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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
- I continue to enjoy Rothfeld's very decisive writing style even when I'm not entirely persuaded by her conclusions, which makes it more interesting to think about.
- Only Mercy: Sex After Consent was one of the more interesting essays, in particular found this claim interesting: "To regard lust as a truly social product is to accept that an inculcated desire is an authentic desire, as indomitable as any other."
- In the same essay I enjoyed her (inventive!) conclusion of an ideal of sex as carnivalesque.
- In Two Lives, Simultaneous and Perfect:
"In Erotism, published in 1957, the philosopher Georges Bataille suggests that eroticism is a question of the violation of social prohibitions. If everything is permitted, then nothing is perverted. Advocates of free love, the seeming allies of pleasure, are in fact its most dangerous adversaries: when bohemians “ceased to believe in Evil,” Bataille writes, they precipitated “a state of affairs in which, since eroticism was no longer a sin and since they could no longer be certain of doing wrong, eroticism was fast disappearing.” Without violation, there is no rapture; without taboo, there is no violation; and without restriction, there is no taboo. In Bataille’s terms, “the sacred”—the erotic, with all its attendant dishevelments and divestments of self—requires “the profane,” the mundane mores constraining our everyday behavior. The profane is less exalted than the sacred, but it is equally necessary: each perfects the other. A curious consequence of this view is that the more repressive and puritanical a culture, the more considerable its erotic potential."
- The final essay Our True Entertainment Was Arguing which is about romantic equality explored through Mating, Pride and Prejudice and His Girl Friday was easily the most joyful and fun to read.
- Only Mercy: Sex After Consent was one of the more interesting essays, in particular found this claim interesting: "To regard lust as a truly social product is to accept that an inculcated desire is an authentic desire, as indomitable as any other."
- In the same essay I enjoyed her (inventive!) conclusion of an ideal of sex as carnivalesque.
- In Two Lives, Simultaneous and Perfect:
"In Erotism, published in 1957, the philosopher Georges Bataille suggests that eroticism is a question of the violation of social prohibitions. If everything is permitted, then nothing is perverted. Advocates of free love, the seeming allies of pleasure, are in fact its most dangerous adversaries: when bohemians “ceased to believe in Evil,” Bataille writes, they precipitated “a state of affairs in which, since eroticism was no longer a sin and since they could no longer be certain of doing wrong, eroticism was fast disappearing.” Without violation, there is no rapture; without taboo, there is no violation; and without restriction, there is no taboo. In Bataille’s terms, “the sacred”—the erotic, with all its attendant dishevelments and divestments of self—requires “the profane,” the mundane mores constraining our everyday behavior. The profane is less exalted than the sacred, but it is equally necessary: each perfects the other. A curious consequence of this view is that the more repressive and puritanical a culture, the more considerable its erotic potential."
- The final essay Our True Entertainment Was Arguing which is about romantic equality explored through Mating, Pride and Prejudice and His Girl Friday was easily the most joyful and fun to read.
informative
slow-paced
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
I was really intrigued by both the title and the blurb of this collection of essays. As a quasi-staunch hater of minimalism, I was excited for someone to go into detail and defend owning things. If that’s what you are looking for, this is not that book.
I will partially blame my difficulty with this essay collection on the fact that I was listening to the audiobook where the narrator didn’t do a great job of differentiating between the author’s own words and things that were being quoted as well as not reading out the titles of the essays. (They also only titled them as chapter 1, chapter 2, etc. in the track list. SUPER unhelpful.)
That being said, the author herself was much too wordy, patronizing, and pretentious. The excessive use of fancy language and written tone that pushed the assumption everything she was saying was the ‘correct’ opinion made the essays both hard to follow and mostly unenjoyable to read.
I DNFed after 4 essays.
I will partially blame my difficulty with this essay collection on the fact that I was listening to the audiobook where the narrator didn’t do a great job of differentiating between the author’s own words and things that were being quoted as well as not reading out the titles of the essays. (They also only titled them as chapter 1, chapter 2, etc. in the track list. SUPER unhelpful.)
That being said, the author herself was much too wordy, patronizing, and pretentious. The excessive use of fancy language and written tone that pushed the assumption everything she was saying was the ‘correct’ opinion made the essays both hard to follow and mostly unenjoyable to read.
I DNFed after 4 essays.
Wellll the title intrigued me. I liked the first two chapters. Was confused at the third. Then I realized it's a collection of essays, not one giant thought. I started a few other chapters, but nope, not for me. Dnf.
slow-paced
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
I thought the concept was interesting, and I really enjoyed the essay on decluttering, but I didn't care for the writing style overall and I wasn't in the right headspace for it, so my library loan expired before I could finish it. I will probably give it another shot at some point.
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
fast-paced
inspiring
reflective