New Matrixism Following the 'Path of the One' to enlightenment

 Some time ago I purchased a book titled "Gamer Theory" by McKenzie Wark.  The description on the book jacket sounded very interesting:

Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides, one you are compelled to play yet cannot win?  Welcome to gamespace.  Gamespace is where and how we live today.  It is everywhere and nowhere: the main chance, the best shot, the big leagues, the only game in town.  In a world thus configured, McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times.  Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live.  Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field -- where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.  

Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society.  The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games.  This world gives rise to a new persona.  In a place of the subject or citizen stand the gamer.  As all previous such personae had their beviaries and manuals, Gamer Theory seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new character.  Neither a strategy guide nor a cheat sheet for improving one's score or skills, the book is instead a primer in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, recast as an imperfect copy of the game.

To me, that description sounds like an awesome book.  I've attempted to read the book several times now, but can never get even halfway through.  It's entirely possible that this book simply just doesn't just click with me, but will for others.  The reviews at Amazon.com (if you believe them) say this books is great.  I couldn't get past some sections that felt as if the author was simply trying to get the word count up.  Ignoring that irritation, the author does attempt to describe how games relate to real life.  However, I can only say he attempted it.  Having gotten a third of the way through the book on my last attempt I never feel like he is working towards anything constructive.  Never did I get the feeling that it was going to "offer guidance for thinking within this new character" as the book jacket described.

I've been hesitating to write about the book because I really don't have anything positive to say about it.  If anyone else has read it, or wants to try to read it, and offer their comments, I certainly welcome them.