Classic or Dud: Chuck Klosterman

I liked Fargo Rock City, though really wasn't that impressed by the writing all that much.

But you have a point maura: the explosion of the WWW (and more pointedly, blog culture/bulletin boards like this one) has made the writing voice of guys like Klosterman seem very tedious and commonplace. Or at the very least, hardly clever or unique. I'd even argue it makes Lester Bang's talent much less apparent. In fact, the new Bangs book, like the Marcus comp before it, seems completely unenlightening.

(I would also argue that ILX irritates me in the exact same way that Klosterman does when it's mired in its semi-perpetual argument for the sake of argument nadirs.)

You elitist, Maura! ;-) The Coulter comparison is harsh but you know, the more Klosterman continues the more it starts to make a certain sense...

(My view on Klosterman, ie rather overrated (Robert Plant inadvertantly but perfectly cutting him down directly is still a thing of joy), remains the same; my view on Ames is that he's useless.)

He does say some less-than-informed things to Liz Phair and Robert Plant in his interviews with them, but by being blunt and risking offense with them he gets some of the better quotes I've heard from those artists. His willingness to hear out opposite arguments in those cases is one major reason the comparison to Ann Coulter bothers me.

His reviews in SPIN seem lacking to me, he can be hit-or-miss and it's possible that just like with his hero Axl Rose fame will not benefit Klosterman's work, but his openness, humor and insights make him one of the more interesting and exciting writers out there. But as Nabisco noted earlier, I share similarities in taste and style.

He does make a ton of good points about CK being useless, though he himself is as well. Screw 'em both.

What exactly was "weird" or "assholish" or "speaking for womankind" about his reaction?? (Or "stupid," as that Ames retard said?) It was actually one of the smartest excerpts Ames quoted, seems to me.

Lester Bangs? Maybe not. But I'll take him.

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Uh, I'm with Mike on this one. But Stence, can you let me know how ya know?

Perhaps tellingly, today I was listening to Rush.

If you disagree with Atlas Shrugged, it basically means you disagree with the concept of “being great.”

what a douchebag.

The Franzen reference is worse, though, because I think about how someone coming up to be saying something similarly negative about Loveless would just get a 'hey, that's fine' statement from me. Is my love for that album not justified in his eyes because I don't see fit to go into that ridiculous kind of defense he demands for his love objects? Fuck it.

Animal Farm by George Orwell (Signet, $8). No one has ever written something so brilliant, so concise, so insightful, and so charming all at the same time.