Klosterman's latest an introspective rambling

Some of you reading this may have seen the Woody Allen film "Love and Death." If not, here's the gist: Allen constructs a narrative that's not so much a narrative as a loose association, a literary criticism turned into film.

It examines, as the title suggests, the concepts of love and death, as well as analyzing the works of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his concepts of nihilism, morality and politics.

Now, because it's just been released, there's less of a chance you've read the newest book by Chuck Klosterman, "Killing Yourself to Live." Under the guise of making a book about driving to famous rock sites, Klosterman examines love and death, digressing into his own obsession with pop and low culture.

He even decides to expound on his belief that he is already dead and living in purgatory, a kind of fear only the average Catholic could ever feel.

Now, I have just gone off on my own digression, veering from Woody Allen to Chuck Klosterman, but like the narrative in "Killing Yourself to Live," this will all make sense in a second.

Like "Love and Death," "Killing" starts out under the guise that this is about rock 'n' roll, and the poorly designed book cover would definitely lead you to believe this. It's a flying V guitar, the kind every pubescent boy dreams of playing, in the middle of a field. Profound, eh? No, not really.

But instead, it becomes a construction about Klosterman's inner psyche, his offhand way of approaching everything. It's about the women he loves and loved, about his own views on the world. He at first disguises the book as simply a narrative on the fascination with rock 'n' roll death, but quickly drops this facade in favor of one man's journey from Rhode Island to Seattle in a Ford Taurus he affectionately names the Tauntaun ("Star Wars" nerds may be the only people who get this).

The book flows fairly easily, considering the amount of random plods into completely different territory. It is fascinating in the sense of seeing into how someone thinks, how they operate, how they interpret what is going on around him.

The deeper truths are at times merely flirted with, and no conclusion is ever reached. This seems to be the theme that ties the book into a cohesive "statement," though no statement is ever made.

Like "Love and Death," no conclusion is ever drawn about what is actually going on through the course of it, and instead is just an analysis of the pitfalls of life and love, and the looming fear of the reaper.

It's nostalgic and sardonic, the thoughts that travel in your brain on the darkened highways of the America people rarely see.

It's the kind of thing you have in your head when you're in that hours-long stretch on the way to your home.

It's hard to say if I'd recommend this book, which does not in any way say I did not enjoy the book. It's easy to digest in one sitting, which is convenient, but it's also narcissistic and slightly egocentric (though these flaws are pointed out toward the end of it).

It's something I am certain that the readers of Klosterman's columns in SPIN and Esquire would enjoy, as well as those who chuckled through his musings in "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" and "Fargo Rock City."

It's a memoir, more or less, of a man only a handful of people would care for the memoirs of. It's a game of identifying in the context of the book. To those that the Klosterman prose does appeal to, they will not be disappointed by his ramblings.

But at the same time, this is most certainly something half of casual readers will shelve away to read something else, something with more whiz, bangs and explosions.

It's the kind of introspective, pseudo-philosophical quips that populate the works of Dave Eggers and Elizabeth Wurtzel (both of whom are referred to in the book.) It could be considered meta-fictional if this were actually a novel. The book is certainly self-aware throughout, and doesn't present itself as anything it isn't.

And again, like "Love and Death," it's just a love it or hate it affair, the kind of book that's not for the casual book reader, but more for those ingrained into Klosterman's style, the typically pseudo-post modern affair.