If you are thinking about reading that book, consider the audio book that's read by Werner Herzog himself. I really enjoyed that one, not necessarily because I agree with everything but because I enjoy listening to his voice.
The article is hard to read, paywall notwithstanding, and tells us very little about Herzog's book other than that the critic didn't like it.
I really appreciate Herzog as an artist. I think Grizzly Man is a unique piece of art, and Herzog's commentary is an integral part of it - original, and very worth listening to.
Tonight I was planning to watch either Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre after having listened to Herzog on the Freakonomics podcast earlier this week. But after hearing about the book there, I was really put off by some of the things he said and concluded that the book would be a hard pass for me. Nothing persuaded me that he had anything interesting to add - neither rationally, nor aesthetically - about a topic which has been extensively covered by very diverse thinkers throughout the millennia.
>Nothing persuaded me that he had anything interesting to add - neither rationally, nor aesthetically - about a topic which has been covered by philosophers throughout the millennia.
That sounds more like an emotionally charge reaction than some calm assessment on the merits of the book for what it stands.
Especially when the idea here is that he presents his idiosyncratic vision of the concept of “truth" - not some claim that he solves the problem of truth "which has been covered by philosophers throughout the millennia", and which could very well be inherently unsolvable anyway.
A writer (even more so, an artist with a unique viewpoints) can add lots of very interesting observations and new ways of seeing the concept of truth or our approaches to it, even when they do it "in the small", without taking on or pretending to tackling the philosophical / ontological core issue.
It's even more useful if an author says some things that rub you off the wrong way, or challenge your core tenets. Else, I guess one cal always just resort to some echo bubble friendly comfort reading.
He has some extreme takes on things, many of which I don't agree with, but I love that humans like him exist. He's one of the rare humans who has truly "sucked out all the marrow of life".
>He's one of the rare humans who has truly "sucked out all the marrow of life".
I think the biggest problem with him is that he styles himself as exactly that, but as the article points out he's a self-mythologizer who frequently makes stuff up. He's pretentious in the literal sense of that term, he's constantly exaggerated his own life, has even said that's the case and that doesn't seem as profound or counter-cultural to me as he thinks it is, given that we're mostly surrounded by exactly these kind of types now.
I take it as part of his act on film and in reality. He does it with a straight face and people are happily buying it and love him for it. Heck, I like him, too!
One can still enjoy the stories and not everything is scripted but that’s the fun puzzle to kind of figure out how much is staged and made up.
> But after hearing about the book there, I was really put off by some of the things he said and concluded that the book would be a hard pass for me.
What are some of those things? I am not trying to be snarky, I like Herzog and I am curious.
One thing to keep in mind is he views documentaries are fiction almost. They are not supposed to be taken in as pure information or facts. Treat it like you’d treat any movie.
You said you liked Grizzly Man. Well there you can tell the reason he put in the coroner in there and he told him to “act” and the extra long pauses after the scenes are there to add awkwardness. It should be obvious what is going on.
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