The Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation

The viral success of Princeton professor Wampole’s 2012 New York Times essay on irony likely begat this ambitious but unconvincing collection of observations on American culture. Wampole writes with some insight about the “white noise” of irony in educated American circles as a “First World problem.” She makes other valid points, but tends to undercut them by restlessly jumping from topic to topic, as when she mentions Twitter and plastic surgery, and then quotes Jorge Luis Borges, in just two paragraphs of an essay on the “patina of things.” As a result, her writing often reads like stream-of-consciousness lecture notes peppered with personal anecdotes. She plays variations on themes, as when she discusses tripping over an object and then the etymological origin of the word “scandal” (to trip up one’s social life) to make links to her topic of awkwardness. While this style might be effective for exploring varied and loosely connected topics, it doesn’t conjure up the needed gravitas for addressing “world pain.” Wampole is best when she focuses closely on her topic, as in a debate about PCs vs. Macs, or in an essay that unpacks the meanings of the film Labyrinth. But this book, which is geared to millennials, is too insubstantial to bear the weight of its grandiose subtitle. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (July)