Lost

Several days ago I came across an item in The Atlantic, The 14 biggest ideas of the year, and saw Kirn's name; on a whim, an instinct, I hyperlinked, as it were, looked for books by him, and found this one. What he wrote seemed insightful, and I figured, assumed, his book would be similarly so. Now that I have finished the book, I do not have the same opinion.

Kirn, Walter. (2009). Lost in the meritocracy: the undereducation of an overachiever. New York: Doubleday.

The theme of the book is how Kirn hustled the system: he wasn't so much book smart as street smart. Well, not exactly street, for this was no urban warrior. What he says he learned was how to butter up people and achieve high status in the world of the academy. So he aced his SAT, got into Princeton, and did so by telling people what they wanted to hear, using what used to be called $5 words (would they now be $10, $50, $100? adjusting for inflation and hedge funds), and irreducibly won laurels and star status.

Published the year Kirn turned 47, it quotes people and produces fine details of events that transpired 25, 30, even 43 years earlier. Along the way, he must have memorized enough to produce a readable book that purports to tell it as it was.

I am disappointed. In myself, for wasting my time. He has not stopped hustling. I am one of his latest dupes.