Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World<\/strong><\/em>
Naomi Klein<\/strong>
Allen Lane, $36.99<\/strong><\/p>\n
In the first chapter of Doppelganger<\/em>, Naomi Klein quotes a viral tweet from October 2019, the original source of which is, naturally, lost to internet history: \u201cIf the Naomi be Klein\/ you\u2019re doing just fine.\/ If the Naomi be Wolf\/ Oh, buddy. Ooooof.\u201d<\/p>\n The timing of the tweet \u2013 which has since recirculated often, at various opportune moments \u2013 roughly coincides with the first intensification of what Klein refers to as \u201cNaomi-confusion\u201d. For the last decade, and with increasing frequency, Klein has been seeing herself, her works and ideas, regularly misattributed to another Naomi \u2013 Naomi Wolf, best known as the author of 1990 feminist bestseller, The Beauty Myth<\/em>.<\/p>\n Naomi Klein is interested in precisely what fuelled Wolf\u2019s rapid transformation into a darling of the alt-right.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n The problem with this, for Klein, and the reason she became fascinated with \u201cOther Naomi\u201d does not have to do with correct citation, unmanageable social media mentions, or even just vanity. The problem is that Wolf has, across this period, stopped writing about \u201cthe battles waged over women\u2019s bodies\u201d and moved instead to writing and speaking about conspiracies, spreading vaccine misinformation, toting firearms, and comparing COVID-related health measures to Nazism. (Oh, buddy. Ooooof.)<\/p>\n The problem is that Other Naomi, Klein\u2019s doppelganger, is dangerous. And she is embroiled in \u2013 perhaps representative of \u2013 forces and issues much larger and more alarming: it is these that Klein is determined to understand and unpick.<\/p>\n There is a remarkable level of compassion and respect that Klein shows her mirror-figure in this book. She does not deal the low blows that would have been easy to land (and the opportunities for which are many), and while she does examine Wolf\u2019s persona, work and life, she is never playing the woman.<\/p>\n Klein is interested in precisely what might have fuelled Wolf\u2019s rapid transformation into a darling of the alt-right, and, by extension, why so many others have been drawn into what she calls the \u201cmirror world\u201d of extremist thinking. And much of her questioning circles around what encounters with the doppelganger \u2013 in literature and film, and in psychoanalysis \u2013 mean. They always signal trouble, of course, but they also force a reckoning with the self and all of its failures and suppressions.<\/p>\n Klein\u2019s reckoning, in Doppelganger<\/em>, is wide-ranging \u2013 it leads into explorations and analyses of social media and the public, commodified or branded self that they feed upon; into wellness culture and its ties with conspiracy theorists; big data and big tech; the destabilisation of long-told narratives about colonialism, nationhood and identity.<\/p>\n Naomi Wolf \u2013 aka Other Naomi in Naomi Klein\u2019s book \u2013 now writes about conspiracies and other favourite tropes of the alt right. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n In each case, she is interested in understanding the very real fears associated with, or even at the heart of, the issue at hand \u2013 and how grappling with any or all of these might lead a person to look for answers in the mirror world. And in each case, Klein argues, the left has failed to address these fears properly, engage in debate, or offer viable, meaningful solutions \u2013 and so it is these failings, more than anything else, that the mirror world reflects.<\/p>\n Many of these inquiries build upon Klein\u2019s earlier work \u2013 her critique of branding and marketing in No Logo<\/em>, for example, informs her analysis of social media and influencer culture, and the idea of cultural shock and capitalising on disaster from The Shock Doctrine<\/em> underpins her discussions of COVID backlash, anti-vaxxers and nationalism, all of which are rife in the mirror world. But Doppelganger<\/em> is also a far more personal book, drawing on experiences and encounters from Klein\u2019s life and family, and a more literary one as well.<\/p>\n This breadth of material is energising and often surprising in its deployment, and is one of the real pleasures of the book. Klein\u2019s ability to make concrete and personal some of the biggest and most abstract ideas in her critique, too, make Doppelganger<\/em> a very compelling read.<\/p>\n At times, the breadth of Klein\u2019s research and sources becomes overwhelming, especially because it occasionally leads to some repetition, where each source is unpicked to a similar end. But this is also what makes her argument feel like an indictment: all of these seemingly disparate forces, phenomena and ideas are connected and important, and all are symptomatic of systemic ills and political failings.<\/p>\n There is, of course, no small measure of despair here: Klein admits to this emotion, and to a sense of destabilising \u201cvertigo\u201d, as being the impetus that drove her to \u201cfollow\u201d Other Naomi \u201cdown her various rabbit holes\u201d in the first place. But Klein is by no mean without hope \u2013 by coming to understand the mirror world, she argues, we can better understand our own fears and failings, and collectively move to address them as a result.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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