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Eating the Dinosaur

by Chuck Klosterman

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 7,801 ratings · 703 reviews

A Book of All-New Pop Culture Pieces by Chuck Klosterman

...more A Book of All-New Pop Culture Pieces by Chuck Klosterman

Chuck Klosterman has chronicled rock music, film, and sports for almost fifteen years. He's covered extreme metal, extreme nostalgia, disposable art, disposable heroes, life on the road, life through the television, urban uncertainty and small-town weirdness. Through a variety of mediums and with a multitude of motives, he's written about everything he can think of (and a lot that he's forgotten). The world keeps accelerating, but the pop ideas keep coming.

In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny.

Q: What is this book about?

A: Well, that's difficult to say. I haven't read it yet - I've just clicked on it and casually glanced at this webpage. There clearly isn't a plot. I've heard there's a lot of stuff about time travel in this book, and quite a bit about violence and Garth Brooks and why Germans don't laugh when they're inside grocery stores. Ralph Nader and Ralph Sampson play significant roles. I think there are several pages about Rear Window and football and Mad Men and why Rivers Cuomo prefers having sex with Asian women. Supposedly there's a chapter outlining all the things the Unabomber was right about, but perhaps I'm misinformed.

Q: Is there a larger theme?

A: Oh, something about reality. "What is reality," maybe? No, that's not it. Not exactly. I get the sense that most of the core questions dwell on the way media perception constructs a fake reality that ends up becoming more meaningful than whatever actually happened.

Q: Should I read this book?

A: Probably. Do you see a clear relationship between the Branch Davidian disaster and the recording of Nirvana's In Utero? Does Barack Obama make you want to drink Pepsi? Does ABBA remind you of AC/DC? If so, you probably don't need to read this book. You probably wrote this book. But I suspect everybody else will totally love it, except for the ones who absolutely hate it.

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ebook, 256 pages

Published October 20th 2009 by Scribner (first published September 28th 2009)

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Dec 28, 2009 Gus Sanchez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays

For one take on Eating the Dinosaur, check out Anthony Shafer's review, which kicks ass in it's own way.

Chuck Klosterman's previous series of essays, Chuck Klosterman IV read more like a collection of rarities and half-formed ideas that left me wondering if Klosterman might be more enthralled with his celebrity as perhaps the pre-eminent pop culture essayist alive than being the pre-eminent pop culture essayist.

All those fears were put to rest after reading Eating the Dinosaur. Simply put, Eatin...more

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Dec 21, 2009 RandomAnthony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ok, I’ve read every book Klosterman has written and I’m going to outline what I think was running through his mind when he wrote the excellent Eating The Dinosaur:

1. You know, if one more person asks me if I still watch The Real World or know that Screech was in a porno, I’m going to scream. No, I probably won’t scream. I’m from North Dakota, a courteous locale, so I will not scream. I will feel embarrassed for the questioner and remove myself from the interaction as quickly as possible.
2. I’m g...more Ok, I’ve read every book Klosterman has written and I’m going to outline what I think was running through his mind when he wrote the excellent Eating The Dinosaur:

1. You know, if one more person asks me if I still watch The Real World or know that Screech was in a porno, I’m going to scream. No, I probably won’t scream. I’m from North Dakota, a courteous locale, so I will not scream. I will feel embarrassed for the questioner and remove myself from the interaction as quickly as possible.
2. I’m glad I don’t have a real job. Some of my former basketball teammates back near Grand Forks are stuck in factories or the family farms, and we know how those industries are doing (although North Dakota has weathered the economic hard times better than people might expect). Still, it’s not like I sit around on my ass and watch syndicated television until inspiration hits. I need drugs, too. No, no, kidding. If everybody thinks writing like me is so easy, why doesn’t everyone write like me and get famous? I’m not afraid of any of the bloggers or goodreads reviewers. I did my time and honed my craft. But I write a lot, under deadline, interviewing people about whom I don’t care much, anything to get another article in Spin or Esquire.
3. Ok, that’s not true anymore. I used to whore myself out to magazines indiscriminately but after Downtown Owl and all the speaker fees I’m doing ok financially and don’t have to write another profile of the semiotics of old television shows if I don’t want to do so. Still, I probably should. This gravy train might not run forever.
4. I know I shouldn’t care that people think my job is easy but sometimes those people bug me. However, once I’m bugged, I can own the fact I’m bugged, shrug off the jealousy, go for a run, and stay humble. I know I’m crazy lucky to do what I do. I mean, I work hard but I know I’m lucky.
5. I’m married now. I should start acting like a grown-up. The hipster kids have already disowned me and re-owned me about seventeen times. I’m too old for this shit.
6. I write better than people expect, mostly from practice, and I’ve got good editors.
7. In turn, I’m going to write an excellent book (according to at least one GR reviewer) with thoughtful, top-notch essays about subjects like how Pepsi and Obama are linked and the similarities between Kurt Cobain and David Koresh. I will also write about football and Abba. These essays will be better researched than some of my previous work but retain the dizzying logic and “you thought X was this but we know it’s really Y and if we’re honest with ourselves we’ll acknowledge X is Y and we probably do acknowledge X is Y covertly so everyone knows but we pretend X is Y but says X is X” rhetoric. I’m not stupid. I know what works. But I don’t want to sound like I’m arguing in a bar at 4 in the morning anymore. I’m, like, your cousin’s husband at your sister’s graduation now. I’m kind of interesting, I guess, and I’m a decent listener, but the kids don’t take me seriously.
8. The final essay, on the Unabomber, will be the best essay I’ve ever written.

Maybe Klosterman didn’t think any of that. I don’t know. Maybe he plays the stock market and smokes cigars between donations to the NRA. Maybe he campaigned for Al Franken and has a secret crush on Rachel Maddow. I don’t care. Eating the Dinosaur is the work of a smart, perceptive man with an loyal audience, a generally optimistic disposition, and years of experience at the keyboard. I know he makes it look easy but I doubt writing like Klosterman is as easy as one might think. If you’re a Klosterman fan you’ll love Eating the Dinosaur. If you don’t like Klosterman you still might at least, upon reading these essays, fail to hate them. I’m glad Klosterman exists and I’m uncool enough to dig his work. And that makes me cool. X equals Y. Everybody knows it.
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Mar 06, 2013 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, non-fiction, read-in-2013

An interesting, fun, and sometimes laugh out loud funny read. This is the first book I've read by him and I wanted to get it finished before seeing him at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend.

As is often the case I've been sitting on his first novel, Downtown Owl for a couple of years but have never gotten around to reading it. Looks like I will have to remedy that and pick up a few more of his essay collections in the near future.

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Jan 09, 2013 Chris Hennessey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, essay, non-fiction

Not a book review. Talking to myself in descending order of relevance to book/you.

1. Klosterman and David Foster Wallace are right: irony tyrannizes us. But part of the reason that it tyrannizes us is because people will not shut up about it. It's exhausting trying to out-smart and pre-empt every clever person who's ever had a theory on pop culture and society. We all speak in the ridiculous voice of Wallace Shawn: "Perhaps you know that I know that you know that I know." I long for the day tha...more

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Oct 28, 2010 ReaderM rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So I've never read a book by Chuck Klosterman and after reading Eating The Dinosaur, I'm honestly started to wonder what I've done with my life. Eating the Dinosaur is a simple collection of essays that will slightly twist your mind but present a pleasant read.

In reading the 'Easting the Dinosaur' you could say this is just a cheap collection of essays by a guy whose editors told him; "hey it's been a while since you released a book" throw something together quick. I honestly wouldn't disagree w...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Kevin added it · review of another edition

Klosterman is kind of a hipster's Malcolm Gladwell - funny, smart, obsessively focused on pop culture and rock and roll and sports, but in a personal way. His first chapter here chronicles how he spent years interviewing celebrities (and others), but, since he has become the subject of interviews, he could not understanding why people feel the need to answer honestly. So he interviewed Ira Glass and Errol Morris about... interviewing. It's a weird post-modern conceit, but it works really well an...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Gilang Danu rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays-letters, humor

Who would've thought that Klosterman is actually a damn good writer?

Eating The Dinosaur is Klosterman at his most thoughtful and articulate. Rather than presenting half-baked ideas covered with tons of pop references (like here), this time he really tried to flesh out his thought into something deliverable and coherent. The last two essays on the book (weirdly, one focused on Weezer's Cuomo and the other on the Unabomber terrorist, Ted Kaczynski) are particularly satisfying and written as only...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Aaron Kent rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

I'd like to like this collection, but some part of my spider sense is telling me that while Klosterman may have a knack for turning his musings on media, music and pop culture into seemingly cohesive essays, the real fact is that its just passably intellectual stuff for a TV generation. To his credit I enjoyed the essay on football since I have no prior knowledge of it. By about the third essay I had the impression that he's an aspiring, C Student version of David Foster Wallace a la Brief Inter...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Dianna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had this sort of weird amnesia thing where I would pick this book up in a store, turn it over, and somehow completely fail to read whatever was said on the back about the book. When I finally bought it, I was still vaguely convinced that it might have something to do with food. Maybe not actually eating actual dinosaurs, that would be crazy, wouldn't it? but some sort of food thing or food metaphor thing.

I also had no idea who Chuck Klosterman is. Probably I still don't, because we never reall...more I had this sort of weird amnesia thing where I would pick this book up in a store, turn it over, and somehow completely fail to read whatever was said on the back about the book. When I finally bought it, I was still vaguely convinced that it might have something to do with food. Maybe not actually eating actual dinosaurs, that would be crazy, wouldn't it? but some sort of food thing or food metaphor thing.

I also had no idea who Chuck Klosterman is. Probably I still don't, because we never really know who anyone is, or even who we are, which personally I find reassuring since I don't have to maintain any long-term character consistency and can just go where the mood takes me. And writers aren't their authorial voice, and they do self-deprecating and funny because that's what we like, and who they would like to be, rather than what they are.

Sometimes, I will pick up a book by someone I don't know and find that they expect me to know stuff about them and be some sort of follower and that's so irritating. Danny Wallace was a bit like that - he seemed to be all about 'oh I'm just this modest, goofy guy,' but then you'd read a little deeper and it'd become clear that you are supposed to already know and worship him. It was a bit dicey in the beginning with Klosterman - I thought he possibly expected me to know that he was a famous interviewing person, and I thought that he might also be a bit bleak, but it started to pick up when he got onto Kurt Cobain.

I haven't quite worked out my purpose in writing reviews on Goodreads yet. I mean, by the time I get to a book, far more useful people have already put together reviews on what's in the book so there's no point my going into that level of detail, but at the same time, what's the point of talking about a book at all if you're not at least going to mention something about what's in the book?

Then there's that whole thing about how it doesn't really matter whether I like the book or not. In this case I did, but even if I thought it was rubbish, I could be thinking that for reasons that have nothing to do with the book's merits. And, I could just be wrong.

However, since I've come this far: this book has pop culture essays, and they're very comfy. Or, it's controversial to compare Kurt Cobain to David Koresch, and plain wrong to say that there's anything in the Unabomber's manifesto that's worth reading. I vagued out a bit on Klosterman's sports essays, because I was too distracted by the novelty of reading a sports essay to properly take it all in. My favourite was definitely the time travel essay - I don't think I have much chance of finding the film he mentioned, but I'm going to pick up the book - 'The New Time Travellers' by David Toomey.(less)

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Jul 01, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

"As a species, we have never been less human than we are right now.
And that (evidently) is what I want.
I must want it. It must be my desire, because I would do nothing to change the world's relationship to technology even if I could. My existence is constructed, and it's constructed through the surrogate activity of mainstream popular culture. I understand this. And because I understand this, I could change. I could move to Montana and find [Kaczynski's] cabin and live there, satisfied in my phi...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Mighty_k24 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In't kort: een resem essays over de meest uiteenlopende onderwerpen, van een lachband over American Football tot een vergelijking Kurt Cobain-David Koresh

Mijn oordeel: ik heb Klosterman leren kennen via de podcast (jaja, ik ben af en toe ook modern) van mijn held Bill Simmons (elders op deze site staan 2 recensies over zijn boeken). Op die podcast is Klosterman af en toe te gast, en hij is me direct opgevallen omwille van zijn doordachtheid, de manier waarop hij parallellen kan trekken waar er o...more

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Mar 10, 2012 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Magpies

Recommended to Alan by: Previous work

Scattershot, incoherent (apparently by design), and occasionally just flatly wrong... Chuck Klosterman's essay collection Eating the Dinosaur is still perversely interesting. And he's right a lot more often than he's wrong.

I really hope the method by which Klosterman constructs several of his essays doesn't catch on, though, the one where he just writes sections in the order that occurs to him and then labels them haphazardly so their linear order could conceivably be reconstructed. For example,...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Connor rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman is not your prototypical book. There is no plot or main character Eating The Dinosaur is a book compiled of short essay on various topics. Klosterman brings various topics to the table in his book. Topics include football, sitcom shows, bands and many more. Three of my personal favorite essays are time traveling, football, and laugh tracks. Klosterman writes essay to understand essays that are entertaining as they come. Klosterman is a great writer and ha...more Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman is not your prototypical book. There is no plot or main character Eating The Dinosaur is a book compiled of short essay on various topics. Klosterman brings various topics to the table in his book. Topics include football, sitcom shows, bands and many more. Three of my personal favorite essays are time traveling, football, and laugh tracks. Klosterman writes essay to understand essays that are entertaining as they come. Klosterman is a great writer and has written one of my favorite books.

Klosterman writes his essays so the reader even if one does not have any prior knowledge of the subject they can read the chapter with ease. One of my favorite chapters in the book is the time traveling chapter. Klosterman discusses the age old question of is it possible to time travel. Klosterman raises points that would hinder ones thought of time traveling. He proclaims if time traveling was possible than you would not need to travel back in time if you were successful. What he means by this is, if you went back in time to change your decision on a topic and were successful in this than you would not need to go back in time. Klosterman talks about relevant topics that everyone has always thought about. One topic that everyone has thought about at least once is the laugh track in TV shows. Klosterman tells of his view on having the show tells us when we should laugh. He finds the laugh tracks to be the worst because they are telling the viewer how they should feel. Klosterman brings his opinions to the reader which gets the reader thinking.

One other reason why I enjoy this book too is after each chapter Klosterman has an interview section. I found this part very entertaining because you could see what Klosterman truly believes in and you can have another view at the author. Also, this part was entertaining because majority of his answers were very funny and truthful.

If I was asked if I would recommend this book to someone I would without a doubt say yes. This books is amazing in the sense you enjoy picking it up. I usually feel as if reading is a drag but with this book I did not mind reading this book. I also like this book because it was short essays that allowed you to get into each chapter. Also you can jump around in the book from chapter to chapter. I would 100% recommend this book to a friend.

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Dec 24, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

first book of his I've read, though the name sounds familiar -- I think I've read some of his articles on grantland, the Bill ("Sports Guy") Simmons site. Anyway, it's a collection of long-ish essays mostly about sports or music or technology. Hard to summarize a theme or point -- just generally smart, funny, verbally fluent guy earnestly taking on some of his pet topics, including the music of ABBA, the rise and fall of Garth Brooks ("he already seems only half as famous as Brad Paisley"), the...more

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Dec 02, 2011 Ed Wagemann added it · review of another edition

I disagree with about 90% of everything Chuck Klosterman utters, yet I enjoy reading him (although I only end up reading about 50% of any book he publishes and skip or skim the other 50%). I've always liked reading/hearing thoughts and opinions that differ from my own, especially if those thoughts/opinions are presented in an interesting and entertaining way--which is the same reason that I listen to Rush Limbaugh at times.

Sometimes I will agree with Klosterman in spirit, but disagree with him o...more I disagree with about 90% of everything Chuck Klosterman utters, yet I enjoy reading him (although I only end up reading about 50% of any book he publishes and skip or skim the other 50%). I've always liked reading/hearing thoughts and opinions that differ from my own, especially if those thoughts/opinions are presented in an interesting and entertaining way--which is the same reason that I listen to Rush Limbaugh at times.

Sometimes I will agree with Klosterman in spirit, but disagree with him on the detail. A good example of this is the 20 page riff Klosterman goes off on about NFL football that starts on page 125 of his 2009 book Eating The Dinosaur. Like Rush Limbaugh often does, Klosterman seems to be passionately saying a whole lot about absolutley nothing, using small nuggets of wisdom or verifiable facts and stretching them beyond any sort of comprehension or meaning what so ever. With a voice as bold and confident as Olympus he spews completely contradictory ideas and arguments within sentences--or even words--of each other. And after doing such he goes on, as though what he is saying makes absolute sense, which makes it all very comical to me.

During his 20 page tirade on NFL footballl for instance he states that what makes the NFL so great is that it is not trying to be anything that it is not. But then sentences later he says: "He [Brett Favre] was the human incarnation of how the NFL hopes to portray itself..." Contradictory. Then he goes on to argue that the NFL is liberalism cloaked in conservatism, going as far as conjuring up a story about how Teddy Roosevelt legalized the forward pass and how former comissioner Roselle was a Marxist.

Klosterman has not been the first to suggest that the NFL has socialistic tendencies. Afterall the league does have a salary cap and a salary minimum. It has a weighted college draft and ofcourse the teams all share the massive tv reveune that the league brings in. The idea being that you are only as strong as your weakest link, so if you empower those on the bottom, you make the entire league stronger. So the case that the NFL is liberalism cloaked in conservatism has real merit and is one of the few things that Klosterman points ot that actually makes some sense. Some of Klosterman's jibber-jabber is very entertaining, but most of it seems to be babbling on for the sake of babbling on, possibly just to entertain himself. Which is fine. Because even though alot (probablly even most) of this babbling bores the socks off of me and I end up skipping over it (like his riff about laugh tracks or his riff about Garth Brooks), there are sections of his book that I find moderately entertaining and which are no worse than watching reruns of The Office, for example.

For this reason and more I give Eating the Dinosaur 1.5 out of 5 WagemannHeads(less)

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Sep 22, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays

Eating The Dinosaur is Chuck Klosterman’s latest book of essays on pop culture. There’s a lot to enjoy in the book, but I don’t think it’s as entertaining as some of his earlier books. It seems that (unlike the majority of his fans) I tend to find his sports essays among the most entertaining and thought provoking. In this book he takes on the disappointing untapped potential of Ralph Samson’s NBA career in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Ralph Sampson: Society's Reactions to Public Failu...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Jeremy Garber rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural-criticism, good-writing

Chuck Klosterman is a genius. He makes me want to write. Seriously, I restarted my PhD dissertation with full energy after reading this book. Reading Klosterman is like having a half-drunken conversation with a really interesting friend who is fascinated by everything. In this book, Klosterman reflects on the process of interviewing and why people go through it, much less tell the truth; the similarities between Nirvana and David Koresh; how time travel is basically for lazy people who want to e...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Benjamin Siess rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Chuck Klosterman is a changed man. Evolved. But is that a good thing?

In “Eating the Dinosaur”, Chuck is a different writer than he was when most of his current fan base stumbled upon him with “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, his second publication. In SDaCPs, Klosterman was a low culture guru, who molded philosophy around constant references to pop culture. “Eating the Dinosaur” isn’t so lighthearted, and I don’t think it was meant to be, so that’s not an indictment. It’s just not what I’ve come t...more Chuck Klosterman is a changed man. Evolved. But is that a good thing?

In “Eating the Dinosaur”, Chuck is a different writer than he was when most of his current fan base stumbled upon him with “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, his second publication. In SDaCPs, Klosterman was a low culture guru, who molded philosophy around constant references to pop culture. “Eating the Dinosaur” isn’t so lighthearted, and I don’t think it was meant to be, so that’s not an indictment. It’s just not what I’ve come to expect from him.

“Eating the Dinosaur” definitely still has a healthy share of pop culture infused into it, but not nearly to the extent of any of Klosterman’s other books. It reminded me of a hyper philosophical Malcolm Gladwell in a lot of parts (which I’m sure most agree, isn’t a bad thing). Long passages are crafted purely on ideas with less involvement from the pop culture back bone of the story. More of the examples he gave to illustrate his ideas were less low culture, and more scholastic or, ahem, adult. Technically, his writing is getting more proficient, but for me, not necessarily more enjoyable. Perhaps he thinks the things that he’s trying to get across are more important than the need to entertain. His chosen subject matter is definitely more complex. Perhaps he felt that the more intricate themes demanded a more high-minded approach.

I also noticed a lack of the “I’m smarter than you and I’ll prove it” tone that he has made use of in the past, and I…...missed it? I always got the impression that his writing was an exercise, and he didn’t always necessarily believe what he was saying, but that he was trying to convince you anyways and entertain at the same time. This book seemed much more personal, like it was important to him that he discover what he thought about the nature of reality and writing the book was like opening the little black box in his head that he talks about in the first essay about interviews.

Another minor thing I noticed was his lack of introspection about his romantic relationships. Recently married, I wonder if we’ve heard the last about Klosterman’s love life, an aspect that I always enjoyed in his writing (let’s try to ignore how odd it is that I enjoyed reading about the romance of a self-professed geeky, odd-looking 40 something, native North Dakotan).

All that being said, the essence of his signature writing style is still the same and I really love watching the man think. If you’ve liked his other books, there is a good chance you’ll like this one. Just be prepared for the differences. Less laughy-laughy, more thinky-thinky.

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Jul 24, 2011 NJMetal rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Eating The Dinosaur is a return to the form of Sex, Drugs and Chuck Klosterman IV. Full of essays of irreverant views of pop-culture of all varieties: Music, movies and sports most notably. If there can be a unifiing theme to it all perhaps it is best described as essays on preception and time.
This is certainly not Klostermans best work. But it is undeniably Klosterman. ABBA vs. the World, how are Curt Cobain and David Koresh the same person. Did Ted Kazynski have a valid point. Klosterman looks...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'll pretty much read anything Klosterman writes, and this book is not going to change that opinion one bit. In fact, this one actually impressed me, even though I'm usually pretty into K's game.

Part of it is just the weirdness of these essays, this book, existing at all. I think the previous books were collections of pieces that he'd written for other jobs-- Spin, Esquire, whatever. But this one, at least as far as I can tell, eshews that to go for new content. And who has time for that?

The res...more

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Mar 01, 2011 James Mcgann rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up this book because I've heard Klosterman on Bill Simmons' (aka The Sports Guy on ESPN.com) podcast, and he had a unique way of approaching sports, in that he enjoyed them, but never rooted for a team. He just didn't care who won - which was almost completely unfathomable to me! Even in games where I don't really have any rooting interest, I find myself pulling for one team instead of the other. Anyway, this book is full of similarly unique (some might say bizarre) opinions on a variet...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Derek Wolfgram rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Meh. I hoped that Eating the Dinosaur would be a return to form for Klosterman, after the unreadable novel Downtown Owl. In retrospect, it occurs to me that Klosterman's books have gotten steadily less entertaining with each one that is published. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs had me laughing out loud, and I found Killing Yourself to Live pretty insightful and entertaining, but since then the returns have been diminishing. I'll pay Klosterman a sort of compliment here: Eating the Dinosaur reminds m...more

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Sep 15, 2010 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have had a longstanding love/like relationship with Chuck Klosterman. Most of the time I like what he writes, and occasionally I love certain pieces, or even parts of pieces.

But Eating the Dinosaur has, somehow, taken large parts of my brain--and by this I mean not only or simply objects and topics that inhabit my brain, but THE WAYS I THINK ABOUT THEM--and made them plain, in language that not only replicates my own cadences and ramblings, but refines them to the point where I somehow recogni...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Brynn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Most people are not articulate about everything in their life, but they are articulate about the things they're still figuring out." (8)

"So the deeper question is, what's more important, narrative consistency or truth? I think we're always trying to create a consistent narrative for ourselves. I think truth always takes a backseat to narrative. Truth has to sit at the back of the bus." (13)

"People answer questions because it feels stranger to do the opposite." (20)

"Any time you try to tell peop...more

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May 04, 2010 Shelah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Eddie and I bought this audiobook to listen to when we were driving around Hawaii. Even though I've read basically all of Klosterman's nonfiction books, they're not the kinds of books I'd normally imagine myself enjoying. For one thing, he writes almost exclusively about rock music, about which I know very little (my most hated question when I was dating was "what kind of music do you listen to?" because I never felt like I knew enough about music to answer that in an intelligent way) and sports...more

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Apr 25, 2010 Book Calendar rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, humor

Chuck Klosterman Eating The Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman writes novels and journalism. This book is a collection of essays focused on popular culture. It has a slight edge to it, a kind of independent feeling you might associate with independent rock or independent bookstores. I had heard comparisons between Chuck Klosterman and Hunter S. Thompson, but it really does not feel that way. There is no sense of outlaw violence or danger in reading Chuck Klosterman's writing.

The essays are very self ref...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Blog on Books rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As longtime readers of Blog on Books know, we love Chuck Klosterman. After all, who else could completely invert our views of Kiss, Britney Spears, sports heroes and cultural icons the way Klosterman deconstructs then reassembles them in a completely different, yet somehow still (if not more) sensible way?
Yet, in this, his fifth compendium (and sixth book overall) `Eating the Dinosaur' (Scribner), Klosterman has made a fatal mistake and it appears in the very first chapter, no less. Somehow Klo...more As longtime readers of Blog on Books know, we love Chuck Klosterman. After all, who else could completely invert our views of Kiss, Britney Spears, sports heroes and cultural icons the way Klosterman deconstructs then reassembles them in a completely different, yet somehow still (if not more) sensible way?
Yet, in this, his fifth compendium (and sixth book overall) `Eating the Dinosaur' (Scribner), Klosterman has made a fatal mistake and it appears in the very first chapter, no less. Somehow Klosterman has gone from merely self-aware, to somewhat self-obsessed. It's like he suddenly has realized that his prominence (success) has transformed him from the interviewer to the interviewee. This is not a circumstance that the Fargo-cum-New York rock'n'roll gonzoist seems quite able to handle. By questioning how an interview is actually different than a conversation, say, by two buds at a bar, Klosterman appears to have lost it when it comes to the realization that it's all about `product.' (I mean, what was the guy thinking when he conducted all the interviews he's done?) This same attitude was in full effect in his incredibly awkward recent interview with Carson Daly as well.
Once we get a few exits past this just plain weird, road-kill stink opening, Klosterman gets back on track with some reasonably great analyses of Kurt Cobain vs. Waco cult leader David Koresh (did he ever hear Koresh's demo tape, I wonder?), time travel, the NBA's Ralph Simpson, Hitchcock, ABBA, irony, canned laughter and numerous chapters loosely structured around the theme of personal perception (a re-examination of the message of the Unabomber as well as the final cultural dissection of Garth Brooks' Chris Gaines character, being the most memorable ones). Don't get me wrong, Klosterman's POVs are still some of the most mind opening and cutting edge interpretations of modern pop culture. It's just that it would be nice if he relaxed about his newfound position of popularity. In other words, get over your bad self, dude.
In the final analysis, The Chuck is dead, long live the Chuck!
Tim Devine(less)

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Dec 17, 2009 Nevena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“But there’s one kind of writing that always easy: Picking out something obviously stupid and reiterating how stupid it obvious is. This is the lowest form of criticism, easily accomplished by anyone. And for most of my life, I have tried to avoid this. In fact, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the underrated value in ostensibly stupid things. I understand Turtle’s motivation and I would have watched Medellin in the theatre. I read Mary Worth every day for a decade. I’ve see...more

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Nov 18, 2009 Jan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My expectations for Klosterman have grown since "Downtown Owl," his first novel that proved he was capable of sustaining a longer narrative and also of developing inner worlds of at least equal depth to the pre-fabricated culture on which he comments. This new collection of essays, while an enjoyable read, is nothing earthshaking and will hold few surprises for people who have read the other ones.

A few essays end up in relatively cheap territory; the comparison of Koresh and Cobain added very l...more

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Nov 09, 2009 Benjamin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After the unexpected brilliance of "Downtown Owl," it seemed like Klosterman could do no wrong. With "Eating the Dinosaur," everything comes crashing down.

It opens with a borderline pointless discussion of why interviewees answer questions. Next is a discussion of Kurt Cobain and David Koresh that feels like an amateur trying to impersonate Klosterman. Dissections of the basketball of career of Ralph Sampson and Garth Brooks' tenure as Chris Gaines are thoroughly researched and vaguely engaging...more

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About Chuck Klosterman

Charles John "Chuck" Klosterman is an American pop-culture journalist, critic, humorist, and essayist. He was raised on a farm near Wyndmere, North Dakota and graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1994. After college he was a journalist in Fargo, North Dakota and later an arts critic for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, before moving to New York City in 2002.

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Books by Chuck Klosterman

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

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“Every time I learn the truth about something, I’m disappointed” — 40 people liked it

“If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the "form of funny," which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness. ” — 23 people liked it

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