As I wrote in my review of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Klosterman is the poster child for postmodern American writers. His knowledge and usage of pop culture in his writing should resonate with me. Unfortunately, he makes a lot of general statements as if they are fact rather than opinion, and many of his allusions are too obscure, as if the more obscure the reference, the smarter he seems. Unlike Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs which was a collection of unrelated essays, Killing Yourself to Live is a singular work. Klosterman is instructed by his editors at Spin to travel across the country by car visiting the places where tragedies related to musicians occurred (beginning at the hotel where Sid Vicious killed Nancy Spungen, and moving to places like the venue where the Great White conflagration happened and ending in Seattle where Kurt Cobain shot himself). He documents his road trip by describing how the sites made him feel, and including conversations he has with fellow pilgrims and how they feel. Klosterman also interweaves some of his thoughts and feelings from several of his real-life relationships (a woman he is currently dating, and several from his past) into his narrative on what his journey is teaching him about life (and love) and death. Overall, it’s a much more focused and compelling read than Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs because the subject matter is deeper, and his usage of his relationships adds a level of humanity and emotion to the narrative. On the other hand, most of his writing tics still annoyed me – like the inclusion of random tangents of his opinion. For example, he spends two pages trying to convince the reader that Radiohead’s Kid A album was a foretelling of 9/11. There’s also too much self-awareness and awareness of his self-awareness – like a scene where he has an imaginary conversation with his current girlfriend and two former ones, and the imaginary voices remind him he is having this imaginary conversation. Screw you, Dave Eggers, for affecting modern nonfiction writing in this way. Fans of music and fans of Klosterman’s writing style will enjoy this, I think. For others, it’s a quick and mostly solid read with minor annoyances. Recommended.

Mi aspettavo più o meno un saggio. Invece, no: cioè, sì, lo è, ma non propriamente.
Bel libro, più profondo di quanto possa sembrare, o forse sono io che...
Vabbè, la recensione completa è qui:
https://sentireascoltare.com/recensio...

This was the first Klosterman book that I read. Klosterman’s pop-culture musings amuse and intrigue me, or at least they did back when I still really cared about that stuff. Unfortunately, the author's regressive outlook on the subject of animals (this book contains a graphic deer hunting story) is not an aspect of his writing that I enjoy.

The most important thing that I learned from this book is that even if you CAN write a book, you shouldn't always do so (ouch, sorry Mr. Klosterman!) Although the author's style is engaging (probably the only reason I managed to finish the book), the book itself left you scratching your head, waiting for the punchline--maybe even the joke. Klosterman is traveling the country, visiting the sites of famous musicians' tragic deaths while processing the many romantic relationships that he had had in his life. I felt sorry for this guy, as he seemed to not have moved past a single one of them; and yet his relationships with them, or, at least, his lasting impressions from them, were very superficial. And yet he seems obsessed with reliving these failed relationships and dragging his readers along with him. There is rock trivia and discussion that someone else might appreciate more, and there are certainly entertaining parts, but my overall impression of this book is that it was a waste of time.

Sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, and a road trip. Where you find these elements together, you will find Chuck Klosterman. What can I say? I ‘get’ Klosterman, insomuch as you can get a snarky music junkie who writes about his confusions about the world. I’m still not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but I’m going for to opt for “good.” Klosterman can always make me laugh, a rare feat in my reading and viewing experiences. So, go! Read some Klosterman.

I love how full of shit this guy is.

For all of the people who hated this book because they thought Klosterman has 'terrible taste in music' I think they might have skimmed over this one part:

So many of the rock concerts I've attended have been filled with people who were there only to be there, who just wanted to be seen by other people who were there only to be there... ... Half the people who attend concerts only go so that they can tell other people that (a) certain shows were amazing, and (b) other shows sucked.

I couldn't put this down and I even tried to draw it out so that it lasted longer but it was still a pretty lame book, if that makes any sense. I liked some of the ideas and he's certainly quotable. Still, it mostly felt like he was dragging me behind him on this trip. At one point I even forgot he was on a trip, which bummed me out. I get so excited about these people who travel across the country and in the end they disappoint me. What this book really got me thinking about wasn't all the dysfunctional relationships I've had or have had the potential to have (which is all he wanted to talk about) but really that I just want to travel across the country and see some stuff. So, thanks for that Chuck.

Another quote for the 'road' (haw)

Art and love are the same thing: it's that process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. It's understanding the unreasonable.

Wow, as a compulsive consumer of pop culture (and regurgitator of trivia), I wanted so badly to like this book (and did, for very brief moments). However, Klosterman is so vile and obnoxious in his shallow, lazy brand of self-mythologizing I almost couldn't stand it. Nevermind the fact that there was no thesis to this book, the sin I could not forgive was how self-servingly and uninterestingly he mined each and every one of his past relationships (or casual lays) for book fodder. Throughout this "book" Klosterman gives off the stench of a college freshman desperate to bolster his word count by making banal, pretentious observations about the objects currently in his field of vision.

The jacket blurb is misleading as this book doesn’t actually contain any revelations regarding the life and death of rock stars. It’s mostly a self-indulgent Chuck talking about his love life, and came off to me as rather narcissistic. I read this after reading The Visible Man and the way the author describes himself here is so similar to the musings of the psychopath in the other novel that it was somewhat uncomfortable to read.

The music industry has more than its fair share of interesting stories to tell. And some of the most intriguing might be those involving the deaths of iconic musicians. Spin reporter/editor Chuck Klosterman details his quest to uncover these stories in this book. However, the book does not necessarily contain all his discoveries… those were reserved for his articles in Spin. Killing Yourself to Live focuses more on the time he spends examining his own life and relationships in terms of the musicians whose stories he is hunting down all over the country. And, we, as readers, are invited along for the ride. The look into Klosterman’s life is almost as interesting as the stories he is chasing down himself and, while you may not be able to relate entirely to what he says, there are certain to be little pieces of his life story that you can see in your own life and actions.

I made it 1/3 of the way through it and couldn't read any further. This book contained the ramblings and random stories of a man on a road trip that seemed to go nowhere.

This is where it all comes together: Chuck's madness over pop minutiae, his purposeful oversharing and the crossroads of the two. If you're in, you're all in on this one. And if you can't stomach it, you should probably step away from the vehicle.

Chuck starts this book off by noting that some of the characters from his real life story have held onto their actual names and some have been given an alias. At some point, I came up with the crazy idea that I might actually know who one of the pseudonyms were IRL and confronted her with her code name. She admitted that it was in fact her. In that moment, just after I had completed all six of his existing books over a six month period, I felt like I must be the biggest Chuck Klosterman fan there was right then.

So I at-tweeted him about the binge, never heard back, and was silently devastated. If I ever write my own memoirs about desperately trying to connect to my idols, it may very well start there.

There is a lot of self indulgent angst in this book which I found tiresome after a while, and something about the way he writes about women rubs me the wrong way. Despite the copious music references, I just did not identify with Chuck at all. I did, however, think of the many indie rock dudes I know and how much they would love this book in their college years.