Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
![[book cover]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PT-AM846_book_c_DV_20091023213818.jpg)
I just finished reading this book. Solid 3 stars. Great tube-ride read. The book begins by presenting a problem that most journalists would love to face: "For the past five years," Chuck Klosterman writes, "I've spent more time being interviewed than conducting interviews with other people." He then engages in a 20-page exploration of the nature of interviewing with gifted inquisitors such as documentary filmmaker Errol Morris and NPR's "This American Life" host Ira Glass. What at first seems like a self-absorbed stunt reveals itself over the course of the piece to be a thoughtful contemplation of media, truth and discourse in the modern age. And that's what you often get with Klosterman's pixilated intelligence and vivid prose. He is too substantial to be dismissed as a shallow hipster, too idiosyncratic to be easily classified. "Everyone I've met in New York or California tells me I'm conservative," he writes. "The rest of America tells me that I'm almost comically liberal." Overall, it's signature Chuck Klosterman which, if you enjoyed Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs should make you a prime candidate for enjoying this; on the other hand, I think the range of the essays starts to feel unnaturally stretched towards the end of the book. He still sticks mostly to popular culture, but instead of ruminating on Britney Spears and The Real World, he's discussing - in surprisingly complex terms - subjects like the possibility and mechanics of time travel, and defending to a degree the philosophy of the Unabomber (while not condoning his actions, obviously). It surprised me how unfunny most of this book was, while still being quintessentially Klosterman. Maybe not the best introduction to him, but definitely worth a read.
