Name: The Nineties
Rating: 4 (40 reviews)
ISBN: 9780735217959

Chuck Klosterman

"Essays about 1990s popular culture, politics, sports, literature, music"--

A Book

The Nineties

Greg Talbot

Setting our parameters between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the two towers in Manhattan, Chuck Klosterman's pandemic musings on 'talk to the hand' decade is an exploration of 90s culture and at times our relationship to it. Klosterman's journey across the 90s, chronologically or by subject is scattered and untidy, but there is plenty to enjoy. Diving into the holy grail of 90s artifacts - Linklater's Slacker, Generation X and Nevermind; Klosterman explores the historic significance to the generation (X) experiencing the greatest expansion of socioeconomic progress and their "equivalence with marginalization". Prevailing ideas about consumerism and being real were curiously the subject of mass media. Whether it be the 'Bryonic' Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, the self-destructive grunge scene of Nirvana and Mudhoney, or the grand self-study of David Foster Wallace's writing; 90s media was often at war with a Boomer world that masked deeper inequality. The antidotes vary in wit and length, but there are some really fantastic pieces. Klosterman's humor broadcasts very well, detailing the collective un-realness of the OJ Simspson trial, the remarkable but inevitable blockbuster Titantic, the Ross Perot deep dive ("not the right person at the right now, but the wrong person appearing at random (p.72)'), and of course the steroid saga of late 90s baseball. Delightful nods to some fantastic 90s artists - Fugazi, Pavement, Oasis, Radiohead and Nirvana are given. Although the book is a collection of spit-balling tales, there is a through-line of memory. It may in fact be the last decade that we shared an organic memory in real-time. Television was never without a perspective, but our viewership increasingly became witness drama like the Anita Hill hearings or the white bronco chase. Memory may conjure a jump drive device or a shared Instagram post now. But there was a time cultural felt lived in, with a sense of togetherness. Klosterman wryly and accurately describes the Web 1.0 as the last time it would feel like we were controlling the machines. Klosterman hints at all the ways our culture has changed dramatically in 30 years. Stories about LGBT recognition or police brutality captured on tape feel like precursors toward the identity-centric 2020s. All the major incidents came up (Clinton impeachment, The Matrix, Iraqi Desert Storm), for anyone who experienced the 90s. Whether in the latest nostalgic wave of fashion, or music artists (Mitski, Japanese Breakfast), or headliners at Lollapalooza (Green Day, Metallica) or simply on the cued up Portlandia we can youtube, some remnant remains. Having experiencing this 'idyllic 90s', I can say it was a simpler time. But it was more than that. It was frustrating, and boring, and fully of gimmick nonsense too. Sure, i'll take those Guided By Voices albums, and the Linklater movies, and Simpsons, but i'm also so glad the culture has become so more vibrant. The dream of the 90s is alive, and luckily, it's just a dream.

From the New York Times bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history. It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job. Beyond epiphenomena like "Cop Killer" and Titanic and Zima, there were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 90’s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it. In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, “The video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany” make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.

This is a book that got me thinking about why I remember movies from back then. Chuck writes a thought-provoking account of a decade when I was about to finish college. From the popularity of Star Wars and Nirvana to the rise of TV series that everyone remembered, The Nineties is mostly about the American culture and its generation who were transitioning from analog to digital. Since my copy was an audiobook, my mind wandered off when he dived into politics (too much of that). I'm no 90s kid, but it's perhaps worth your time to recall what it was like back in the 90s.

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

Crystal L

I say this with the greatest of love, but my god! can Chuck Klosterman drone on. I've long been a fan of Klosterman's writing so when I saw this I had to request it immediately. Klosterman expertly tackles the 90's in often hilarious, always insightful, but occasionally just too repetitive ways. I know that I'm not the exact audience for this book, after all, as much as I'd love to consider myself a Gen-Xer (whatever that says about me), I am a millennial, with young parents, who thankfully got exposed to much of this as a child. That being said, and acknowledging that the '90s aren't 10 years ago as many of us like to think, I also felt that this book was a little too close to home sometimes. It was a lot. I found myself putting it down, taking a step back to really think about it, and then jumping right back in. Of course, I loved the book and I'm going to pick up a copy as soon as it's published, but reader beware this one might hit a little close. Readers are in for a laugh and a lot of thought with The Nineties.

5/5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP The Penguin Press, Penguin Press for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Catherine Duplessis

3.5

As a Canadian born in 1989, I wanted to read about the entertainment industry, the pop culture and the advertising boom that influenced the culture and the trends of the 90s era (in every form), but this book is somehow more about American politics and sports. But why? Even if I was less than 10, I still remember life in the nineties, life before and at the very start of the internet and none of my memories are about politics and sports. (I do remember going to a couple of Montreal Expos’ games and I loved the movie Space Jam. That’s pretty much it.)

Of course, this book is probably not for someone born in 1989, but the cover told me otherwise. This phone WAS in my memories of the nineties. I was obsessed with everything clear. And I wanted to know why and where it comes from, not why Bill Clinton won the elections in 1992.

There are sections about the weird trend of clear beverages, the TV culture, the success of the movie Titanic and Nirvana, but it felt like it was 15% of the book and left me wanted way more (and way less of politics). 

Overall, there are good observations and some (small) parts made me smile and feel a bit nostalgic or unlocked memories I didn’t know I had, but it left me with details of the nineties I couldn’t care less.

(I still don’t understand why there is no mentions of the Backstreet Boys (or N*SYNC or any boys bands from THE boys band era). What kind of nineties did you guys live?!)

I’ve loved Chuck Klosterman’s writing for gosh, multiple decades now, and he’s one of the few authors whose latest works I snap up no questions asked. As an elder(ish) millennial, I am stereotypically obsessed with the Nineties, and I really enjoyed the way Klosterman wove events that were formative for me to create an intelligent and accurate depiction of what he posits was “the end of decades.” 

Mariane Ferrantino 

sophia n

i'm obsessed w this book lmao wtf i can't stop thinking about it and i want to reread it again already. i went into it with kinda low expectations tbh, not totally sure why. but i sort of expected it to be a dense slog and that it would take me weeks to get through. and then i read it in like 24hrs, so. that's it that's the review.

alina s

klosterman thinks he’s a gen xer but his takes are a boomers wet dream

KADY BURNS

Wasn't my favorite book of Chucks, but it was full of nostalgia for me so I had an amazing time with it.

The Nineties A Book

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