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grumpalaurus 's review for:
The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War
by Jeff Sharlet
4.5/5. The best way I can think of to describe this book is this: the author wants you to think of where we are as a country as a painting. Instead of describing what that painting looks like, or trying to explain to us what it means, or even how we should feel about it, the author instead takes us on a journey to try to understand how, when, and why the painting was created- what went into it, how it came to be. He wants you to explore the emotions and motivations that drove the artists (us) to paint it in the way that we did, and he gives us glimpses into the artistic process that could have led us down different paths, might have even left us with a totally different painting. He wants you to carefully consider our collective creation, not only from your own viewpoint but from the others standing around you, who are all looking at (you think) the same thing you are. The big triumph here is that he very successfully demonstrates one of the most fundamental, magical, and confounding parts of art: no one sees and experiences the same piece of art in the same exact same way.
It was a fascinating way to explore a topic I already felt familiar with, and it challenged me to think about the things I thought I knew in a new way. Excellent book. Horrifying, too.
It was a fascinating way to explore a topic I already felt familiar with, and it challenged me to think about the things I thought I knew in a new way. Excellent book. Horrifying, too.