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Liked It “I picked this book up based soley on the cover. Something I rarely do. But I had no other choice. The book had no synopsis on the back, nor reviews. But the interesting graphic novel like cover tempted me. |
Didn’t Like It0 of 1 members found this review helpful “(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.) |
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“so disappointing a sequel”
Amanda M wrote this review Saturday, August 15 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“I picked this book up based soley on the cover. Something I rarely do. But I had no other choice. The book had no synopsis on the back, nor reviews. But the interesting graphic novel like cover tempted me.
Britnark wrote this review Wednesday, May 13 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I had no idea this was a sequel until I looked it up online once I was finished. The writing was quick witted and creative and the subject matter was brand new. I'd never read anything like it.
I loved every line of this book, and can't wait to read the first book.”
0 of 65535 members found this review helpful“Not quite as engrossing as The Cheese Monkeys though just as well laid out. I did enjoy the Content diversions and the lessons on typography. The problem here was the story itself - it never seemed to get going and when it did it ended too abruptly. Still a beautiful book with some graphic designer geek humour that will appeal to all with that bent.”
Kenn R wrote this review Monday, December 1 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No0 of 1 members found this review helpful“(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
jasonpettus wrote this review Tuesday, September 2 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Any graphic designer worth their salt will already know who Chip Kidd is; he's the one who single-handedly transformed the subject of book design as we know it, the very first designer to regularly demand that his name appear on a book's dust jacket or copyright page. And in fact, back in 2001 Kidd caught the writing bug himself, and ended up putting out a small yet well-regarded novel entitled The Cheese Monkeys, set in the Modernist '60s and dealing with the noble frustrations of graphic design, specifically in a college setting during the years when the subject of design was first starting to be taken seriously by the academic community. I read and enjoyed The Cheese Monkeys myself, in fact, years before opening CCLaP which is why I've never done a write-up of it; so needless to say, I was happy to see that Kidd had actually written a sequel this year, entitled The Learners and putting our previous student hero now in New York and working his first corporate job.
So ask me how shocked and disappointed I was, then, to actually read The Learners last month and discover that something with Kidd and his writing has gone horribly, horribly wrong in the seven years since Cheese Monkeys; this novel is flat where the original was bubbly, fussy and pretentious where the original was charming and illuminating. And for the life of me, I can't figure out what the problem is either; maybe it's that the setting has moved from a college environment to a corporate one? Because, see, I have this clear recollection of Cheese Monkeys' obsessive fastidiousness about All Things Design to be a delightful treat, a warm love letter from Kidd to this industry he so obviously adores, full of the exact kinds of incisive yet obscure topics of the world that only designers seem to think about on a regular basis; but in The Learners, this fastidiousness just comes off as dysfunctionally nerdy, elitist horsesh-t, the exact kind of stuff you might hear some shaved-head black-glasses NPR Weenie spouting about in the corner of a cocktail party, that makes you just want to walk over and punch him as hard as you possibly can in the middle of his smug little Helvetica-worshipping face. (And yes, I mean both the typeface and the 2007 Gary Hustwit documentary, you f-cking nerd, and man, you really are looking for a punch in the face today, aren't you?) It was a real disappointment, even more of a frustrating experience by not being able to tell where exactly it all starts going wrong; unless you're a graphic designer at a corporate agency yourself, I recommend skipping the book altogether.
Out of 10: 4.4”
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