Pop Culture Porn for Hipsters

Most people know Chuck Klosterman for his essays. And if you don’t know the essays, you should. Because they are awesome. How can you not love someone who can perfectly explain the modern definition of a hipster on the fly, at a book reading, as “You used to be able to tell the difference between hipsters and homeless people. Now, it's between hipsters and retards. I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know." Yesssss.

So, I was very excited to learn that Klosterman has a novel (his first), called Downtown Owl. The premise is pretty basic. It follows three characters in their daily lives in the small, rural town of Owl, North Dakota – or the very epitome of flyover country – over the course of seven months in 1983. There’s Julia, a teacher from Minneapolis who is so bored that she spends every night getting drunk in order to forget that she’s a teacher living in Owl, North Dakota. There’s Mitch, a teenage boy who thinks the best thing going in his life is sleep and imagining a hypothetical fight between the high school’s resident giant vs. the high school’s resident psychopath. And, there’s Horace, a retired widower who lives for his daily trek to the coffee shop where he and a crew of crotchety old men have the same three conversations.

Downtown Owl is very decent and very readable. Klosterman is hilarious and he’s at his fiction writing best when he provides dialogue along with the characters’ internal monologues, creating a script of what he/she said versus what he/she meant. And there are some moving passages featuring Horace and the story of how he lost his wife and the bulk of his retirement savings.

But it’s also apparent this is a first novel, and Klosterman’s penchant for commentary and pop culture references appear throughout the book, with varying degrees of success. Some of the side characters are chiefly described in relation to their musical tastes, including Julia’s love interest, who only listens to the Rolling Stones. In fact, his and Julia’s first conversation is basically an opportunity for Klosterman to reminisce about ‘80s bands, with Julia suggesting a litany of popular records and songs that should be listened to by someone who likes the Rolling Stones. At that point, we lose the fiction and go back to Klosterman’s touch stone of music commentary. This is not to say the exchange isn't entertaining to read - it is. But it doesn't really have any meaningful place in the fictional narrative, doesn't advance the plot and doesn't provide any real insights into the characters.

All things considered, there are enough bright lights in this book to justify the read and show off the author’s talent for fiction writing. Downtown Owl doesn’t quite surpass Klosterman’s insights on why women in their 30s love John Cuscak (note, it’s because they still see him as Lloyd Dobler. Totes true.), but it shows potential.

The New Phonebooks Are Here! The New Phonebooks Are HERE!

OK. It isn’t the new phonebook. But Steve Martin’s excitement in The Jerk mirrors my own with the recent publication of the NYT list of the 10 best books of 2010.

Now, admittedly, the NYT Book Review and I don’t always agree, as anyone who read my assault on The Savage Detectives can see (Hee. That rhymed. I told you I’m giddy over this list!!). But, the Times is right more often than wrong, and the reviewers generally provide good direction. You really just have to read the plot description. If it sounds like a snoozer, it probably is.

Below are the books that made the list, none of which I’ve read because I refuse to purchase hardcovers. (Note to publishers: If you want to send me hardcovers to review on this blog, I’ll gladly accept them. I just don’t want to pay for it.) So, I have reviewed all 10 precog style, and made 10 snap judgments about what I will be checking out in the future.

1. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen – From the NYT: “A vividly realized narrative set during the Bush years, when the creedal legacy of ‘personal liberties’ assumed new and sometimes ominous proportions. Franzen captures this through the tribulations of a Midwestern family, the ¬Berglunds, whose successes, failures and appetite for self-invention reflect the larger story of millennial America."

This is so on my list. Not only does the description sound amazing, but The Corrections is one of my favorite novels of all time. I’ve been missing Franzen for years, and I can’t wait to tear into this. In paperback, of course.

2. The New Yorker Stories by Anne Beattie – From the NYT: “As these 48 stories published in The New Yorker from 1974 through 2006 demonstrate, Beattie, even as she chronicled and satirized her post-1960s generation, also became its defining voice.”

This is a skip for me. Personally, I don’t care for The New Yorker and its glib smugness. Seinfeld nailed it in the episode featuring the cartoon that made no sense. I’m just not interested in reading a collection of stories with a similar attitude.

3. Room by Emma Donoghue – From the NYT: “Donoghue has created one of the pure triumphs of recent fiction: an ebullient child narrator, held captive with his mother in an 11-by-11-foot room, through whom we encounter the blurry, often complicated space between closeness and autonomy.”

Hmm. Interesting, no? I’m intrigued, and will probably look into this one.

4. Selected Stories by William Trevor – From the NYT: “Gathering work from Trevor’s previous four collections, this volume shows why his deceptively spare fiction has haunted and moved readers for generations. Set mainly in Ireland and England, Trevor’s tales are eloquent even in their silences, documenting the way the present is consumed by the past, the way ancient patterns shape the future.”

Blech. Definitely a pass. A book that earns praise for “silences,” aka, for what it doesn’t say? That is definitely a clue that what’s actually on the page is boring.

5. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan – From the NYT: “Time is the ‘goon squad’ in this virtuosic rock ’n’ roll novel about a cynical record producer and the people who intersect his world. Ranging across some 40 years and inhabiting 13 different characters, each with his own story and perspective, Egan makes these disparate parts cohere into an artful whole, irradiated by a Proustian feel for loss, regret and the ravages of love.”

Despite the fact that I suspect this is another non-linear narrative, I’m intrigued, mostly because of the description of the characters. I also read another awesome review about Goon Squad in The New Republic, which predisposed me to be interested. And now I can look forward to calling a novel “Proustian.”

6. Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans– From the NYT: “Here is the only truly definitive history of classical ballet. Spanning more than four centuries, from the French Renaissance to American and Soviet stages during the cold war, Homans shows how the art has been central to the social and cultural identity of nations.”

Meh. Most likely a pass for me. Seeing ballet performed is one thing, but reading about it? And considering that no one really goes to the ballet anymore (well, not in America anyway), can we really say it’s “central” to the identity of nations?

7. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff – From the NYT: “With her signature blend of wit, intelligence and superb prose, Schiff strips away 2,000 years of prejudices and propaganda in her elegant reimagining of the Egyptian queen who, even in her own day, was mythologized and misrepresented.”

Hell yes! Great subject, and if the writing is even half as good as the Times suggests, this book could be totally amazing.

8. The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukjerjee – From the NYT: “Mukherjee’s magisterial ‘biography’ of the most dreaded of modern afflictions. He excavates the deep history of the ‘war’ on cancer, weaving haunting tales of his own clinical experience with sharp sketches of the sometimes heroic, sometimes misguided scientists who have preceded him in the fight.”

An awful lot of “quotes” peppered in this write up, which gives me pause… is it a "biography" or not? Are we or are we not at “war” with cancer? I’ll wait on this one. At first blush, I’m inclined to pass, but then again, I adored Atul Gawande’s Complications, so more research may be needed.

9. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim – From the NYT: “The theater’s pre-eminent living songwriter offers a master class in how to write a musical, covering some of the greatest shows, from ‘West Side Story’  to ‘Sweeney Todd.’ Sondheim’s analysis of his and others’ lyrics is insightful and candid, and his anecdotes are telling and often very funny."

No thank you, despite the clever title. This sounds like 300 pages of liner notes. Self indulgent at best, snoozefest at worst. I can tell you now that this book would just piss me off.

10. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson – From the NYT: "Wilkerson, a former national correspondent for The Times, has written a masterly and engrossing account of the Great Migration, in which six million African-Americans abandoned the South between 1915 and 1970. The book centers on the journeys of three black migrants, each representing a different decade and a different destination."

This sounds pretty decent. I’m not as excited about it as the Cleopatra book, but this could have some very interesting components to it. I’ll probably read, but not immediately.