Tim KreiderRecensioni

Didn't finish. Depressing account of a cartoonist dealing with being in his 40's and rehashing limpid ideas with too much bitter sarcasm. Gave it a good 100 pages. Enjoyed some of his cartoons, but not all of them. Needlessly myopic. Onward.

He is so wise and funny and self-aware and insightful - wonderful essays, every one of them worth reading.

Austin Kleon raves

Excellent essays. He discusses things that happen to real people in real life. Both funny and insightful.

Okay, I didn't actually read every word of this book. It started out so promising, making me laugh out loud and marvel at the quality of the author's writing (and cartoons), but some of the essays just went on for too long to too little effect and I grew tired of Kreider's company. After jumping ahead to the last few very good pages, I'm pulling my bookmark out of page 142 and returning it to the library, but I may just pick it back up again one day, and I will always remember this book fondly for one sentence. In an essay ("The Creature Walks Among Us") about his own disastrous love life, in which he reflects empathetically on the case of the astronaut who gathered some weapons and drove cross-country in a diaper when she found out her lover was cheating on her, he concludes: "We've all worn the diaper." LOLOL :-)

I didn't expect to like this collection of essays as much as I did. Maybe it had to do with a recent break-up and a certain openness to hearing what Kreider said about relationships, about connecting with people, about heartbreak and being young and growing up. Based on his political cartoons, I wouldn't have ever picked up this book, but I would have missed out on a satirical, sarcastic, funny, and poignant collection of essays that talked about varied subjects, from the Tea Party, being friends with a man who becomes a woman, listening to and ignoring the "lone voice of reason," arrested adolescence, and being an adult. Many of the essays are tinged with the emerging adulthood viewpoint, and perhaps that is why they speak so strongly to me at this time.

"Young adulthood is an anomalous time in people's lives; they're as unlike themselves as they're ever going to be, experimenting with substances and sex, ideology and religion, trying on different identities before their personalities set. Some people flirt briefly with being freethinking bohemians before moving back to the suburbs to become their parents. Friends who seemed pretty much indistinguishable from you in your twenties make different decisions about family or career, and after a decade or two these initial differences yield such radically divergent trajectories that when you get together again you regard each other's lives with bemused incomprehension. You're like two seeds that looked identical, one of which turned into a kiwi and the other into a banyan" (124-125).

This is comical. The most banal observations offered as some wisdom for the ages in the most pretentious language imaginable. The author appears to be some kind of proto hipster squared, pampered and aimless with nothing to drive him away from teenage level nihilism.

Well-written, thoughtful essays. Leans left.

I took a lot of notes for this book, but this gist is this. Tim Kreider is a fantastic writer, but a dingaling. He’s very much a centrist liberal with a rejection of “PC culture” and thinks people should hew to the categories of his adolescence. His use of gender pronouns is awful during the otherwise quite good chapter on his transwoman friend. Some could be excused for getting us in the mindset he was in at the time while learning new things about his close friend, but still, you don’t consider someone a s/he. That’s not a thing, never was a thing. He talks about her wearing women’s clothes before she came out to her friends as her “grading our papers on Borges in drag”, which simultaneously misunderstands and misrepresents drag and the plight of a closeted transperson. He uses a dead name a lot while narrating this story, and calls her being trans “delusional” before he adapts to it. He even says he feels, after her surgery, and I quote, “I felt the same way some lesbians must when one of their number suddenly ups and marries a man, defects to conventionality, Not just abandoned but betrayed, as if one a besieged cadre had deserted.” Tim, you are describing bisexual people, first of all, and the rest of that is fucking gross. Honest, yes. Well written? Eh. But gross. And the whole “my heterosexuality is hanging by a thread” remark to her while rubbing lotion on her back in the hospital is fucking *awful* and shows just how little he understands. He positions her as being “free of all the corporeal baggage of chromosomes, hormones, and footwear.” Fuck, man. Awful.

The way he relates to women is abhorrent. He others them constantly and there are way too many examples to cite.

He also takes a lot of dings at gay people. He calls himself a “fag, not gay” in one of his comics, and says “I feel like a closeted homosexual having to smile tightly through his coworker’s jokes about fags.” I don’t think you’ve experienced that. “We’re the Red States’ feckless, ineffectual, faggy compassionate side...” Hmm. No. Not an okay thing to say. This was never okay to say this millennium, let alone ever. He shits on poly people. He maintains the status quo delineating male and female relationships with regard to their openness and self-referencing. He describes an unmediated bipolar person as “insane.” He equates changing a tire and throwing a football with being a man.

There’s a lot of Protestant guilt and hidden depression laden throughout his recollections. He probably should’ve gotten help much earlier. He had the money.

The writing is good. There are good bits in here. It’s worth reading ultimately as a reflection of some good human feelings, albeit coming from someone who does not understand inclusivity or the modern world, but one a world died a little while ago, but whose corpse is still warm.

Damn, I hate when I have to second-guess/reevaluate/reconsider/realize I may have been wrong. It has recently happened twice. The first was reading Feck Perfuction by James Victore. Hated it on my first reading but began to wonder if the fault (dear reader) was in myself, not the book. I gave it an appropriate amount of time, started re-reading, and, voila, 180-degree change of perception.

Yesterday I finished Kreider’s collection of essays, We Learn Nothing. It was work to read it, I was not entertained, I was not enlightened, and I was ready to savage it as another ponderous collection of New York Times essays. (Not as bad as reading the New Yorker, but, still.)

Today, I went back to record some of the dog-eared pages. (An aside: As I read, if something strikes me, I will note it and then, once I’m through with the book, take a look at what I have noticed.) What I noticed in this book was striking. And, much more quickly than in the example above, I realized there was a whole lot more here than I first thought. Looking past my conceptions/misconceptions about what I was reading revealed ideas, concepts, and writing that were worth the time.

I have not seen evidence for this book to move from two stars (my initial impression) to a glowing five stars plus. There are times when an essay, a section, a paragraph, even a sentence is a bit much – going on longer than I feel is necessary. And I cannot connect with or feel that certain revelations/discussions/concepts are ones I can care about.

But it is a book (and, more importantly, writing) that bears rereading, paying attention to what is being said. There is value in some of the stories being told. But it is the details within those stories – the thoughts and ideas, the expressions, the sentences, the sections that will be dog-eared – that have the most value.

I’m moving this book from my stack of “read” (a very large stack where things are hard to find) to “take another look” (a smaller stack that is right there next to my desk to occasionally grab my attention.) And, further, I would suggest you read this book. And, when you do so, take the time to find the gems that are scattered within.

Delightful: sharply observant and insightful, an occasional sentence that provokes a laugh out loud. Makes me want to re-read We Learn Nothing.

Quotes

Nevertheless, my policy has always been, whenever someone proposes I marry them and ride the circus train with them to Mexico City, to say: Yes. (5)

Sex is supposedly superficial, merely physical....And yet I've noticed that most people can only sleep together casually for so long before they have to admit either that they don't really like each other and have to stop, or else that they really do, and it isn't casual anymore. (39)

I had rented a herd of goats for reasons that aren't relevant here... (43)

"What other people think of you is none of your business." (46)

Young people don't say 'the new normal' anymore; to them it's just normal. But I guess no one finds themselves in the same country they were born in at the ends of their lives. We all die in exile. (75)

Self-affirmation isn't nearly as validating for me as the frank acknowledgement that sometimes things just suck. (81)

A couple of days ago I got dumped - first-world problem, I know. It's not as if it's a heart attack; it's just a rejection of your whole self by the person who knew you best. (83)

Of course no one is the Right Person when you meet her; this is just an illusion necessary to lure you into investing the years and making the sacrifices necessary to love someone. (100)

If I ever have a terminal illness, the way I'd prefer to learn about it is by dying. (131)

"I think people turn to inquire about the past when they're stuck in the present in some way." (Silvia Bell, 141)

Maybe such relationships are always inherently unequal, if only because forty-year-olds can still at least sort of remember what it was like to be twenty, but there is no way for a twenty-year-old to imagine what it's like to be forty. (161)

But fundamentalism isn't a sign of a faith's health and strength; it arises in reaction to a faith being fragile, endangered. (182)

Fundamentalists are people who in adulthood still think as concretely as children... (188)

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/169340335638/i-wrote-this-book-because-i-love-you...

Any serious self-examiner who may consider him or herself a discerning reader, will completely miss out on an uplifting and enjoyable reading experience if caught up in ignoring this book because of its title. Obviously, Mr. Kreider, on surface, could have come up with a better choice. But the hype surrounding it, and all the publisher’s included blurbs, at first made me excited enough to read this book regardless of the corny title. My rather lukewarm reception and relative non-engagement with the very first essay severely disappointed me however. But, in fairness, his second essay, titled Kind of Love, happened and all was forgiven. In it the ex-cartoonist, Kreider, is reversely propositioned by a performance artist doubling as a successful prostitute, and the book definitely becomes for me a potentially interesting read. Her offer of a no-strings-attached appreciation-blow job followed by the fortuitous opportunity of his spending an entire week with her at his secluded cabin seemed to me to be an extraordinary proposition. They spend hours discussing questions of existence and relationships, not to mention a few other experimental behaviors.

…We both suffered from bouts of abysmal self-doubt, and each sometimes lay awake at night wondering O what is to become of me?…

This second essay offered many reasons for self-reflection, and even as I continued on reading Kreider’s further essays, I was astounded by the quality and interest still generated by that amazing second one.

…I’ve often thought that if I’d been impressed into an arranged marriage with one of my old girlfriends I’d’ve been perfectly happy—or at least no unhappier than I am now…

Kreider is so refreshingly honest on the page, and though he makes no excuses nor apologies for his being so forthright, he realizes his flaws and humbly submits them to a meaner reader’s criticism. David Foster Wallace publicly declared, “Kreider Rules”. And the more I read of him I too get what Wallace was saying.

…I suspect the more unsettling truth is that there are quite a lot of people out there you could fall in love and spend your life with, if you let yourself…The romantic ideal whereby the person you love, the person you have sex with, and the person you own property and have children with should all be the same person is a more recent invention than the telescope.

The essays keep getting better and better. Even if a reader believes he or she is involved in what could be considered a healthy relationship, Kreider provides ideas and anecdotes that further the discussion and examination of one’s self. An amazingly intelligent and interesting read. Not myself a cat lover, Kreider even suggests that feline romance might be looked into as well as he goes into great detail regarding his own nineteen-year relationship with a once-stray cat.

…having been given up at birth…It wasn’t until I found myself still single in my forties, long after all my friends—even the most obvious misfits, womanizers, sots and misogynists—had successfully mated and reproduced, that I started to wonder whether it hadn’t had some more significant effect.

Kreider’s adoptive mother volunteered him at John Hopkins University for a psychological study as an infant. His brilliant and charming essay, The Strange Situation, goes into great detail over his search for answers over why he is the way he is and his investigative research into a study that had been previously kept secretly protected.

…“Whereas if I was securely attached as an infant”, I told Margot, “it would mean that I’m not a victim of some primal loss or trauma but just another dickhead.”
“My point exactly,” she said. “Even if you were traumatized, and even if you had some scientifically documented evidence for this, you are still ultimately responsible for any dickhead behavior.”…

Refreshing today to actually hear somebody state existentially that we are responsible for our own behavior, and our lives. So much blame on our mothers these days. Not to mention the trashing of our dads. A reminder that without these flawed characters reproducing we wouldn’t have had the opportunity of a lifetime. I am forever grateful my parents had me. Of course, things could have been better, but here I am working out my own existence, attempting to evolve, and struggling through my nagging frustrations.

…Church was boring, make no mistake—the drawings I did in bulletins could fill a multivolume set of notebooks—but at least it wasted far fewer hours of my life than school…Ceasing to believe what your parents and all the other nicest grown-ups you know have always taught you, and still believe themselves, is initially liberating, but it’s also alienating. It makes you feel secretly snobby, and sorry, and alone.

Kreider especially touches a nerve in this second-to-last essay in the book. There are so many relative points he makes in his always entertaining and enlightening prose. He is funny even when deathly serious. It also becomes obvious throughout that Kreider is simply a pretty good man, still single, but who maintains a growing number of close friends. Relationships that might be rightfully construed as long accomplishments similar to a good marriage.

…Although Lauren doesn’t love the idea of dying any more than the next person, it doesn’t especially upset her to believe that life is meaningless or the universe indifferent. She thinks people like me, taught as children that a just and loving God is watching over the sparrows, feel bereft, cheated of something promised. Which is why we’re the ones who suffer these chronic cases of existential despair.

The Soul Toupee: the part of ourselves that we try to keep secret, but is glaringly obvious to others!

A collection of essays by political cartoonist and essayist Tim Kreider. The essays include stories about the time he almost died after being stabbed in the throat, his uncle's mental illness and criminal past, the gender reassignment surgery of a long time friend and discovering his birth mother and half-sisters and finally feeling genetically connected to other people. In turns funny and poignant these essays will make you think about your own life and the strategies you use to make it through.
The book includes some of Krreder's cartoons which I had difficulty reading -- the conversation bubbles were hand lettered and tiny. Recommended.½

"Fourteen years ago, I was stabbed in the throat. This is kind of a long story and less interesting than it sounds....After my unsuccessful murder I wasn't unhappy for an entire year."
This first essay, Reprieve, is a short reflection on how his outlook on life changed afterward. His first year was a feeling of euphoric escape from death, but this becomes submerged by the everydayness of life. That one was my favourite.
Family relationships, friendships with current friends, defriended friends, lost friends, a transgendered friend are examined closely and at times with painful honesty. Others are more political. In "When They're Not Assholes" he tries to counter his instinctive acerbic dislike of the Tea Partiers by deciding to 'just listen'. But "What dooms our best efforts to cultivate empathy and compassion is always, of course, other people." Oh yes, exactly!
These are funny and often touching stories -- I think that his intelligent humour is what helps him to learn everything, including that sometimes he learns nothing.

Some time in the late 2000s Tim Kreider changed from one of the most terrifyingly acerbic and confrontational political cartoonists around into the best possible example of compassionate, self-deprecating reason. If that sounds like a letdown, it's not: in every one of the short essays in "We Learn Nothing," he's engaging, challenging, and frequently hilarious. And the microscopically reproduced drawings throughout are just about the funniest I've seen in my life.

"Fourteen years ago, I was stabbed in the throat," he begins. "This is kind of a long story and less interesting than it sounds..." These are essays in the vein of Montaigne, looking at themes in his own life and trying, through words, thought and feeling, to come up with some sort of conclusion from them. On the way, we meet his eccentric friends (who also appear in the cartoons), spend a lot of time drinking too much with said eccentric friends, have moderate but surprising adventures such as attending a Tea Party rally, and read "Tristram Shandy," a book whose 18th-century author seems to have been a precursory mix of Terry Gilliam and Neil Gaiman. (The essay on Shandy ends with an emotional punch that is all the more powerful for being so unexpected.) Every one of these stories somehow leaves one feeling wiser than before, despite the fact that Kreider sees himself as, and possibly is, an incredible fuck-up. That maybe we're all fuck-ups, that maybe, in the deepest and most profound sense, *it simply doesn't matter,* is just one of the metaphysical insights that this book makes issue from the brain like sparks.

Kreider is eloquent. He makes you nod and cry and laugh out loud. He makes you love him. His words are perfect.

Nearly everything he writes makes me want to stand up and cheer. Quietly.

Quotes

He told me once...that I was a better person than my beliefs. This is one of the things we rely on our friends for: to think better of us than we think of ourselves. It makes us feel better, but it also makes us be better: we try to be the person they believe we are. (p. 45, The Czar's Daughter)

I understand now that a lot of what I felt...was the ache that young adults, still unformed and adrift and very much aware of it, feel on looking at someone who's far enough ahead of them on life's timeline to seem more settled in the world and at peace with themselves, but still close enough to beckon them on and call back, See, it's not so bad up here, keep going, you'll be fine. Whether they're happy or not they are, at least, content. They've made their choices and learned to live with them. They have, for better or worse, become themselves. (156, Chutes and Candyland)

Last winter I wore a very silly knit polar-bear-head hat that endeared me to women and children, but men often gave it and me contemptuous looks, as if the hat brought discredit upon us all. It had little ears. I don't know, maybe it's just a stupid hat. My own mother told me it made me look like a lunatic. (163, Chutes and Candyland)

There is no imposition so presumptuous as other people's love. (205, Sister World)

Studies have confirmed what's pretty obvious - having children makes people even unhappier. But what people want, above all else, is not to be happy; they want to devote themselves to something, to give themselves away. (205)

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2012/09/book_notes_tim_2.html

"Fourteen years ago, I was stabbed in the throat. This is kind of a long story and less interesting than it sounds....After my unsuccessful murder I wasn't unhappy for an entire year."
This first essay, Reprieve, is a short reflection on how his outlook on life changed afterward. His first year was a feeling of euphoric escape from death, but this becomes submerged by the everydayness of life. That one was my favourite.
Family relationships, friendships with current friends, defriended friends, lost friends, a transgendered friend are examined closely and at times with painful honesty. Others are more political. In "When They're Not Assholes" he tries to counter his instinctive acerbic dislike of the Tea Partiers by deciding to 'just listen'. But "What dooms our best efforts to cultivate empathy and compassion is always, of course, other people." Oh yes, exactly!
These are funny and often touching stories -- I think that his intelligent humour is what helps him to learn everything, including that sometimes he learns nothing.

Tim Kreider is a brutal, fantastic cartoonist, with superb skill in characterization and visual appeal. In addition, he is a great writer: many of the cartoons in Why Do They Kill Me? are supplemented with artist's statements. Kreider excels in conveying the Bush-era Left's infinite disgust and impotent rage, in addition to the brief fancies that would swiftly pack off a swarthier man to Guantanamo ("Sic Semper Shitheads!"). Truly a Chronicle of the Era of Darkness.