Publisher’s write-up:
‘We are living in the era of
the self, in an era of malleable truth and widespread personal and political
delusion. In these nine interlinked essays, Jia Tolentino, the New Yorker’s
brightest young talent, explores her own coming of age in this warped and
confusing landscape.
From the rise of the internet
to her own appearance on an early reality TV show; from her experiences of
ecstasy – both religious and chemical – to her uneasy engagement with our
culture’s endless drive towards ‘self-optimisation’; from the phenomenon of the
successful American scammer to her generation’s obsession with extravagant
weddings, Jia Tolentino writes with style, humour and a fierce clarity about
these strangest of times.’
Trick Mirror is a collection of
essays from Jia Tolentino, who is currently (May 2020) a staff writer for The
New Yorker. The essays are supposed to reflections on self-delusion. The topics
covered over the course of the essays are the internet and social media at
large, reality shows, stereotypes surrounding women, the economy and the
origins of extravagant weddings and the culture in some of the universities in
US (racial divides, the rape culture – with particular focus on the
university where she studied, University of Virginia).
To add a bit of context to her
essays, Tolentino is of Filipino origin and grew up in Texas. The first essay
on the internet and the culture that is in the internet today was brought out –
about how speech that is no longer considered acceptable in public has now
found itself a platform on the internet like the Gamergate scandal. She herself
was a former employee for internet-based platforms such as The Hairpin and
Jezebel. With that said, this was the only essay that was even remotely
interesting.
Talking of the internet, we have
the term called ‘clickbaits’ and talking of those, the cover of this
book is the ultimate clickbait or pickbait (depending on
whichever format of the book you chose – digital or print) ; as the cover gives
us a passing impression of talking of self-delusions in general; of course,
authors corroborate their assertions with their personal experiences. However,
here I was effectively reading a diary or at best, a personal blog of someone
with a penchant for writing and has opinions on various topics. There is
nothing wrong in either of those, but I would not have put up a misleading
title; but of course, Trick Mirror: My opinions on various topics is far
less impressive than what she put out.
We often observe that a like or
dislike for a non-fiction book is often linked to one’s own positions on the
issues. In this case, if any, what I faced was an issue of confirmation bias
because from what I could reckon, the author and I are politically aligned on
most issues. The book contained a several discrete topics, some talking of
scams in general (and not linked to her personally) – but the problem with that
was all of which she picked up was so widely covered in the media and also in
popular culture – with films and documentaries in Netflix and thus, there was
nothing new we were getting out of reading these sections.
Her essay – Pure Heroines, her
observation that heroines in fiction needed an element of trauma in the past; I
found it to be a common feature across leads in fiction (regardless of whether
they were male or female). A common theme in a lot of these stories is how they
were coping despite the odds against them and thus, has an element of trauma
present (orphaned at a young age, divorce or death of a family member, personal
trauma, etc. ). She quoted several books in this chapter and I have good reason
to believe that she has not read some of them considering a few references were
factually incorrect.
I shall not get deep into where I
disagreed with her analysis in the essays because a difference of opinion is to
do with an individual and does not impact the value of the book.
My relationship with the book was
weird, at no point was I entirely bored and it could often be interesting to
read the diary (with consent, of course!) or personal blogs of others. That was
not the objective of the book or the projection; her essays were supposed to
reflect self-delusions and what I got in exchange was random opinions on
various topics.
I extended a benefit of doubt
till I read the acknowledgements; that she had probably written these essays at
different points of time and compiled all of them into this book. But then, she
had disclosed in the acknowledgements section that all the essays were
specifically written for this book.
To sum up, for all her talk
against toxic capitalism and the internet business models based on user
engagement – here is her book, one that merely grabs attention. The essays were
disconnected, an expression of personal opinions of issues she feels strongly
about (with little connection to the title). I enjoy some of the long reads
from The New Yorker, but I have never read one from Tolentino – this
book might interest those who know her through her works for the magazine.
I award the book a rating of two on ten.
Rating – 2/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
Andy
