Chuck Klosterman – IV: A Decade of Curious people and Dangerous Ideas (Faber & Faber)

Chuck Klosterman really is the smuggest of little pricks there are. Here’s a guy who makes his living being sarcastic and ironic in that way only US citizens know how to, which is mean, degrading, and pretty lame, actually. That hasn’t stopped me from reading his previous three books, also because his first, “Fargo Rock City” was actually quite good in a way, but it has made me swear off reading any more books by him every time I’ve finished one. I’ll just ignore him, read something more worthwhile. Then, unavoidably a colleague will come up to me with a proof copy of the new Chuck Klosterman book happily chirping “hey, this looks like something you’d read, doesn’t it?” And I’ll have to take it, accept my destiny, and read the goddamn thing, just to get it over with, before I concentrate on getting around to read that book on the Spanish Civil War or whatever.

The thing is, what made “Fargo Rock City” interesting was the music it described, the whole 80’s hair metal scene, but even though he himself professes to have been caught up in the whole metal writer trap ever since, he has long moved on to cover the likes of Radiohead and U2, and that just doesn’t make for very interesting reading. I mean, even his last book included Lynyrd Skynyrd and Great White, this one has a half-interesting piece on Metallica. That, and smug commentaries on socialism. So this is the book that’s gonna make me stop reading Klosterman, and I can move on to something more worthy.

Jon A
Available from Politikens Boghal