A fine return to form for Klosterman, blending Big Ideas with heavy metal, The Wire, Batman and much more.
Of John Rawls and Keith Richards: Klosterman (The Visible Man, 2011, etc.) returns with a pop-culture–laden meditation on the bad guys of the world and what they mean.
Philosophers call it the “problem of evil.” Though he holds down the lofty post of ethicist for the New York Times Magazine, Klosterman’s take is guided less by the wisdom of the ages than his own gut feeling. In the linked essays here, he’s grappling less with supervillains such as Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot (though both figure) than with such less-fraught specimens as Snidely Whiplash, of Dudley Doo-Right fame, and Morris Day, who dared oppose Prince for the love of a righteous woman and top stakes in the battle of the bands. That most of his subjects are from the pop-culture realm, whether Andrew Dice Clay or Chevy Chase or the Eagles, does not diminish the underlying sophistication of Klosterman’s guiding questions: Why is it that grown-ups are more comfortable with the grays of a black-and-white world while being drawn to the dark side of the force? Which is to say, why do kids love Luke Skywalker while adults secretly cheer for Darth Vader? Well, not all adults do, of course—just as not all adults will forgive Klosterman his roundabout defense of Newt Gingrich as a Very Bad Guy who doesn’t give a monkey’s backside for what other people think of him. Still, there are some fruitful exercises in the author’s brand of such forgiveness: quantifying, say, who was to blame in the Monica Lewinsky affair (“The larger vilification was ultimately split five ways. Mr. Clinton, of course, was first against the wall”) and running through the moral calculus to determine whether, à la Jeffrey Lebowski, we should not all deem the Eagles the most evil band in history—as, it seems, we should.
A fine return to form for Klosterman, blending Big Ideas with heavy metal, The Wire, Batman and much more.Pub Date: July 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4391-8449-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
PROFILES
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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