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A review by theciz
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
informative
sad
medium-paced
3.0
Being occasionally exposed to the crazy descent of Naomi Wolf, I was curious to read a book about her from an author I, and many others, were constantly mistaking her for. I was aware of Klein’s work before this, but hadn’t read any of it, so I wasn’t sure what to expect going in. Somehow I was still disappointed.
She uses Wolf’s mainstream meltdowns to examine modern conspiratorial far-right culture, mostly through the lens of the whole anti-vax madness of 2020-2022. As with much "covid writing", I couldn’t help but think "I just went through all of this and know all of this already". I didn’t feel like there was any particularly informative or enlightening analysis going on - just endless descriptions of what Steve Bannon was saying on podcasts. The rest - neoliberalism, social media, Israel, relitigating the 2016 Bernie campaign yet again, etc. - felt disparate and shallow (approvingly quoting Kendzior in 2023? Yikes). She attempts to link everything to the "doppelgänger" theme, but it’s mostly tenuous - a forced analogy I could have done without. Again, if you’ve been on the internet enough the last ten years, there’s nothing revelatory. As such, I wished she’d just stuck to the personal parts, as they were the most interesting.
The ending also wasn’t very useful - "work together", what a revolutionary thought! It wasn’t that bad, but it also kind of felt like a waste of time.
She uses Wolf’s mainstream meltdowns to examine modern conspiratorial far-right culture, mostly through the lens of the whole anti-vax madness of 2020-2022. As with much "covid writing", I couldn’t help but think "I just went through all of this and know all of this already". I didn’t feel like there was any particularly informative or enlightening analysis going on - just endless descriptions of what Steve Bannon was saying on podcasts. The rest - neoliberalism, social media, Israel, relitigating the 2016 Bernie campaign yet again, etc. - felt disparate and shallow (approvingly quoting Kendzior in 2023? Yikes). She attempts to link everything to the "doppelgänger" theme, but it’s mostly tenuous - a forced analogy I could have done without. Again, if you’ve been on the internet enough the last ten years, there’s nothing revelatory. As such, I wished she’d just stuck to the personal parts, as they were the most interesting.
The ending also wasn’t very useful - "work together", what a revolutionary thought! It wasn’t that bad, but it also kind of felt like a waste of time.