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77 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Honest, Moving, Harrowing, May 20, 2009
This review is from: Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever (Hardcover)
I just finished devouring this book which I ordered immediately after reading the excerpt published in the New Yorker. I'm from approximately the same generation as Kirn and felt a bit like he was sharing a dirty secret when I read the original excerpt. Most of the book, with the exception of two chapters at the beginning and one at the end, focusses on his Princeton years -- and his "dirty little secret" is more or less that the elite institution he entered in the early 80's democratized, but only sort of. In other words, he had what it took to get into Princeton, but he didn't have what it took to be accepted at Princeton, which, according to him was: a sailboat, cases of champagne, rich family and connections. The eating clubs held some form of secret interviews and people like him were rarely accepted, and his roomates didn't seem to understand that anyone could actually be poor and not be able to afford things like new furniture for the suite.
But in this book, he focusses on so much more than the living situation -- he talks about the awakening he experienced when he discovered that the English department was more interested in literary criticism than in literature, and he admits that he kind of "faked his way through" large chunks of his education (what psychologists would call 'the imposter syndrome.') Parts of the story are quite scary, leading up to what he refers to as a breakdown.
Personally, I would have liked to have known a bit more about how he eventually made peace with his experiences at Princeton, how he has fared since then, and most importantly, where he plans to send his own children for their education.
I feel that his story paralleled my own story at Wellesley, which I entered at approximately the same time period. I never understood the arcane social sororities, or the people who had been to Europe several times, or the girls who arrived with thousands of dollars worth of clothes and headed directly to the Harvard Business School to snag a husband.
One finishes the book with a sense of his own loss. It's as if he was so taken aback and ill-prepared that although he was given an opportunity to experience the Ivy League education, ultimately he did not have the tools to really exploit it or make the most of it. He describes a sense of loneliness, a lack of connection with the teaching staff, and summers spent shelving books in the basement of the library -- while others were out scoring lucrative internships and making important connections. I identified with that part of his story too, as someone who spent most of my time reading books and studying languages, but never quite understood the whole social universe of college. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read the original essay!, July 22, 2009
This review is from: Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever (Hardcover)
Walter Kirn was a Nonfiction Writer-in-Residence at the University of Chicago this past year. When a student organization screened the movie based on his novel Thumbsucker, Kirn dropped by to do a Q&A. He briefly mentioned this book, which he was writing at the time, expanding an essay he wrote in The Atlantic about his life at Princeton.
When I heard the title, "Lost in the Meritocracy," I immediately searched for it online. Like Kirn, I also hailed from a relatively small town and graduated from one of the Ivy League universities. I was thoroughly disillusioned by the sharp contrast between the ideals of an "Ivy League education" (whatever that signifies now) and the reality of a university filled with flippant super-rich kids, recruited athletes, distant professors, peers who cheated relentlessly ... I hope that there are more authors like Kirn who can make public the disheartening state of undergraduate education in the U.S.
But I strongly advise you to read the original essay "Lost in the Meritocracy" first. I am a huge fan of this essay: it is tighter and has a clearer purpose.
There is some fresh material in the book that is well worth it. One of the first chapters describes Kirn's experience with "Uncle Admiral," a sort of mentor when he was very young. It ends with perhaps the wisest words in the book: "Knowledge is a reckoning, he taught me, a way to assess your location, your true position, not a strategy for improving your position" (p. 23).
The text of the "free verse" poem that Kirn wrote at Macalester in order to win a contest and pad his résumé is included in the book--and is laugh-out-loud funny. The ultimate result of rich roommate dispute is cathartic and gleefully satisfying; I'm surprised it didn't make the original essay.
However, much of the new material is unnecessary: Kirn's reading comprehension units in elementary school (Yes, while Kirn's "undereducation" began even elementary school--which was also geared toward superficial learning, wow!--it does not make for good reading); his very unsexy description of his teenage trysts (just see p. 73); his odd summer in Munich, which of course involved suppositories; his trip to New York City, which of course involved cocaine and rich people who lived in Truman Capote's building ... These longish anecdotes spiral into indulgent memoir and are honestly not worth reading.
"Lost in the Meritocracy" was so much better as an essay, rich with humor and insight, revealing a world that I fear is still not widely known. Expanding (or bloating) it into some sort of forced Bildungsroman-slash-romp dilutes the knowledge gained from his experiences, at quite a high cost.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you thought your undergraduate education was messed up..., May 23, 2009
This review is from: Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever (Hardcover)
...then read this book. I raced through it in an evening as it was entertaining to say the least. It was also a very personal and somewhat dark account of a very bright person going through public school followed by the Ivy League. I almost blew a gasket laughing at the 10th grade computer class. I think the college years will ring true with many people from sub ruling class backgrounds that find themselves among people who life in a way alien to the middle and working classes - you don't even have to go to an Ivy League school to experience this.
My initial plan was to pass this along to my high school aged daughter but I don't know that I'll do that now. The book is probably better enjoyed with the perspective of distance between the reader and the offending four years. I don't want to scare her.
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