Nov
16

Chuck Klosterman and the study of culture

By grant

ChuckKlosterman from Wikipedia Here's what Michael MacCambridge says about Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur.

Neil Postman, once argued–in the title of one of his books–that we are "amusing ourselves to death."  But Mr. Klosterman's relentlessly thoughtful prose makes a case that our arts and entertainment are more suffused with meaning than ever before.  Even as he's fretting over the direction of the culture, his writing stands as an eloquent defense of it.

This would put Klosterman in a league with Greil Marcus and other writers who are prepared to take popular culture seriously, to exercise a brute (not a fashionable) curiosity in its pursuit, and find enthusiasms there even when the intellectual's code discourages such a thing. 

References

Anonymous.  n.d.  Chuck Klosterman entry.  Wikipedia.  here.

MacCambridge, Michael.  2009.  Drenched in Popular Culture.  Wall Street Journal.  October 24-25. 

Marcus, Greil 2008. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music: 5th Ed. Plume. 

Klosterman, Chuck.  2009.  Eating the Dinosaur.  Scribner.

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2 Comments

1
peter spear
November 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am

i just picked up for the first time klosterman's books in a fairfield borders. i'm certain to give them a read now.

2
Michael Lewis
November 19th, 2009 at 12:53 pm

couldn't agree more with his writing and his tireless pursuit of finding meaning in pop culture. However, if you're looking to read Chuck, don't get this book (Eating the Dinosaur). Instead get Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs or IV or Killing Yourself To Live. All of those are significantly better than his latest. My reviews of his stuff is here: http://loo.me/category/literature-books/chuck-klosterman/

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