Chuck Klosterman IV

Chuck Klosterman IVI like Chuck Klosterman a lot, but if I had to point to one of his articles to explain why, I'm not sure I would be able to.  One thing I realized from reading this giant collection of Klosterman's articles is that it's something about reading only one or two at a time that makes my favorable impression.  Trying to read an entire anthology of articles, each of which is pre-pended with a mini article about the article itself?  A little much.

I didn't even get very far into the second half of the book, which contains articles that discuss hypothetical situations.  I read halfway through the first article, which discusses the difference between your nemesis and your arch-enemy, and decided that I'd had enough Chuck for a while.

At his best, Chuck Klosterman is like a combination of David Foster Wallace and Jon Stewart.  Intellectual and dweeby, but not ashamed of it.  Insightful and lyrical, but not pretentious.  Hilariously accurate and insightful, but not self-tormented and suicidal.  

(Too soon?  Well, sorry.  I'm really angry at David Foster Wallace for having killed himself.  Such a selfish and indulgent act, which harmed not just me and everyone who enjoyed his writing, but his actual friends and family.)

Maybe Drew Carey is the best comparison.  Klosterman manages to maintain the "aw shucks" air of the kid who grew up in North Dakota, even while he's on staff with Spin magazine and being flown around the world to interview rock stars.  I think the highest point in the book is Klosterman's article about U2, which is both brazenly fawning and yet still just a little bit skeptical.  Klosterman acknowledges that he is won over by Bono's crazy stunts, but he also acknowledges that he has doubts about the extent to which Bono's good deeds may or may not be staged.  In other words, Klosterman falls in love, but he still keeps that intellectual sense of self.

The most eye-opening article for me was "The Amazing McNugget Diet."  In 1996, Klosterman spent an entire week eating nothing but McDonalds Chicken McNuggets. Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me" was released in 2004, and if Klosterman's article was an inspiration, Spurlock has never mentioned it.

Just a weird coincidence, or is Spurlock kind of a jackass?  It's hard to say.  But as Klosterman points out in his follow-up article, several people have criticized Spurlock for stacking the deck by cramming his diet to a ridiculous extent, e.g. by consuming a milkshake with every meal.  Klosterman checked with a doctor before and after his week-long experiment, and experienced no ill effects, except that he had the urge to wash his face "every twenty minutes."

I think the best articles are the ones where Klosterman writes with warmth, as in "Band on the Run," an article about post-therapy Metallica.  And "That 70s Ship," about a cruise ship tour which is dedicated to late 70s/early 80s rock bands like Styx and Journey.

I haven't read "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" yet, but that's next on my Klosterman list.  I definitely had some trouble relating to the articles that were about musical groups I hadn't heard of, or didn't care about, and unfortunately that's about 2/3rds of this book.  But hey, it could be worse, right?  Really liking 1/3rd of a book seems to be a lot better than I usually get these days.