Hugh reviewed Sober Living for the Revolution by Gabriel Kuhn
Review of 'Sober Living for the Revolution' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Surprisingly engaging. I didn't expect myself to finish this given the narrow subject matter, but I found it to be full of fresh insight and powerful personal stories.
The essays included throughout varied quite a bit, with some being a complete snooze and others being gripping and insistent (although the reflections on even the boring ones were still very interesting).
Getting a variety of perspectives on hardcore, straight edge and politics is quite illuminating, and the book does a good job of showing several scenes and wisely avoids focusing on the US. The book is impressively honest in rendering its interviewees - on some occasions when the interviewer asks a question asking how radical politics and straight edge are linked, the interviewee will simply say a brusque "For me, they're not" and things will move on.
As someone who isn't straight edge I still massively enjoyed the book, and only …
Surprisingly engaging. I didn't expect myself to finish this given the narrow subject matter, but I found it to be full of fresh insight and powerful personal stories.
The essays included throughout varied quite a bit, with some being a complete snooze and others being gripping and insistent (although the reflections on even the boring ones were still very interesting).
Getting a variety of perspectives on hardcore, straight edge and politics is quite illuminating, and the book does a good job of showing several scenes and wisely avoids focusing on the US. The book is impressively honest in rendering its interviewees - on some occasions when the interviewer asks a question asking how radical politics and straight edge are linked, the interviewee will simply say a brusque "For me, they're not" and things will move on.
As someone who isn't straight edge I still massively enjoyed the book, and only in one section did I find one of the interviewees to be preachy or childish about their choices. A lot of the ideas raised have given me reason to reconsider my own attitude and relationship to intoxicants.
