Description of Puberty-Related Ambivalence
“Since the photo—she was eighteen then, angry and unsure—Mae had gained much-needed weight, her face had softened and curves appeared, curves that brought the attention of men of myriad ages and motives.”

Saddest Depiction of an Octopus’s Death
“The shark turned and, in a fury, ripped its prey’s tentacles off, one by one, until the octopus was dead, a shredded mass of milky white matter.”

 

The Circle, by Dave Eggers, is available now from McSweeney’s and Knopf.

Tags: dave eggers, superlatives, the circle