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Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought To You By Pop Culture (2009)

by Nathan Rabin(Favorite Author)

3.33 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Scribner Book Company

review 1: Using artifacts of pop culture (various records, movies, and songs that have affected the author at different times of his life) as centering mechanisms for each chapter of Nathan Rabin's memoir is an effective tactic. Whether it's the rise of orthodox Jewish reggae artist Matisyahu to explain his parents' decision to send him off to orthdox Jewish day camp even though they were not practicing Jews themselves or Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" to describe his six years in a group home, and to find the inherent wish-fulfillment in gangsta rap's braggadocio, the tactic allows the text to move beyond mere descriptions of what happened and to find concrete answers within each moment of embarrassment or failure. It's a heady book -- if you think you can guess the life experiences of so... moremeone who became the head writer for The Onion A.V. Club just based on their job title, you're in for a host of surprises -- and one that contains a lot of the filth and profanity that The Onion thinks it traffics in, but largely shies away from in the difficult moments. "I like to think that the appropriation of my sister's strong feminist views and my desire for social justice for women somehow overcomes my inherent misogyny," says Rabin at one point. It's one thing to make rape or race jokes from a point of righteousness. It's 20 times harder to admit that you might find them funny for the other reason. Rabin absolutely leaves nothing in the locker room -- whether it's admissions of crippling depression, self-righteousness, destructiveness in relationships, or sexual impotence, we get all the worst traits (and many of the bests) throughout this long book. For me, it was maybe 3 or 4 chapters too long, but none of the additional material was bad. Just, as the courts said to Mozart, "Too many notes." (Part of this may be the fact that I've read six memoirs since January, and I'm burned out on memoirs.) However, if you enjoy reliving the memories of horrid mistakes, broken hearts, and hard life on the streets, "The Big Rewind" will be just your size.
review 2: Yes, some of the stories are funny, but the "Brought To You By Pop Culture" idea is a half a page per chapter where the author attempts to tie the film or song or book to his life. Ultimately, I just found him unrelatable, so I didn't exactly care about what he had to say. If I was more familiar with his journalism work it might've made me stick around longer, but for the most part I just found myself uninterested. less

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