Books about (or at least by) weird but interesting people
I just raced through two novels - not because I had to finish them quickly, but because they moved so quickly.
The first, by my best friend from college Walter Kirn, is an entertaining but (for me, anyway) nightmarish reminiscence on trying to make it through Princeton called Lost in the Meritocracy, based on this essay Kirn wrote for The Atlantic. Not the academics, but the culture itself. What self-conscious public school kids like Walter and me learned at Princeton was that there really super wealthy people who control a heck of a lot of the world, and that they have institutions like Princeton to help their kids find one another and then inherit their daddies' places. Yes, I know most of you already know that - but we didn't. It was a more innocent era, and these kind of things came as big, adolescent, crises of disillusionment that required ample self-medication. And Kirn's writing, if you haven't gotten to experience it before, is the most effortlessly engaging literary literature being written today.
The second is a book by novelist Jonathan Lethem, who wrote the acclaimed Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, then went ahead and won a MacArthur genius grant which made the rest of us really jealous. It's hard to be too jealous, though, because Jonathan is a totally sweet guy and he actually is the sort of genius writer for whom such prizes were created. And, most of all, he used the time and money to create his first true work of genius, Chronic City, which - like Kirn's novel - deconstructs the hyper-competitive social landscape of eastern urbanites in a fair but viciously accurate near-future parody of manners and hermeneutics.
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You should check out the Big Book of... series if you like books about weird people.
So....what's your pseudonym in the article, Doug?
I'm looking forward to reading Mr. Kirn's book. Thanks for the head's up!
Okay, thanks for the notification about Kirn's new book. It's not out until next week but that's fine.
Lethem's book won't be *published* until October. Lucky you for getting an advance copy, but how does your little blurb benefit us little people?
Gushing about a book that won't be out for another six months is idiotic.
there [are] really super wealthy people who control a heck of a lot of the world, and that they have institutions like Princeton to help their kids find one another and then inherit their daddies' places.
This. THIS THIS THIS.
It's not out until october? Dang. The thing I got looks like a whole real book. They don't usually send out a book with a complete cover until shortly before publication.
Still, that shouldn't make you feel like a "little people." You want the copy I have? I can mail it to you. Then you can mail it to the next person, and so on.
I can't wait for the Lethem book. I was disappointed with his last book, but the premise of his new makes me have hope for a return to form.
And yes, it does suck that it's not out until October, but blurbing about it now is certainly not idiotic. It's called building buzz, Hexcalibur.
Damn, that essay by Kirn was depressing. Everyone depicted in it seemed like such a shallow asshole. Narrator included.
College is such a blur; I can't remember who I was during that time in my life. I'd like to think I was less of an insufferable asshole but the only thing that I can really remember is being completely antisocial and unapproachable; "not an asshole" only by dint of having nearly no social interactions to be judged on.
If I like anything, I like deconstructions, and if I like any deconstructions, I like deconstructions of the hyper-competitive social landscape of eastern urbanites, and if I like any deconstructions of the hyper-competitive social landscape of eastern urbanites, I like deconstructions of the hyper-competitive social landscape of eastern urbanites by eastern urbanites. However, I don't like anything.
The only thing I remember about my college was that the library had paperback anthologies of 'Garfield'.
Maybe I'll have to check out Lethem's Chronic City. I found his Amnesia Moon to be astonishingly good (but frankly, some of his other books haven't been nearly so engaging or enjoyable).
To anyone who hasn't yet read Amnesia Moon but who like surrealistic, flowing dreamscapes I heartily recommend it.
Rather than depressing, I found the Kirn article strangely reassuring. It's just as I thought.
Yes, the essay is depressing. One antidote for that might be the movie "Adventureland", currently showing.
Sometimes it's better not to know things.
Kirn's article is exceptional and (I hope) certainly worthy of a full novel. I can't wait to check it out. Having attended a middle-tier state college myself as an undergrad, I have my own share of grievances. But they are not projected toward the Oligarchy, rather, the middle-class meritocracy, vocational training and binge drinking. At least Kirn had the opportunity to meet some exceptionally talented misfits.
I'm roughly halfway through the Lost In The Meritocracy article and I get the feeling that I'm reading a companion piece to Catcher In The Rye (this is praise from my perspective.) This link will probably be getting passed on to a few friends.
I posted the Kirn article to my facebook account for all my friends to see. ;-)
What an interesting and yes depressing article.
Confirms for me, what many already know, that it's not the school you go to but the energy you put into it that matters to an education. How many other intellectual charlatans have graduated from Princeton? At least Kirn seems to have had redeemed himself in the end.
The Kirn essay was terrific. Thanks for looking and I look forward to the book.
-JL
The description of the Kirn essay reminds me of a book I read in college, "Remembering Denny" by Calvin Trillin. IIRC, Denny was Trillin's college roommate at Yale, and both were scholarship kids from blue collar (or at least far from the upper echelon of class hierarchies), as opposed to the rest of the class. After Denny's suicide much later in life, Trillin remembers their struggles and what life as an outsider at Yale was like.
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Denny-Calvin-Trillin/dp/0446670324
there [are] really super wealthy people who control a heck of a lot of the world, and that they have institutions like Princeton to help their kids find one another and then inherit their daddies' places.
Yeah, try dealing with that if you're also not white. And/or male. And/or straight. And/or etc.
Your entry confused me by referring to Kim's book as a "novel" but discussing it as if it's a non-fiction account of his experiences at Princeton, so I checked the Random House page you linked to, and yes, it's classified as an autobiography and described as a memoir.
I can't believe a man of your age and background doesn't know the difference between a novel and a memoir, so now I'm curious, Doug: Why did you call Lost in the Meritocracy a novel? Are you implying that Kim is pulling a James Frey because his more-marketable-as-a-memoir book is actually fictitious prose, AKA a novel?
I think it's interesting that Kirn's Atlantic essay leaves out the fact that his father was also a Princeton alum, making him a legacy admit. Since one of his main points seems to be a "me vs. them" dichotomy that separates midwestern, middle class strivers like himself from the decadent eastern elites, it's sort of telling that he leaves out a data point that makes him more like "them" than he might be comfortable admitting.
Ah-hah. I wonder if my kids could have played the legacy card at Mott Community College.