Reviews with content warning for Classism - Doppelganger

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

alexisgarcia's review

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informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

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carojust's review

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.75

"Doppelganger" is a book you read to find footing in our tumultuous world of politics, technology, war, healthcare and the permanent, pervasive ecological damage we've done in the name of capitalism.

Naomi Klein centers this book around the strange occurrence of being mistaken as Naomi Wolf, a fellow writer and feminist whose beliefs she deems harmful and flat-out wrong. But she quickly expands this idea of doppelgangers toward the two selves of a person, a religion, a country. Then brings it back to say, rather persuasively albeit incongruously, that our answer to making the world better lies in abandoning individualism and engaging in a care-based, communal society.

Throughout the book, this idea of relating the world to "doubling" felt like a reach, and overdone. I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't need the constant packaging of mirrors and shadow worlds. Yin and yang, I get it.

Also, this is a call to socialism, essentially. You'll be disappointed if you go into this expecting more of a memoir with a "Black Mirror" angle. But it's a great read for your social consciousness, and how to approach our increasingly hostile, diametrically opposed world.

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aileen_macalister's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

The book's main thread follows Naomi Klein and another writer Naomi Wolf, who's career path was so similar to Klein's for such a long period that the two are often confused. However, Wolf's life takes a dramatic shift to the right and Klein finds herself constantly "called out" for Wolf's views.

This leads Klein to look into the far right and conspiracy theories while also analysing references to doppelgangers throughout literature and history.

It is a fascinating window into the "mirror world" as Klein refers to it. It took me a couple of chapters to get into the book as she has to spend a good amount of time setting the scene and describing the similarities of herself and Wolf before she can get to the good stuff but once she gets into it the story takes you on an journey through this mirror world from Anti-vaxers to Palestine and everything in-between.

For me, listening to it as an audiobook made it so much easier to take in.

Overall it's an exploration into what it means to be a human in today's world and what "the self" really means.

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siebensommer's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

4.25

at times it feels like it's losing itself in so many different themes (all very important and well-researched) and then you get to the end and all comes together.. oof

in fact it makes a certain kind of sick sense that our era of peak personal branding has coincided so precisely with an unprecedented crisis point for our shared home. the vast complex planetary crisis requires coordinated collective effort on an international scale. that may be theoretically possible, but it sure is daunting. far easier to master ourselves - the brand called you.

we did [change the discourse] but we appear to have done it at the precise moment when words and ideas underwent a radical currency devaluation

what is the alternative that is being offered on this side of the glass? do we have a plan for a world without sacrificial people? and does that plan feel credible, rooted in action?