Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klostermann

"I remember saying things, but I have no idea what was said. It was generally a friendly conversation.” —Associated Press reporter Jack Sullivan, attempting to recount a 3 A.M. exchange we had at a dinner party and inadvertently describing the past ten years of my life."

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is a collection of essays by Chuck Klosterman, probably the most polarizing and visible pop-culture critic currently working. Best known for his spirited defenses of things that are uncool, like Guns n’ Roses and Saved by the Bell, this collection touches on a large variety of topics—everything from tribute bands to the rapture to the titular Cocoa Puffs are subjected to Klosterman’s incisive eye.

Sometimes, he’s contradictory—he decries those who don’t like country in one essay while stating that people who claim to like all music really like no music at all—or just sort of off the wall, like when he claims that mainstream country is more genuine than Bob Dylan. Fortunately, Klosterman mostly avoids abrasive snark, and even the essays I disagree with most vehemently don’t come across as too self important.

The only real complaint I have about this book is the structure. The essays are separate, disconnected entities, but between them, there are little interstitial bits in tiny type, tackling some topic like mathematical probability—Klosterman thinks it’s a crock—or rambling. Sometimes these are comical, but mostly they’re interruptions and represent a pretentious shift in voice for an essayist who’s mostly pretension free.

One of my friends said that he thinks Klosterman is an unusually gifted pop culture commentator but not much else, and based on this collection, I’d tend to agree. There are worse things to be, though, and worse authors with whom to spend an evening.

Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich

I picked this book up on a recommendation from Paul Feig. I don't know the last time that I laughed out loud so much while reading a book. The one downside is that Simon Rich is 25/26 years old, has written for The Harvard Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, and has had two books published. A little depressing.

The books is a collection of essays, some no more than a paragraph or two in length. Often times, they are conversations. Think Bob Newhart for our generation. Here is one of my favorites:


Dalmatians
- Hey, look, the truck's stopping.
- Did they take us to the park this time?
- No . . . it's a fire. Another horrible fire.
- What the hell is wrong with these people?

The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville

"Can I be so changed ? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken? -- Are you not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania ? Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man I take you for."

"Why," a bit chafed, perhaps, "I hope I know myself."

"And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened."

Last year, I decided to tackle Moby-Dick, the quintessential huge American novel. Despite its reputation for being difficult and frequently dull, I didn't find it to be either, particularly. Sure, there were diversions aplenty, but when it came down to it, Moby-Dick could read as a great adventure story, albeit one of intentional ambiguity at points. I loved the book but knew next to nothing about Melville's other work, so when I saw a rather handsome edition of The Confidence-Man, I knew I had to give it a shot.

The story takes place on a riverboat populated by a wide variety of people, from clergymen and beggars, to carpenters and misers. In their midst, however, there are con-men of all shapes and sizes, willing to use any deceit or means necessary to relieve the innocents of their hard-earned cash. And that's it. The plot basically begins and ends there.

Of course, in practice, it isn't so simple. Far from being Melville's version of that Simpsons episode where Bart and Homer become grifters, The Confidence-Man is written like a track meet—that is, with plenty of baton-passing. Most chapters focus on the interaction of two or three people, and, at the end of each, the omniscient narrator follows one of the participants as he moves to another part of the ship and interacts with another of the passengers. Most of the characters are unnamed, and are referenced primarily by a visible attribute, i.e. the lame beggar, the man with the yellow hat, the student with the book. Using this device, Melville pulls a confidence game of his own, keeping the reader off balance and not sure exactly who is who. Is there a compelling reason that the man with the yellow hat cannot also be the lame beggar or the student with the book in another guise? In reading about The Confidence-Man after finishing it, I learned that there is really no consensus on just how many confidence men are on the boat.

That brings us to the idea of confidence, which is itself both an explicit and implicit theme of the novel. The plot itself necessitates the theme to some extent, but throughout, characters grapple with questions of identity and trust. Can a man be both good and evil? Can he hate Indians and yet love his fellow man? And can anyone really be trusted at all? Over and over, the marks themselves are assailed with pleas to simply place their confidence in the man before them, to give money to some cause or time to some effort they know little to nothing about, but Melville steadfastly refuses to give any real closure. Are the men who give to grifter for a seemingly good cause better off than those who refuse to trust anyone, or are they fools who would have done well to have a little more skepticism?

On the front cover, The Confidence-Man is touted as “the great metaphysical comedy” but you'd be forgiven for missing that. There are some humorous bits, but the overall picture is dark and confusing. The Confidence-Man resisted my attempts to draw any solid conclusions from it, but then again, maybe that's the point.