Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
By Caitlin | Posted Under Book Reviews | Comments (12)
I love Chuck Klosterman. Two years ago I didn’t even know who Chuck Klosterman was. While scanning the bargain books at my place of employment, I found Killing Yourself to Live, read the inside flap and bought the book. I then read the book, loved it, and read Chuck Klosterman IV and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. There is just a certain way that Klosterman writes that brings together ideas, concepts, and people in ways that I never considered before, but ways that actually make sense. Eating the Dinosaur is the usual fare, and I enjoyed it the whole way through.
The book is divided into chapters and the chapters are divided into smaller numbered and lettered sections. These sections can sometimes meander away from the topic at hand, but everything comes together in the end to make a point about why people answer interview questions or the truths about irony as expressed by Weezer and Ralph Nader.
I admit that when I saw the chapter entitled “Football,” I wasn’t looking forward to reading it, especially when I saw the diagram of a play on the first page. It’s not as though I hate football. I don’t really think about it much in my every day life. It seemed like an achievement to me that I actually read the whole chapter even with footnotes advising a football-illiterate like me to turn back. Still, I persevered and even learned some thing about football, spread offenses, and the liberal nature of the game. It’s difficult not to show at least a little appreciation for the sport when it inspired my favorite quote of the book:
Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart. And this is all I want from everything, all the time, always.
Additionally, I enjoyed the chapter on Klosterman’s hatred of laugh tracks. I regularly watch “How I Met Your Mother,” but I am so used to shows without a track that I often forget about all that background noise. Tonight, however, I was hyper aware of every single laugh, chuckle, giggle, cheer, etc. It was disconcerting, to say the least.
So, if you’re still around, I recommend Eating the Dinosaur. You know, the book, not eating an actual dinosaur (that would have worked better out loud).
This review is part of the Cannonball Read. For more of Caitlin’s reviews, please check her blog, I’m Going to Read Your Mind Next
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