Page 29 - ARUBA TODAY

A29
PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 16 May 2017
Review: Chuck Klosterman’s 10th

book finds him in top form

ANN LEVIN The New York Times Mag- Exhibit A is “Three-Man
Associated Press azine and contributed to Weave,” an account of an
A fifth of the century is al- Spin, Rolling Stone, Esquire, all-but-forgotten basketball
most over, and Chuck Klos- GQ and other media out- game between two junior
terman is out with a hilari- lets, also weighs in on vari- college teams in North Da-
ous new essay collection to ous cultural issues, including kota, one Native Ameri-
help us make sense of it. the meaning of nostalgia, can. Amid the play-by-play
The “X’’ in the title “Chuck the current zombie craze and player/coach inter-
Klosterman X” marks the and what he considers the views, Klosterman delivers
10th book by this brilliant greatest TV show ever. a searing indictment of this
writer, who has gathered Given his age (44) and the country’s treatment of na-
articles published over the publications he’s been as- tive people.
past decade and pack- sociated with, including Another essay, ostensibly
aged them in a charcoal- ESPN.com and the now-de- about watching a col-
black dust jacket with funct sports website Grant- lege football game with
black endpapers and edg- land, Klosterman’s interests his brother, turns into a
es, all of which combine to skew Gen X and male. He poignant elegy for their
produce a cool punk/goth has idiosyncratic taste: see father, who loved Notre
vibe. the essays on Mountain Dame football. A third, the
Most of the essays are Dew and Kiss. foreword to a coffee-table
about sports or music and He can also be pedantic, book of Peanuts comic
include profiles remarkable and on the scale of rever- strips, is a touching valen-
for their lack of fawning of ence to irreverence, he tilts tine to his all-time favorite This cover image released by Blue Rider Press shows, “Chuck
megastars such as Led Zep- toward the latter. But un- fictional creation, Charlie Klosterman X,” by Chuck Klosterman.
pelin founder Jimmy Page, derneath that cynical shell, Brown. Associated Press
rock guitarist Eddie Van you’ll discover that at heart In the last essay, a previ-
Halen, Taylor Swift, Kobe he’s a sentimentalist, as ously unpublished work so inflexibly personal that own skull.” His great gift as
Bryant and Tom Brady. Capt. Renault so famously titled “Something Else,” it has almost no correla- a writer is his ability to take
Klosterman, who has writ- says about Rick in “Casa- Klosterman confesses: “My tion to what’s happening the “inflexibly personal”
ten the ethics column for blanca.” perception of reality is in the world outside of my and make it true.q