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flooey 's review for:
I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains
by Chuck Klosterman
I find myself having a hard time deciding what I thought about this book.
On the one hand, the writing is self-indulgent to the point of being quite annoying. Several of the essays are half-thoughts that sometimes end with a conclusion that the author should have thought about it some more. It's filled with references that don't elucidate anything and seem to only exist to say, "Hey, I know about this mostly-unrelated thing." At one point he spends 8 pages detailing the bands he hated through his childhood and early adulthood, that kind of thing.
On the other hand, scattered among the essays are a variety of observations about cultural attitudes and behaviors that I found quite interesting. As an example, he observes, correctly I think, that the major cultural transition in the 80s and 90s was a shift in control over what was acceptable in public discussion from the political right (sex and profanity are unacceptable, joking about minorities, women, and gay people is okay) to the left (sex and profanity are okay, joking about minorities, women, and gay people is unacceptable). That's a worthy topic to explore, but he doesn't really explore it, most of the chapter is about how Andrew Dice Clay wasn't very funny and ended up going down in history as a bad guy (though I think he overestimates how much Andrew Dice Clay has gone down in history, as opposed to just being forgotten).
So overall, I think I'd marginally recommend the book, but know that you're reading a lot of words for only a few real gems. Those gems are pretty good, though.
On the one hand, the writing is self-indulgent to the point of being quite annoying. Several of the essays are half-thoughts that sometimes end with a conclusion that the author should have thought about it some more. It's filled with references that don't elucidate anything and seem to only exist to say, "Hey, I know about this mostly-unrelated thing." At one point he spends 8 pages detailing the bands he hated through his childhood and early adulthood, that kind of thing.
On the other hand, scattered among the essays are a variety of observations about cultural attitudes and behaviors that I found quite interesting. As an example, he observes, correctly I think, that the major cultural transition in the 80s and 90s was a shift in control over what was acceptable in public discussion from the political right (sex and profanity are unacceptable, joking about minorities, women, and gay people is okay) to the left (sex and profanity are okay, joking about minorities, women, and gay people is unacceptable). That's a worthy topic to explore, but he doesn't really explore it, most of the chapter is about how Andrew Dice Clay wasn't very funny and ended up going down in history as a bad guy (though I think he overestimates how much Andrew Dice Clay has gone down in history, as opposed to just being forgotten).
So overall, I think I'd marginally recommend the book, but know that you're reading a lot of words for only a few real gems. Those gems are pretty good, though.