The author of this book is hailed by reviewers for The New Yorker and Book Browse as funny, insightful, and “one of our wisest, wryest cultural critics.” Very early in the Introduction the author acknowledges that “It is impossible to claim that all people living through a period of history incontrovertibly share qualities across the board.”
In the first chapter, convoluted, arbitrary, and obscure generalizations about the supposed unique characteristics of Generation X (born1965-1980) left me a bit perplexed. What does the assertion that “What’s historically distinctive about the X era is the overwhelming equivocation toward its own marginalization.” mean in plain English?
Then it gets even more confusing. In Chapter Two there is endless linguistic hair-splitting over the meaning of the lyrics of then-popular 90s songs and films, most of which I had never heard of.
Chapter Three gives a welcome straightforward analysis of how George H. W. Bush managed to blow a massive lead over Bill Clinton in opinion polls in the 1992 presidential election in spite of a booming economy and having lead the country and allies into the popular First Gulf War. The drainage of votes from both Bush and Clinton by Ross Perot’s candidacy was probably balanced and of negligible consequence. There is obvious truth in the the quote:“An egoless presidential candidate cannot exist.”
By the time I got to page 100, after further generalities about changing attitudes about sex, emerging political correctness, and race relations in Chapter Four, with analysis of more songs, films and writings I had never heard of, I felt a need to take a break, but vowed to slog through this book later. Such assertions as “Every new generation tends to be intrigued by whatever generation existed twenty years earlier.” lack specificity and meaning for me.
The discussion in Chapter Five about the popularity of various violent Hollywood films in the 1990s likewise left me confused although the addendum about the convoluted decision-making process of picking a national champion in various sports is enlightening.The coverage of other Hollywood films resumes in Chapter Nine and I became more addled than ever. Klosterman seems addicted to pointing out contradictions in trends, as he sees them, and plays with words in ways that I just didn’t understand. “The past is a mental junkyard filled with memories that no one remembers.”
In Chapter Six discussion of the dramatic changes in the ways we communicate driven by the arrival of the internet is welcome and most insightful. In response to popular beliefs that the internet sped up changes, he states “It is possible that society is always changing and that the arrival of the Internet was a coincidental event that merely made that natural process more visible.” But it would seem to me that this conjecture is no longer tenable in the age of AI and ChatGDP when school essays and whole books are being written by nonhumans.
He describes the O.J. Simpson murders as the crime of the decade; this after discussing Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma federal building that instantly killed165 people. I realize that if the only measure of an event’s importance is how many Americans followed it, Klosterman may be right.
The 25-page Chapter 11 analysis of the Clinton presidency provides interesting insights into his flawed character and the American public’s love-hate relationship with him, with some details that I was not previously aware of. It, however, like the entire book, is so insular and American-centric as to make readers forget that there are other countries which underwent changes in the 1990s- unless they were allies with the United States in foreign wars, or they were holdover Cold War enemies they are not mentioned.
Klosterman goes of his way to express contrarian views and claim unlikely causal circuitous links. For example, he claims that Bill Clinton’s political ascension was in part caused by the three consecutive Super Bowl wins by the Dallas Cowboys.
There is throughout this disjointed and wordy account extensive reliance on U.S. opinion polls, (but with no mention of the significant and continuing decrease in religious affiliation that those polls document.) Perhaps I found this entire book disappointing only because I am so out of tune with what was and is happening in the world that I couldn’t enjoy it, but I can’t recommend it to anyone. And if there is any humour here, I totally missed it.
⭐️⭐️/10
The Passionate Reader 