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Apr 04, 2011

Steven rated it:

I first heard of this book when I saw it referenced tangentially in a recent Jonathan Alter column. I expected it to be a relatively serious (i.e. “scholarly”) work of non-fiction, but it turned out to be a breezy light-hearted memoir from a 40-something novelist about his trip through the American education system and how he worked his way up the ladder of standardized tests, extracurricular activities, and class rankings.

From rural Minnesota where his father moved the family when More...

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Apr 03, 2011

Mark rated it:

I found this a fascinating and absorbing read, and read it pretty much straight through, in one or two sessions over a weekend. I think any high school senior who's just been rejected by the admissions department at Princeton (or Yale or Harvard) would be cheered immensely to read this, to thank his/her lucky stars that he/she narrowly escaped ending up at such a place.

Reviewer Melanie Thernstrom compared this to "Holden Caulfield" at Princeton. That it is very perce More...

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Mar 29, 2010

David rated it:

Interesting theme of his "aptitude" for standardized test-taking propelling him up a ladder of competition at the expense of any questioning/reflection about where the ladder was leading and whether it was somewhere he wanted to go.

Much of the focus is on his time as an English major and theater/arts-scene hanger-on at Princeton.

Some of the enjoyment I got from the book was a matter of shared experience ("hey, my grade school had those 'SRA' color-coded More...

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Oct 29, 2009

Terry rated it:

Eh. On a personal level, I did enjoy this intellectual autobiography, but for purely situational reasons, since I'm currently constantly musing about education and class and what it means to be well educated and all that stuff.

And again, personally, I was by turns bemused and annoyed by Kirn... or maybe Kirn's TONE, his STYLE, not Kirn himself, I should say. I am a rabid fan of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and I think anyone who enjoyed that book as a story of aspiration might More...

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Oct 11, 2009

Kjes rated it:

This is one arrogant, conceited person. After a couple hundred pages portraying how intellectually superior he is (albeit misguided), he makes his point, concretely, on the last page. A good point, and I know he was making the point all along, but what a drag getting there.

One paragraph does stand out on page 23: "My psychiatrist, who'd encouraged these reminiscences and patiently listened ot them for several sessions, fanning my hopes for a conclusive insight into my conflicte More...

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Jun 14, 2009

Christiane rated it:

Perhaps if I were to read the second half of this book, I might glean some insights from the story, but it just made me too mad to finish. I can't quite figure out why it makes me angry, but it does. The passage about having a three-way with two beautiful girls in high school made it seem like the experience was his just reward for graduating high school in his junior year and going to college a year early. Oh, and the SATs? A piece of fucking cake. It's easy to get into Princeton--just win More...

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Jul 11, 2009

nicole rated it:

The writing in this book is exquisite thus the 4 star review.

However, I truly dislike the narrator.

I think this should be 3.5 stars because I feel like I've been duped. I thought this book would provide a scathing critique of the breed of asshole Kirn himself "was." So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to believe that he wasn't proud of himself for becoming an expert test-taker with paper-thin knowledge of anything at all.

His tone betray More...

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Jul 24, 2009

Brian rated it:

I'm not a big fan of memoirs because of there suspect accuracy. Most people can't remember two weeks ago, let alone when they were four years old. This is the problem with Walter Kirn's memoir on his educational experiences from elementary school through his years at Princeton. Add in the constant drug and alcohol use and Kirn's accounts are probably based on hazes of recollection. I do not disagree with his basic premise that an education system based on timed tests in elementary school and SAT More...

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Jan 18, 2010

Gretchen rated it:

The framing chapters don't match the middle of this book. Kirn presents this as an examination of the flaws in an American meritocratic system that unduly rewards strivers over real thinkers, student who excel at multiple-choice tests and figuring out what teachers want, yet who never really learn to pursue in-depth learning for the love of it. With some such critiques of the system myself, I was ready to read the book and learn more. Kirn paints himself as such a striver, always figuring out th More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Heidi added it

I thought the book would be an indictment of the system, but instead it seems to me an indictment of the author. I found it to be an engaging memoir, and a quick read. But it's not so much a coming-of-age tale as a description of how the author did NOT come of age and find himself, although his self-discovery is alluded to at the end of the book (it presumably takes place at a future point in his life not covered by this book).

Because the character (the author) doesn't really evolve much duri More...

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Mar 20, 2011

Gabrielle rated it:

This memoir was a decent read, but I was somewhat disappointed. The author did extremely well on his SATs and had the opportunity to attend Princeton. Instead of putting forth effort and taking advantage of his opportunities, he tried to "outsmart" the system. He did just enough work in order to appear intellectual. Throughout his life, he was able to memorize and repeat what his teachers wanted him to. I expected him to discuss the problems this presents in life, but he spent most of More...

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Apr 22, 2010

Lia rated it:

Kirn taught at UChicago for a quarter, so I was interested to read his latest book about his underwhelming education (or non-education) both before and at Princeton. Unfortunately, Kirn's writing is also underwhelming. While some of his reflections about education are interesting, and dead-on (Kirn observes that all he had to do to get an A in an English class at college was to insert words he and most people didn't understand), in the end, his writing suffers from the same problems he suffered More...

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Feb 24, 2010

heather rated it:

i hate to say this, but i could really relate to the events in this book. beyond that, i love kirn's terse writing style, which not only mocks his surroundings but skewers himself at this point in his life. while the book does focus on the Princeton/Ivy League/East Coast elite, i think his out-of-place(ness) (there is a German word for this, i'm sure) is something many of us can identify with, at the age he writes about and in different locations. in kirn's surroundings, the effect is magnifi More...

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Jun 29, 2009

matt rated it:

Proving once again the power of the Colbert bump (though I’m not sure it counts if an item is taken out from a library), I was intrigued by Kirn’s appearance/dismissal of the university system. Riding the same wave of (faux) populist outrage that has swept the country, nothing seems more topical and appropriate than a backlash against the hallowed halls of academia, particularly those stuffed shirts over at the Ivys You’ll get what’s coming to you, nerds!
This tacked with all of the attent More...

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Aug 15, 2009

Chuck rated it:

Was it back the 1960s when you could get into a prestigious university with a so-so high school record and high SAT scores, and then bluff, drug, and sex your way successfully through the next four years and into a British postgraduate fellowship by relying on raw intelligence coupled with the ability to parrot back to professors just what they want to hear? Well, not exactly, since universities in the '60s still gave out a lot of Cs for average work. Fast-forward to the 1980s, however, and t More...

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Aug 01, 2009

Hollie rated it:

Walter Kirn's memoir -- a must read for anyone who ever harbored aspirations of Ivy League grandeur that didn't materialize. Recently he gave a reading from this book at Tin House ending with the appeal, "Don't go to Princeton!" He was a Minnesota misfit who, via outstanding SAT scores found himself desperately seeking to find himself among crowds he defines in his book as "Those Who'd Been on Sailboats" (rich snobs), "Those Who Strove to Serve Mankind" (government More...

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Jan 01, 2012

Tre rated it:

I wasn't interested much by this memoir. I felt as if it would be more about the specifics of the author's Ivy League education and why or why not it was a sham. Instead, I got a drawn out life history full of cynicism that wasn't suited well to my taste and that isn't the author's fault. It is rather depressing, but I was left feeling that this book asks the question "What does it all matter, anyway?" This is the question also asked by the wisest man in the world in the book of Eccles More...

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Aug 28, 2009

Mythili rated it:

From his earliest school days, Walter Kirn is driven to succeed – to impress his instructors, out-accomplish his peers, earn top grades, and win contests. “Percentile is destiny in America,” he learns at an early age. But to what end? “No one ever told me what the point was, except to keep accumulating points, and this struck me as sufficient. What else was there?” he muses. By the time Kirn is midway through his undergraduate career at Princeton University, however, questions of “what else?” More...

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Jul 09, 2011

Khaya rated it:

I was hoping for an interesting and well thought-out attack on university education. Instead, I got the ramblings of a guy who seems to want to prove his Princeton education was overrated by recounting multiple episodes of drug use, casual sex, and general debauchery while he was there, culminating in...a scholarship to Oxford. Well, clearly Kirn is a rather inaccurate reporter (don't tell me he spent his years at Princeton in a drug-induced haze and just happened to land this major scholarshi More...

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Dec 18, 2009

Adrian added it

Peculiar book. Kirn's story of his years in the American education system from grade school and college in Minnesota to University at Princeton. He learned how to succeed by faking knowledge. Much of the time he comes across as a jerk too lazy to make an effort. Who is to say if his 'cerebral collapse' at Princeton was anything more than too many drugs and too little solid food. Even the celebrated wit is a bit of a stretch. I got a few laughs early on but quickly fell into deep puzzlement at wh More...

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Oct 22, 2011

Ken rated it:

An extremely bright guy tells of his adventures at Princeton during the 80's. By the end, he realizes that there is a difference between "acting smart", and really "understanding". The book was well written, but Kirin comes off at times just a tad too smug. One can certainly see how the character in UP IN THE AIR came to be. The very meticulous, isolated brainiac who literally has his head in the clouds is very much a salient part of Kirin's character. For a slim book it work More...

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Jun 28, 2009

Mika rated it:

My feelings about this book are mixed. On the one hand, I get Kirn's struggle in the educational system. I was another one to whom the next academic prize was always the next goal. I didn't stop to ask what the point of getting an education was beyond the elusive "get an education so you can get a 'good job.'" When I got dumped out at the end of the ride, there was that moment of panic -- what do you do next?

The other hand, I find Kirn's repeated passages on his debau More...

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Jul 22, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

I rarely like man memoirs and this was not one of them. Bring on Hornsby! This book was all, oh, boo hoo I am so smart and my parents are so weird and everything sucks (in the 70's and 80's). God, kill me now. Luckily, I jammed through this book quickly as well because WHO THE HELL CARES! The author talked about his high school years and then going off to Princeton and it not being what he thought he would be (are Ivy's ever?) and what he got out of the whole thing. Obviously a cushy writing car More...

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Aug 19, 2010

Asma rated it:

I was hoping for a more theoretical approach to life in this book, explaining the American education system in a more meaningful way. However, all I got from this book was a man who seemed to find flaws in many of his experiences and wasted time through drugs and other means of "recreation." Though there were moments of humor that broadened my understanding of the Ivy League lifestyle, I felt that this memoir was more suited for men who were looking for a good laugh rather than someone More...

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Feb 26, 2010

Robert rated it:

A somewhat diverting, but otherwise disappointing autobiography of the author's education up through undergraduate study at Princeton. We don't spend much time with anyone but the narrator. This would be fine, except that there is really only one source of conflict and we are immediately, and explicitly told of it. His "product of the system," buzzword-tossing approach to education is afterward shown to us repeatedly throughout the rest of the story in glib anecdotes that seem to ha More...

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Feb 15, 2010

Christopher rated it:

A fascinating look into small-town Minnesota native, Walter Kirn, and his very random journey through the academic culture of the early 1980s. From his matriculation at Princeton with the adventures and misadventures that inevitably ensue to his tapping for a Keasbey Fellowship at Oxford, Kirn paints a vivid (sometimes too vivid for this Walter Kirn contemporary) portrait of the many positive and negative societal, cultural, and internal forces that collide in creating one's intellectual self.

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Dec 14, 2009

Motorcycle rated it:

I liked the idea of the book better than the book itself. I really, really liked Kirn's writing. But I wanted more discussion of the premise of the book than descriptions of the drugs he did and the girls he had sex with. Also the resolution of him starting his real education, taking his reading seriously, was pretty anemic. I really thought there was going to be more of that. It ended so abruptly on that note that I became confused and looked for a following page that wasn't there.

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Jun 13, 2009

Kathleen rated it:

I thought this was a hilarious romp from start to finish. Then I found out that Kirn was the boyfriend of one of my friends who went to Princeton, so I got the inside dope on him and found it even more fascinating. Kirn's story will be familiar to anybody who wonders why the elite club you just joined was so stupid as to let you in. His special skill was in achievement. A product of the systematized public education system of the 1960s, he was particularly adept at taking tests and advancing More...

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Aug 04, 2011

Clare rated it:

Lost in the Meritocracy is a light memoir instead of an in-depth analysis of the American education system buoyed by personal experience. While Kirn has that knack for choosing the right detail, the writing style is remarkably vicious towards everyone, including the young Kirn. Ultimately, it is about discovering yourself under all those unquestioned actions, but it’s too light and vicious for me in the end. If you’d like.

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Jul 19, 2009

Joe rated it:

A little bit Bret Easton Ellis, a little bit Tom Wolfe.

Here's an excerpt with an interesting perspective on conservatism.

"A conservative was a person who stopped adjusting once adjustment brought him no vital benefits. The commandment to us from kindergarten on had been to grow, expand ourselves, to stretch, but there was another option too, I saw. One could let others cope with novelty and concentrate on the familiar."

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