"Big Dumb Eyes"
Nate Bargatze
Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group
When I'm alone at home, and I just want to turn something on while I eat lunch or take a break, stand-up comedy specials are one of my go-tos.
And because I’m a voracious reader, I’m also often tempted to check out these same comedians’ books (a branding venture that now feels downright compulsory).
Sometimes these books simply traffic in the humor we love that comic for (Jerry Seinfeld’s “Sein Language,” Jim Gaffigan’s “Dad is Fat,” etc.). Other times, there’s a genuine attempt to reflect on a life, including some not-necessarily-funny moments (Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime,” Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up”).
Which camp does Nate Bargatze’s new book “Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind” fall into?
Though personal anecdotes provide the foundation for most of the book’s chapters, Bargatze’s perspective and voice – which you can hear either literally, via audiobook, or in your mind, if you read the old glue-and-paper version – are the main draw.
Which is to say, “Big Dumb Eyes” kind of attempts to be both. There are biographical sections about Bargatze’s relationship with his siblings and with dogs, as well as his first car, early non-comedy jobs, his move from small-town Tennessee to Chicago to pursue comedy, and the birth of his child. There are also asides on, you know, socks, the stresses of tipping, “random food things,” the difference between shopping and buying, how long sushi has been around, and some blank pages here and there to make the book “easier to read” (on-brand, but still).
If this sounds like a mishmash, well, it reads that way, too. The truly bad news is this: I laughed only a few times while slogging through “Big Dumb Eyes” – partly because the anecdotes aren’t all that compelling, but also because the whole project has the feel of a school assignment Bargatze didn’t really want to do.
He all but acknowledges this in the book’s introduction: “You might be a little nervous opening these pages, because I am very on the record about not liking to read books. … And here I am, writing one of my own.”
But why, Nate? Why? (I mean, besides the obvious “a paycheck” answer, which … fair.) To readers, books – even the ones we buy simply in hopes of a good laugh – are sacred. So when one feels lazily slapdash in both structure and content, as “Big Dumb Eyes” does, it’s more than a little disappointing.
That’s not to say that Bargatze never lands a funny line. Regarding his little brother, Bargatze writes, “He eventually grew taller than me by two inches. Or as I like to call it, ‘the same height.’”
And the comic briefly flirts with vulnerability when writing about his daughter seeing a belief-shattering video about Elf on the Shelf online. As she sobs, Bargatze assures her that their in-house game of pretend was an act of love, not mean-spirited deception, and this calms her. He writes, “Maybe I gotta start working on just talking to her, communicating with her, as a friend and her dad. … After Harper settled down, we talked about how next Christmas maybe she and I could hide Alfie together. How we wouldn’t tell her younger cousins, because we wanted them to enjoy the magic of the holiday the same way she did. How that could be our newest tradition, and we could do it just the two of us.”
In this passage, I could feel Bargatze slowing down, digging in, and telling the truth, both to himself and to us – which is precisely why it jumped out at me. I’m not saying Bargatze should have written the whole book in this sincere-dad mode, but the passage does hint at what Bargatze can do when he cares.
Similarly, Bargatze’s stand-up material, at its best, is the product of sharply tuned focus and editing, and I have no doubt that several of the often-flat-footed anecdotes in “Big Dumb Eyes” will nonetheless provide the raw material for good jokes.
Stand-up comedy and book-writing are radically different art forms. If, like Bargatze, you’re starting from a place of not respecting (or even liking) the art form itself, then perhaps – and I say this as a fan – you just say "no" to this particular paycheck.