Scan barcode
azacoholico's review
5.0
I don't usually read stuff that isn't fiction, this book made me think that maybe I should reconsider that aspecto of my literary habits.
Taking us through four cases of scandal, this book reminded me of every time someone makes the news -but not in the good way-. The author made me see that it is completely normal to be held at the tip of our toes every time someone fucks up, and even indulged a little on why we love that stuff in the first place.
The first half of the book is about two cases where people that we used to held in high regards- an astronaut and a judge- plummet to the ground, hurting their public faces hard and even ending in prison. Those two are highly entertaining to read.
As for the last half of the book, it is less funny, it instead concentrates on the responses we, as a society, make against the ones who break our unwritten or unspoken rules. It also has a lot of insight about the human condition and how we expect everyone to remember every single social rule, lest they be ridiculed and humiliated and rejected of our "tribes". Very interesting stuff.
Taking us through four cases of scandal, this book reminded me of every time someone makes the news -but not in the good way-. The author made me see that it is completely normal to be held at the tip of our toes every time someone fucks up, and even indulged a little on why we love that stuff in the first place.
The first half of the book is about two cases where people that we used to held in high regards- an astronaut and a judge- plummet to the ground, hurting their public faces hard and even ending in prison. Those two are highly entertaining to read.
As for the last half of the book, it is less funny, it instead concentrates on the responses we, as a society, make against the ones who break our unwritten or unspoken rules. It also has a lot of insight about the human condition and how we expect everyone to remember every single social rule, lest they be ridiculed and humiliated and rejected of our "tribes". Very interesting stuff.
kristykay22's review
2.0
In this book, Kipnis explores the nature of the scandal in our culture -- why do we love to heap scorn on our scapegoats? Why do people do such stupid things? Why this one and not that one? The book is structured around four different case-study scandals: Lisa Nowak (the diapered astronaut), Sol Wachtler (the judge who blackmailed his mistress), Linda Tripp (Monica Lewinsky's "friend" who taped their conversations about Clinton), and James Frey (the author of a memoir that turned out to be more of a novel, which really made Oprah mad). Kipnis makes some good points about the self-contradictions inherent in human nature, but she is definitely at her best when riffing off a specific incident and much less readable in her her more philosophical introduction and epilogue. Parts of this book feel thrown together right before publication, and some of her connections are pretty tenuous, but overall it is worth reading if you are interested in scandal or reliving these scandalous gems from the past.
wicked_sassy's review against another edition
4.0
I always enjoy Laura Kipnis' books. She's sharp, funny, and engaging.
sireno8's review against another edition
4.0
Ferociously funny and full of insight, a delightfully wicked read. Examines our behavior by actually provoking it and while recognizing it doesn't altogether excuse it. Brought up scandals i'd forgotten about and looks in-depth at really memorable ones. LK makes sociological and pop culture analysis juicy but no less astute.
library_lurker's review against another edition
4.0
gossipy, yet smart! occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. amazing. i am sorry i can't think of anything more intelligent to say about this whip-smart book, but i'm tired. and i read it a month ago.
sweetheart_seer's review against another edition
3.0
Ahhh the three star read. Didn't love it. Didn't hate it.
Let's see, I liked the general ideas presented and especially enjoyed reading the Oprah/Fey section yet I wasn't blown away or anything.
I skimmed through huge parts of this because I found the writing pretentious.
Meh.
It was a quick read and a chill way to spend the afternoon at least.
Let's see, I liked the general ideas presented and especially enjoyed reading the Oprah/Fey section yet I wasn't blown away or anything.
I skimmed through huge parts of this because I found the writing pretentious.
Meh.
It was a quick read and a chill way to spend the afternoon at least.
le13anna's review against another edition
3.0
What is the psychology of a scandal? why do we like to watch? what does it say about us? why do people commit scandals? what is in it for them? oooooo
lorink's review against another edition
3.0
To all appearances, Lisa Nowak was both accomplished and sane, a holder of multiple advanced and highly technical degrees: and an astronaut, which means, inter alia, a survivor of the rigorous psychological testing given to prospective members of the space program. So it was surprising when she showed up in Orlando–having driven 950 miles from Houston, apparently using diapers along the way–and, wearing a bizarre disguise, attacked Colleen Shipman, her rival for the affections of fellow astronaut Bill Oefelein. (Amusingly, to her colleagues in the space program, one of the more mystifying aspects of this story was that she managed to find her way to Orlando without getting lost.) How could this possibly happen? And surely, nothing like it could ever happen to us.
Not so, says Laura Kipnis, who in How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior, makes an intriguing–and convincing–case that we’re all much closer to public disgrace than we think.
Who among us is not guilty of the occasional bout of bizarre, blatantly rude, manic, self-sabotaging behavior? Mostly though, it’s not spectacular enough–or we’re not famous enough–for it to qualify as scandalous. I can think of occasions, say, when–lunch way past due and confronted with an elaborately rude stranger–I’ve publicly exhibited banshee-like behavior that I would be very loathe to have recorded on videotape. Lapses of self control, fits of bad temper, self-delusion: they’re all part of the human condition, and given the right set of circumstances, can manifest themselves in particularly explosive ways.
Generally, though, people blow up their lives only under distinctly exacerbated circumstances. Kipnis evokes a great deal of sympathy for Nowak, whose marriage had recently broken up, who had obviously been a great deal more in love with Oefelein than he had ever been with her, and who had recently lost a close friend in the Columbia shuttle disaster. (She had been caring for her friend’s motherless child, which would have put a significant strain on anyone.) Oefelein for his part seems to have waited until weeks into his relationship with Shipman to break things off with Nowak; and a sort of idée fixe had taken hold of her, that she must apprise Shipman of this, and find out when Shipman knew what she knew. Why she needed to do this in disguise, in the middle of the night, in an airport parking lot, using pepper spray, not even Nowak can explain–but then none of us, Kipnis argues, can say what we’re ultimately capable of. By the end of Kipnis’ tale, it is impossible to see Nowak, and the wholesale destruction of her career, as anything other than tragic.
Kipnis lends a similar perspective to the other scandals she describes (which tend to be notable, distinct from the more garden variety scandals in which actors yell racist slurs and have public outbursts)–the eminent jurist Sol Wachtler, imprisoned after a bizarre episode in which he wrote extortionary notes to an ex-girlfriend under an assumed personality, and James Frey, publicly pilloried (most notably by Oprah, whose own actions were distinctly weird) when aspects of his best-selling memoir turned out to be fiction. The only subject for whom–in my eyes, at least–Kipnis does not manage to drum up any sympathy at all, is Linda Tripp, who remains as staunchly repulsive as ever. Manic, even dangerous behavior: well, ok; the wholesale betrayal of a friend and–I would argue–her country: emphatically not ok.
Scandal, though always a popular topic, has not been the subject of much theory. Kipnis here makes an elegant (if, to my taste, excessively Freud-laden) attempt to remedy the situation, in a book that ultimately does not so much chronicle our differences as reveal our similarities. Scandal, Kipnis argues, both unites us and shows our society for what it really is; it allows us to laugh together while exposing the fault-lines of our culture. So scandal is not just endemic, but necessary to the human condition. And there, but for some really crappy luck, go you or I.
Not so, says Laura Kipnis, who in How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior, makes an intriguing–and convincing–case that we’re all much closer to public disgrace than we think.
Who among us is not guilty of the occasional bout of bizarre, blatantly rude, manic, self-sabotaging behavior? Mostly though, it’s not spectacular enough–or we’re not famous enough–for it to qualify as scandalous. I can think of occasions, say, when–lunch way past due and confronted with an elaborately rude stranger–I’ve publicly exhibited banshee-like behavior that I would be very loathe to have recorded on videotape. Lapses of self control, fits of bad temper, self-delusion: they’re all part of the human condition, and given the right set of circumstances, can manifest themselves in particularly explosive ways.
Generally, though, people blow up their lives only under distinctly exacerbated circumstances. Kipnis evokes a great deal of sympathy for Nowak, whose marriage had recently broken up, who had obviously been a great deal more in love with Oefelein than he had ever been with her, and who had recently lost a close friend in the Columbia shuttle disaster. (She had been caring for her friend’s motherless child, which would have put a significant strain on anyone.) Oefelein for his part seems to have waited until weeks into his relationship with Shipman to break things off with Nowak; and a sort of idée fixe had taken hold of her, that she must apprise Shipman of this, and find out when Shipman knew what she knew. Why she needed to do this in disguise, in the middle of the night, in an airport parking lot, using pepper spray, not even Nowak can explain–but then none of us, Kipnis argues, can say what we’re ultimately capable of. By the end of Kipnis’ tale, it is impossible to see Nowak, and the wholesale destruction of her career, as anything other than tragic.
Kipnis lends a similar perspective to the other scandals she describes (which tend to be notable, distinct from the more garden variety scandals in which actors yell racist slurs and have public outbursts)–the eminent jurist Sol Wachtler, imprisoned after a bizarre episode in which he wrote extortionary notes to an ex-girlfriend under an assumed personality, and James Frey, publicly pilloried (most notably by Oprah, whose own actions were distinctly weird) when aspects of his best-selling memoir turned out to be fiction. The only subject for whom–in my eyes, at least–Kipnis does not manage to drum up any sympathy at all, is Linda Tripp, who remains as staunchly repulsive as ever. Manic, even dangerous behavior: well, ok; the wholesale betrayal of a friend and–I would argue–her country: emphatically not ok.
Scandal, though always a popular topic, has not been the subject of much theory. Kipnis here makes an elegant (if, to my taste, excessively Freud-laden) attempt to remedy the situation, in a book that ultimately does not so much chronicle our differences as reveal our similarities. Scandal, Kipnis argues, both unites us and shows our society for what it really is; it allows us to laugh together while exposing the fault-lines of our culture. So scandal is not just endemic, but necessary to the human condition. And there, but for some really crappy luck, go you or I.