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Double-Tracking: Studies in Duplicity
New Book double-track is to be counter-cultural and establishment, rich and poor, a bum with the keys to a country retreat, an exotic addition to the dinner table who still knows how to find their way around the silverware.
In the 1970s Tom Wolfe located the apex of doubletracking as the art world, but today, it's a cornerstone of the middle classes, and a full-blown commonplace of contemporary life. At root, it's a state of mind born of an ambivalent relationship to privilege, that, when perfected, allows those with financial resources the economic benefits of leaning right, and the cultural benefits of leaning left. It curls around the vocal chords of private school alumni as they drop their consonants, sprays the can of legally sanctioned graffiti on the side of the pop-up container shopping mall, and tones the cores of sweaty executives attending weekly parkour classes, prancing about the concrete furniture of housing estates they do not live on.
Comprising essays, fiction and art criticism, this is a merciless, witty satire of the middle classes - a venturesome, intelligent debut which cuts to the very core of our duplicitous lives.
In the 1970s Tom Wolfe located the apex of doubletracking as the art world, but today, it's a cornerstone of the middle classes, and a full-blown commonplace of contemporary life. At root, it's a state of mind born of an ambivalent relationship to privilege, that, when perfected, allows those with financial resources the economic benefits of leaning right, and the cultural benefits of leaning left. It curls around the vocal chords of private school alumni as they drop their consonants, sprays the can of legally sanctioned graffiti on the side of the pop-up container shopping mall, and tones the cores of sweaty executives attending weekly parkour classes, prancing about the concrete furniture of housing estates they do not live on.
Comprising essays, fiction and art criticism, this is a merciless, witty satire of the middle classes - a venturesome, intelligent debut which cuts to the very core of our duplicitous lives.
120 pages, Paperback
Published December 19, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 24, 2020
3.50 stars out of 5.
I really enjoyed reading this book. There is a lightness to the way it was written, despite housing a lot of cultural allusions (which normally feels heavy). It works well overall as a series of satirical vignettes, and I imagine that these pieces reside snugly as feature articles in cultural magazines. The writing style of the author, too, offers a lot of aesthetic pleasure and entertainment to the reader. I've been living in the UK for two years now, and the pieces help me decipher cultural "codes" that I would otherwise not be privy to.
However, I did come away feeling dissatisfied, as the pieces seemed like cultural commentary-lite. The author offers an insightful pronouncement at the start, namely that double-tracking is what allows us the middle class to veer culturally left-wing, while being either centrist or right-wing in politics, economics, or even just class position. I take some issue with how "the middle class" was defined though, because it seems that the author lumped diverse people into the same category: She treats young millennials who populate coffee shops and artisanal fare as the same people as those rich blokes who go to the expensive Frieze art fairs. She also includes Marie Antoinette here, and history knows her as the 1% (despite being in a different class position at the start). This monolithic/flawed definition of "middle class" then, waters down her thesis statement, simply because these three things have varying levels of "harm."
What's harmful, at the end of the day, about young folks drinking builders' tea in an industrial-looking cafe shop? Or our middle-aged moms feeding dogs gluten-free meals? (The latter does offer mild amusement though!) Then, not all of those coffee-drinking blokes have money or vote Tory. Neither do our moms, necessarily. Compare this "harm" to Marie Antoinette, and the difference will be staggering. And then, compare this "harm" to the rich guys who organize the Frieze art fare and traffic in six digits, pooling capital in their endeavors, borrowing art ideas mercilessly from lower rungs of the class strata. It's all very different, isn't it? The "stakes" of duplicity are staggering for the Frieze blokes (e.g., they lose their capital if they cease double-tracking). Meanwhile, the "stakes" for the millennial coffee shop consumer are lower. Thus, the book would benefit greatly if the author tinkered with either her definition of the middle class or her broader thesis statement. I would like to hear her talk deeply instead about the differing stakes of inauthenticity.
Additionally, there are such interesting sections on historical doubletrackers like "Madame Deficit" (aforementioned Marie Antoinette). Madame Deficit is touted as one of the original agents of duplicity. After her gains in wealth and power, she commissioned a rustic house simulating poverty. And here, she would dress as a milkmaid. These historical sections though sounded to me like "identity fetishism"...treating identities facetiously as ornaments and accessories, rather than features of a real human being. And I would have liked to hear the author distinguish double-tracking from Identity Fetishism.
Overall, the reader's expectations of the book should be modified: It's less a persuasive, argumentative piece of critique with a consolidated thesis...and more of vignette-like illustrations. Personally I think it would be better if the author lengthened the book and added the former, because it sure has a lot of insightful potential that is underutilized.
I really enjoyed reading this book. There is a lightness to the way it was written, despite housing a lot of cultural allusions (which normally feels heavy). It works well overall as a series of satirical vignettes, and I imagine that these pieces reside snugly as feature articles in cultural magazines. The writing style of the author, too, offers a lot of aesthetic pleasure and entertainment to the reader. I've been living in the UK for two years now, and the pieces help me decipher cultural "codes" that I would otherwise not be privy to.
However, I did come away feeling dissatisfied, as the pieces seemed like cultural commentary-lite. The author offers an insightful pronouncement at the start, namely that double-tracking is what allows us the middle class to veer culturally left-wing, while being either centrist or right-wing in politics, economics, or even just class position. I take some issue with how "the middle class" was defined though, because it seems that the author lumped diverse people into the same category: She treats young millennials who populate coffee shops and artisanal fare as the same people as those rich blokes who go to the expensive Frieze art fairs. She also includes Marie Antoinette here, and history knows her as the 1% (despite being in a different class position at the start). This monolithic/flawed definition of "middle class" then, waters down her thesis statement, simply because these three things have varying levels of "harm."
What's harmful, at the end of the day, about young folks drinking builders' tea in an industrial-looking cafe shop? Or our middle-aged moms feeding dogs gluten-free meals? (The latter does offer mild amusement though!) Then, not all of those coffee-drinking blokes have money or vote Tory. Neither do our moms, necessarily. Compare this "harm" to Marie Antoinette, and the difference will be staggering. And then, compare this "harm" to the rich guys who organize the Frieze art fare and traffic in six digits, pooling capital in their endeavors, borrowing art ideas mercilessly from lower rungs of the class strata. It's all very different, isn't it? The "stakes" of duplicity are staggering for the Frieze blokes (e.g., they lose their capital if they cease double-tracking). Meanwhile, the "stakes" for the millennial coffee shop consumer are lower. Thus, the book would benefit greatly if the author tinkered with either her definition of the middle class or her broader thesis statement. I would like to hear her talk deeply instead about the differing stakes of inauthenticity.
Additionally, there are such interesting sections on historical doubletrackers like "Madame Deficit" (aforementioned Marie Antoinette). Madame Deficit is touted as one of the original agents of duplicity. After her gains in wealth and power, she commissioned a rustic house simulating poverty. And here, she would dress as a milkmaid. These historical sections though sounded to me like "identity fetishism"...treating identities facetiously as ornaments and accessories, rather than features of a real human being. And I would have liked to hear the author distinguish double-tracking from Identity Fetishism.
Overall, the reader's expectations of the book should be modified: It's less a persuasive, argumentative piece of critique with a consolidated thesis...and more of vignette-like illustrations. Personally I think it would be better if the author lengthened the book and added the former, because it sure has a lot of insightful potential that is underutilized.
March 12, 2020
Some observational pieces on the current art world, that lean heavily on Tom Wolfe's idea of "double tracking". McLaughlin tries to expand this in to a general critique of "middle class" behaviour but the target for those sections is only a particular kind of metropolitan upper middle-class, involved in gentrification and other processes far beyond and outside trends in "creative industries". Historical asides also seem off-the-point. The final chapter, a fiction about trendy gallery-owners, is also a bit problematic, as they say. Are we supposed to find Queer Theory and privilege-checking inherently ridiculous? They are not specific to the art world, though I suppose in this version they are conveyed more accurately than in Andrew Doyle's woeful "Titania McGrath" stuff.
January 8, 2020
A witty, elegant and acerbic takedown of the 'double-trackers' - those who try to be both counter-cultural and establishment. The emphasis is on the art world but McLaughlin tackles double-tracking's mental schisms more broadly. There is something poignant about the double-tracker's self-defeating yearning for authenticity, as exemplified by the notion that one's metropolitan pooch is a 'working dog'. The targets might at times seem too easy, but this book is a mordantly funny - and at times laugh-out-loud - mix of essays, bracing art-world interviews and satirical vignettes. It brought to mind Jonathan Gibbs' satire of the art industry, Randall. (Full disclosure: the author is the daughter of friends). 4*+
January 15, 2020
satirical af
April 10, 2021
A great read - highly amusing but also thought provoking.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews