“I tried to buy this in a hip Chicago bookstore, and the clerk there was telling me that they were sold out. She then proceeded to explain to me that she didn’t like Chuck Klosterman and why.
I couldn’t help but think what a weird move this was, explaining to me why she didn’t like an author rather than asking me something like “Do you want to order one? From our BOOKSTORE. Where we survive by bringing books from outside, putting them in here, and then forcing people to give us money to take the books back outside.”
But anyway, her complaint was that Chuck Klosterman’s book Killing Yourself to Live was not enough about the deaths of rock stars and too much about Chuck Klosterman. She used a phrase that I don’t care for, “navel-gazing.”
Navel-gazing, to me, describes a work that is ABOUT the author, but not really about the author DOING anything. Just thinking about stuff. More importantly, uninteresting stuff. What would happen if most of us wrote a memoir at 23.
I don’t really see the point of a cultural writer like Klosterman if he isn’t writing about himself. At least somewhat. Coming at it from HIS perspective.
It’s 2013. If I googled, how many opinions or cute things could I read about any pop culture topic? Holy shit, you could read about the TV series M.A.N.T.I.S. that me and 3 other people, including the stars, would remember, you could search that and read about it all goddamn day without seeing a repeated article.
If you’re not including a piece of yourself in pop culture, you’re wasting your time!
If you wrote a review of this book that summarizes what happened and provides no personal perspective, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to take away from it.
Which is the big difference. A writer acknowledges that he or she is writing because someone is going to be reading it.
So in this book, Klosterman is talking about villains. Basically, what makes a person a villain as opposed to a non-villain. How will history remember someone and why.
Some of the questions are truly fascinating:
-Why do we all worship Muhammad Ali even though he viciously used race to turn the public opinion on Joe Frazier, the sort of thing we would never tolerate today?
-How is OJ Simpson’s book outlining how he would have murdered his own wife not considered a more interesting cultural object?
-How did Monica Lewinsky become the villain in the Clinton scandal?
-Why is Taylor Swift popular?
God help me, I never thought I would say this, but one of the book’s most interesting essays was about Machiavelli.
Klosterman pushes a theory that the villain is the person in any situation who knows the most and cares the least. A situation, dear reader, that I am well aware of.
At a workplace a group of us were talking about the inadequacy of maternity leave. How short it was, how it was difficult to manage, and so on, and we were discussing how it seems as though the main goal is to prevent employees from giving birth.
I said, “Well, you know what they should do? They should just put ‘hysterectomy patients preferred’ right on the application. At least that way they’d be honest.”
A co-worker looked at me and in all seriousness said, “I don’t understand how anyone has ever dated you.”
Which was kind of hurtful, and honestly upsetting because I felt like I was just quantifying what the policy said, granted in an outlandish and ridiculous way, but I wasn’t actually SAYING that people who had functioning uteruses (uteri?) should seek employment elsewhere.
What happened was that I knew the most and was therefore able to sum it up, but also came off as caring the least because I joked about the topic. I found myself the villain even though I agreed that the maternity leave was inadequate and also said something about it that was directed to highlight the ridiculousness.
The Machiavelli essay is about the idea that Machiavelli may not have been in any way Machiavellian, and that history has started to uncover the idea that The Prince was satire, not a how-to book on being a dick to get ahead. Yet, Machiavelli will be remembered for being the guy who knew how to be a dick and get ahead. Even if he doesn’t use that knowledge, just his ability to put himself in that frame of mind and think along those lines makes people question his goodness.
It’s an idea that’s false, but also happens almost 100% of the time in practice.
If I pose a bizarre idea, like the idea that I invented the perfect artificial heart, and in Iron-Man-like fashion a light shines through the recepient’s chest, and everything is perfect except that this light is in the shape of a swastika, when I pose that idea people never say, “That WOULD be weird” or “That would be a strange world” or “I wonder what a Holocaust survivor would do when faced with a tough decision”. Instead, they say, “Why do you think about this stuff?” They turn it back on whoever came up with it, ignoring the fact that I clearly recognize myself how insane that entire situation is.
Frankly, I shudder to think what other people are doing in their heads all day if not thinking of strange scenarios. What are you guys thinking about in there? What you packed for lunch? What you’re wearing and how you feel about it? High school?
So, I guess by Chuck Klosterman’s definition, I’m semi-evil.
But you know what? I’m in good company with Machiavelli. We’re very alike in our own little way. Granted, he wrote an all-time philosophical classic while I just made nyuck-nyucks about a grave surgical procedure. But it’s definitely as close as I’m going to get.”