Doing Nothing by Lutz
Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America (2006)
by Tom Lutz
363 pages - Farrar, Straus & Giroux
This book attempts to follow the history of the ethic of 'the idler' or 'the slacker' in the United States. The book begins in the days of Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson and "Bartleby the Scrivener", and continues up to modern times with Generation X and films such as Slacker and The Big Lebowski. A lot of the book is concerned with the written work left behind by either those who espoused dropping out of the world of work, or those that study them. Through the decades and centuries, a lot of attention is paid to other issues such as social patterns and cultural trends, political issues, workplace technology -- all of this not really related to the subject at hand, and not made relevant by the author in any way.
I think a subject like this has the potential to make an enjoyable and interesting book, and so it's a shame that it's just something that's a whole lot of work to read. There's really an excess of research here; sometimes you are presented by a list of names or a set of statistics, without much tie-in to paragraphs above or below it. The bibliography at the back is excessively thick (34 pages long) for a book of this type, and the author even says at the end that he had a lot more fun doing research than the actual writing. It's very noticeable, because this book feels like a lot of research just pasted together, with absolutely no authorial voice to try to lend the presented information any context or genuine depth. This book was in serious need of an editor chopping out the irrelevant pages (at least half the book) and sending it back for a re-write.
Some other things kept irritating me while reading this. Firstly, the first chapter is way too long, and we get too much personal information about the author and his life. I suppose this was meant to be one of those "This is my story of why I wrote the book, so you can 'relate' to me on a human level" but the more I knew about what he was like personally, the more I disliked him. Secondly, the book is full of political opinions that not only sound like the unthinking dreck that comes from either 'side' in the US political scene, they're not even relevant at all to the topic of the book. Issues like the the beginnings of labour unions, current welfare and employment legislation, and the personal life of George W. Bush are clearly in this book merely as a product of the author's own self-satisfied worldview. These are things that could potentially be tied into the main theme, but that would require the author to provide context and illumination.
This lack of focus extends to the core of the subject of the idler or slacker as well. The author sees hippies and punks as exactly the same just in different eras (?!?) and some of his examples of current-day slackers are Anna Nicole Smith and some of the people on 'reality' television shows. Ugh.
I think this book calls for some new personal rules of reading for me:
by Tom Lutz
363 pages - Farrar, Straus & Giroux
This book attempts to follow the history of the ethic of 'the idler' or 'the slacker' in the United States. The book begins in the days of Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson and "Bartleby the Scrivener", and continues up to modern times with Generation X and films such as Slacker and The Big Lebowski. A lot of the book is concerned with the written work left behind by either those who espoused dropping out of the world of work, or those that study them. Through the decades and centuries, a lot of attention is paid to other issues such as social patterns and cultural trends, political issues, workplace technology -- all of this not really related to the subject at hand, and not made relevant by the author in any way.
I think a subject like this has the potential to make an enjoyable and interesting book, and so it's a shame that it's just something that's a whole lot of work to read. There's really an excess of research here; sometimes you are presented by a list of names or a set of statistics, without much tie-in to paragraphs above or below it. The bibliography at the back is excessively thick (34 pages long) for a book of this type, and the author even says at the end that he had a lot more fun doing research than the actual writing. It's very noticeable, because this book feels like a lot of research just pasted together, with absolutely no authorial voice to try to lend the presented information any context or genuine depth. This book was in serious need of an editor chopping out the irrelevant pages (at least half the book) and sending it back for a re-write.
Some other things kept irritating me while reading this. Firstly, the first chapter is way too long, and we get too much personal information about the author and his life. I suppose this was meant to be one of those "This is my story of why I wrote the book, so you can 'relate' to me on a human level" but the more I knew about what he was like personally, the more I disliked him. Secondly, the book is full of political opinions that not only sound like the unthinking dreck that comes from either 'side' in the US political scene, they're not even relevant at all to the topic of the book. Issues like the the beginnings of labour unions, current welfare and employment legislation, and the personal life of George W. Bush are clearly in this book merely as a product of the author's own self-satisfied worldview. These are things that could potentially be tied into the main theme, but that would require the author to provide context and illumination.
This lack of focus extends to the core of the subject of the idler or slacker as well. The author sees hippies and punks as exactly the same just in different eras (?!?) and some of his examples of current-day slackers are Anna Nicole Smith and some of the people on 'reality' television shows. Ugh.
I think this book calls for some new personal rules of reading for me:
- 1) Don't read books by hippies.
- 2) If you can't follow 1), at least don't read books by old hippies that are now in academia.
- 3) If you can't follow 1) or 2), at least don't read books by old hippies that are now in academia who are also divorced dads who now live in the same Los Angeles neighbourhood as Beck and Flea (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers). You will regret it.