Jenny Odell

The only reason I finished this book was because it suggested that Tom Green was the original creator of planking. Unfortunately after that it did not reach the highs I expected and failed to hold my interest.

I remember a lot of people talking about this book during COVID-19 lockdowns, ironically on social media which was the main way you could connect with people back then. I was expecting a way to put down the phone and turn off notifications but this is really a long essay about a lot of things that don’t involve the internet. Birdwatching, nature, art (so much art), philosophy and being yourself without much of the psychology. There were some randomly interesting things about cults as being a way to resist the mainstream culture and the mention of Tom Green (Canadian comedian who is hilarious but perhaps better known for being the Chad in the Drew Barrymore version of Charlie’s Angels). I’m not really into art as in paintings and galleries, so much of this was lost on me. The philosophy was quite meandering and I lost track of what was happening several times.

Odell clearly knows her subjects and has done a lot of research, but it didn’t have the spark for me where essay writers take you to places and ideas you’ve never considered but are highly fascinating. I agree with her stance of taking time out to enjoy nature and not having to hustle, but most of us can’t take a day off to wander gardens and search for birds. I’m lucky enough to be sitting here typing with a bird beside me chirping while she attacks the mouse but during the week birds are often in the background as you rush around doing other things. Sometimes the places where we live aren’t places with green spaces and wildlife.

At times the narrative doesn’t feel coherent – if the overall theme is how to resist social media and the 24/7 news cycle, it doesn’t really explain why you should do so or how you can do it in any depth (unless you have the time to look at art and birds). It’s meandering at times and goes off on tangents that didn’t add any value to the arguments presented. I’m not sure (or perhaps not smart enough) to understand the point of this book. There was a lot of wading through abstract concepts when I could have been ignoring my phone and watching Tom Green instead.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.comthrough abstract concepts when I could have been ignoring my phone and watching Tom Green instead.… (more)

Some good stuff in this book, as I can tell by the bookflags I marked. But the author buries it in anecdotes, stories, quotes, essays, etc. Each chapter has 50-60 footnotes of references. Yikes! Odell is also clearly an educator and creative person, because her writing is not straightforward. That might work for some, I wasn't a fan.

Each chapter was loosely based around a concept, but none of the ideas presented really flowed. It felt like a collection of blog posts or articles more than a cohesive book. No clear steps to take on "how to do nothing" ... just stories about WHY you should do nothing.

I wanted to like this more, but it just wasn't for me.… (more)

Here's a loose collection of thoughts I wrote to a friend about this book:

I loved it! I could imagine it being really dissatisfying for lots of people -- it's definitely not a how to, there's no real advice in it. It's more meandering and kinda reflecting on how we spend our time and attention. I feel like you [the person] might've put me on to The Shallows by Nicolas Carr a while back, it's entirely *not* like that in approach, but has a few overlapping themes. In the intro, the author writes:

> Consider this not a closed transmission of information, but instead an open and extended essay, in the original sense of the word (a journey, an essaying forth). It's less a lecture than an invitation to take a walk.

I feel like that's basically right. The path it follows is something like (by chapter):
1. "doing nothing as countercultural practice / anti-cult-of-productivity", focussing your attention deliberately
2. a common approach is to try and exit society completely, but that's not tenable, responsible or satisfying
3. what does protest look like, then?
4. here are times when I've noticed my attention, it's caught me off guard, here's why we shouldn't allow it to be coopted
5. here's how attention interacts with other people, other life forms (picking up the theme of chapter 2 a little)
6. here are the ways in which it is very difficult to make meaningful progress as individuals and a society because of things eroding the ability to spend time exploring the nuance in ideas (picking up on chapters 3 and 5 again)
Conclusion: dismantling bad structures as a creative act (both, like, removing a badly-conceived dam to make space for nature again, and badly-conceived social structures to make room for people, and nature again, and people are actually part of nature).

So, yeah. It's _not_ focussed. It draws upon research, art, personal experience, it has parts that are beautiful nature writing, what seemed like well-researched history and sociology and storytelling.

I found it very enjoyable, and couldn't put it down, but it's not clear what it _is_, so I wouldn't recommend it to _everyone_. But I liked it so much that I bought copies for two friends, because I thought they would be the sort of people who would like it. But I don't think I have any concrete takeaways.

Some things I've read recently, which it touches upon / felt like, but isn't quite:
- Nature writing, like The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
- The Refusal of Work by David Frayne (though that's way more research-y)
- Can't Even, by Anne Helen Petersen (though that's a little more research-y)
- It intersects with a lot of Craig Mod's writing (about nature, the connection between nature and people, paying attention to small things)
- And maybe rhymes with Ursula LeGuin's essays (No time to Spare other bits and pieces)… (more)