How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Laura Kipnis
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 209
We all relish a good scandal--the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars)--the better. But why "do" people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail? With "pointed daggers of prose" ("The New Yorker"), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic--revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness--though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception--the necessary ingredients--are our collective plight. In "How to Become a Scandal," bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression--as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
Author: Laura Kipnis
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 209
We all relish a good scandal--the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars)--the better. But why "do" people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail? With "pointed daggers of prose" ("The New Yorker"), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic--revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness--though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception--the necessary ingredients--are our collective plight. In "How to Become a Scandal," bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression--as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
Description
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Laura Kipnis
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 209
We all relish a good scandal--the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars)--the better. But why "do" people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail? With "pointed daggers of prose" ("The New Yorker"), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic--revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness--though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception--the necessary ingredients--are our collective plight. In "How to Become a Scandal," bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression--as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
Author: Laura Kipnis
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 209
We all relish a good scandal--the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars)--the better. But why "do" people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail? With "pointed daggers of prose" ("The New Yorker"), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic--revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness--though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception--the necessary ingredients--are our collective plight. In "How to Become a Scandal," bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression--as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior
$12.00