I Wear the Black Hat: Essays on Villains (Real and Imagined)

by Chuck Klosterman Narrated by Chuck Klosterman

Overview

One-of-a-kind cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman “offers up great facts, interesting cultural insights, and thought-provoking moral calculations in this look at our love affair with the anti-hero” (New York magazine).

Chuck Klosterman, “The Ethicist” for The New York Times Magazine, has walked into the darkness. In I Wear the Black Hat, he questions the modern understanding of villainy. When we classify someone as a bad person, what are we really saying, and why are we so obsessed with saying it? How does the culture of malevolence operate? What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don't we see Bernhard Goetz the same way we see Batman? Who is more worthy of our vitriol-Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson's second-worst decision? And why is Klosterman still haunted by some kid he knew for one week in 1985?

Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and imaginative hypotheticals, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the antihero (seemingly the only kind of hero America still creates). As the Los Angeles Times notes: “By underscoring the contradictory, often knee-jerk ways we encounter the heroes and villains of our culture, Klosterman illustrates the passionate but incomplete computations that have come to define American culture-and maybe even American morality.” I Wear the Black Hat is a rare example of serious criticism that's instantly accessible and really, really funny.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2013 - AudioFile

Chuck Klosterman seems like that guy you know who can wax philosophical on a range of cultural references—from the superficial to the serious—and make thought-provoking arguments and connections. Klosterman reads like this everyday guy, too, lacking vocal refinement but sounding authentically like who he is—as a down-to-earth Midwesterner who spends a lot of time dissecting culture. He has a casual, enthusiastic manner, and his interest in the subject matter of this collection—villains—is evident. Klosterman posits that villains are those who "know the most and care the least." Some of his choices of villains are surprising, as they’re not the traditional cast of characters one might expect. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2013 - AudioFile

Chuck Klosterman seems like that guy you know who can wax philosophical on a range of cultural references—from the superficial to the serious—and make thought-provoking arguments and connections. Klosterman reads like this everyday guy, too, lacking vocal refinement but sounding authentically like who he is—as a down-to-earth Midwesterner who spends a lot of time dissecting culture. He has a casual, enthusiastic manner, and his interest in the subject matter of this collection—villains—is evident. Klosterman posits that villains are those who "know the most and care the least." Some of his choices of villains are surprising, as they’re not the traditional cast of characters one might expect. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171003548
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/09/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

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