Bookses...
Chad recently posted an entry reviewing Chuck Klsterman's recent book, and made reference to an earlier work titled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Now, I'd never heard of the author in question prior to this, but I'm a sucker for an interesting title so I went out and bought it.
It's...interesting. I enjoyed it, but I felt like an outsider the whole way through. Klosterman writes from the perspective of a bored middle class kid, who despite being in his thirties, still can't be bothered to grow up. I can't relate to his perspective on life. I didn't come from there. I started life by spending my first few months in the care of The Nuns (this is not figurative, I really spent the first four months of my life out of my mother's care in a nunnery) and then the next half decade living in subsidized housing with my mom, who was working two jobs just so we could eat.
It was an easy and quick read, and I like Klosterman's style, but he comes off as somewhat shallow and vapid. I don't know, maybe it's just because his subject matter is the ephemeral world of pop culture, which is shallow and vapid. Or maybe he is just shallow and vapid. It's fortune cookie philosophy, astrology for people who don't take it seriously, and Zen Taoism (I don't want or expect much, which is cool since that's exactly what I get and it's all good) all wrapped up in an attempt at the sociology of the parts of US pop culture that manages to attract (usually briefly) Klosterman's personal attention.
It still had me amused the whole way through. He does make some interesting observations, but he can't always be bothered to GO anywhere with them, or more often than not, where he goes is off on some amusing but pointless tangent.
It's kinda like reading a Usnet thread with only one participant, which might explain why I liked it.
It's...interesting. I enjoyed it, but I felt like an outsider the whole way through. Klosterman writes from the perspective of a bored middle class kid, who despite being in his thirties, still can't be bothered to grow up. I can't relate to his perspective on life. I didn't come from there. I started life by spending my first few months in the care of The Nuns (this is not figurative, I really spent the first four months of my life out of my mother's care in a nunnery) and then the next half decade living in subsidized housing with my mom, who was working two jobs just so we could eat.
It was an easy and quick read, and I like Klosterman's style, but he comes off as somewhat shallow and vapid. I don't know, maybe it's just because his subject matter is the ephemeral world of pop culture, which is shallow and vapid. Or maybe he is just shallow and vapid. It's fortune cookie philosophy, astrology for people who don't take it seriously, and Zen Taoism (I don't want or expect much, which is cool since that's exactly what I get and it's all good) all wrapped up in an attempt at the sociology of the parts of US pop culture that manages to attract (usually briefly) Klosterman's personal attention.
It still had me amused the whole way through. He does make some interesting observations, but he can't always be bothered to GO anywhere with them, or more often than not, where he goes is off on some amusing but pointless tangent.
It's kinda like reading a Usnet thread with only one participant, which might explain why I liked it.