mrmuleman 's review for:

I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined) by Chuck Klosterman

5.0

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Chuck Klosterman returns with another outstanding collection of essays, this time focused on the concept of villainy. Klosterman brings his unique style of applying highbrow philosophical and critical analysis to bear on topics and issues of "low" pop culture, and the results are thought provoking, interesting, and more times than not, slightly humorous. This collection has me thinking more and more about the idea of villainy, and who we consider villains and why. Klosterman explores the long debated question of whether villains think of themselves as villains, and also touches on the idea of history being written by the winners. Ultimately, Klosterman comes up with an interesting theory . . . that villains are the people that know the most, and care the least. An interesting way to think about villainy, and at least through the prism of his essays, the idea holds up.

Highly suggested . . .