Doppelganger

A Trip Into the Mirror World

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Doppelganger

By: Naomi Klein

Narrated by: Naomi Klein

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

*WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION*
*THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, AND PROSPECT*

When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn't. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity - all we have to meet the world - so unstable?

To find out, Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting 'the children'). In doing so, she lifts the lid on our own culture during this surreal moment in history, as we turn ourselves into polished virtual brands, publicly shame our enemies, watch as deep fakes proliferate and whole nations flip from democracy to something far more sinister.

This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It's for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.

‘If I had to name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years, it would be this one’ New York Times

‘A deeply compelling read … urgent and necessary’ Evening Standard
Naomi Klein, author of era-defining bestsellers, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything and No Logo, is back with her most compulsive and personal book yet: a revelatory journey into the mirror world of our polarised age

©2023 Naomi Klein (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Anthropology

Political Science

Politics & Government

Thought-Provoking

Socialism

Social justice

Critic Reviews

Dazzling and erudite ... There is something hopeful in this project, in its sheer intellectual ambition and range, its effort to pick apart and decipher the absurdities and ironies of our political derangement, which almost no other writer could pull off. If I had to name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years, it would be this one.

A deeply compelling read, one which feels urgent and necessary as we enter yet another period of political strife. In Doppelganger, Klein gives shape and context to that apocalyptic mindset – and implores us to offer up an alternative.

A book of surprising insights, unexpected connections and great subtlety ... Doppelganger is really a story of political and psychic confusion ... True to form, Klein’s ultimate message is log off and get on to the streets. (William Davies)

I’ve been raving about Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger ... I can’t think of another text that better captures the berserk period we’re living through. (Michelle Goldberg)

A deeply insightful inquiry into the ways in which the technology that drives our lives increasingly demands mirror-image doubles, tribal combatants to fuel a divided culture ... a powerful antidote. In articulating and examining some of the darker forces of the world her “double” inhabits, Klein never forgets that the primary purpose of mirrors is actually self-reflection; to understand the other, you first have to know yourself. (Tim Adams)

This book is the product of Klein’s fascination with her doppelgänger. As she charts [Naomi] Wolf’s journey towards extremism, Klein shines a light on the dangers of social media and the new world of online conspiracy theories. (James Marriott)

The most comforting book I read this year – Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger tells of her slightly paranoid obsession with Naomi Wolf, her conspiracy theorist “double”. Klein catches that sense that the world has become fictional, but she manages to stay sane, interesting and trenchantly political throughout. In difficult times, this feels very empowering. (Anne Enright)

Wonderfully esoteric ... it expands into the territory of mass confusion: about politics, technology and what we can ever really know.

This story of mistaken identity would on its own be gripping and revealing enough, both as a psychological study and for its explorations of the double in art and history, the disorienting effects of social media, and the queasy feeling of looking into a distorted mirror. But the larger subject of Doppelganger turns out to be a far more complex and consequential confusion ... A uniquely astute account of the scrambled political formations that have come out of the pandemic. (Laura Marsh)

Most relevant

There’s so much to love about this book: it’s often thrillingly incisive, and always entertaining and engaging. I was obsessed with it while listening, and there are sections of the book that take your breath away with the suppleness of Klein’s language and the illumination of her insights.

But her blind spots are infuriating. She makes a broad plea for compassion and empathy, while not extending that to her doppelgänger or people in ‘the mirror world’. (A low point was her one-sided account of the Canadian trucker strike, akin to the laziest mainstream media coverage that painted the truckers as selfish Nazis, without any real appreciation of the community and solidarity they found in the protest, Indigenous Canadians who were a part of it, or interrogation of the truly authoritarian response of the Canadian Govt in freezing their bank accounts.)

She makes a beautiful case to love every child on earth however they present in the world, but follows it with scathing contempt for other parents of autistic children who harbour questions about what caused autism.

She critiques our cultural tendency to split the world into binaries, but her own worldview is a rigid binary (left wing = kind goodies, right wing = selfish baddies: full disclosure, I’m very left wing).

She’s appalled by ‘the mirror world’s’ falsehoods and fantasies, but repeats falsehoods and fantasies of her own (“Russian bots” threatening our world has as much basis in reality as “vaccine shedding.”)

She refreshingly critiques the smugness and superiority of liberals, but her own smugness and superiority persist throughout - particularly obvious with her tone while narrating the audiobook.

She tells us stories where doppelgänger tales are ultimately about integrating one’s shadow self, but does not face her own shadow (except in the most superficial way).

For all her pleas for humanity, she ultimately defines people by their ideology, not their human-ness.

This book had the potential to be a timeless masterpiece, but is held back by Klein’s blindness to her own shadow.