Boredom: A Lively History
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Review
"Highly entertaining."--Gordon Pitz, "PsycCRITIQUES"--Gordon Pitz "PsycCRITIQUES "
Product Description
In the first book to argue for the benefits of boredom, Peter Toohey dispels the myth that it's simply a childish emotion or an existential malaise like Jean-Paul Sartre's nausea. He shows how boredom is, in fact, one of our most common and constructive emotions and is an essential part of the human experience. This informative and entertaining investigation of boredom - what it is and what it isn't, its uses and its dangers - spans more than 3,000 years of history and takes readers through fascinating neurological and psychological theories of emotion, as well as recent scientific investigations, to illustrate its role in our lives. There are Australian aboriginals and bored Romans, Jeffrey Archer and caged cockatoos, Camus and the early Christians, Durer and Degas. Toohey also explores the important role that boredom plays in popular and highbrow culture and how over the centuries it has proven to be a stimulus for art and literature. Toohey shows that boredom is a universal emotion experienced by humans throughout history and he explains its place, and value, in today's world. "Boredom: A Lively History" is vital reading for anyone interested in what goes on when supposedly nothing happens.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I enjoyed Toohey's book very much and it doesn't seem very hard to follow to me. He seems to think that boredom is good for people (it warns them against being stuck in what he calls toxic social situations - places like cages and prisons and he has a lot to say about the dangers that prisons can present). Toohey says that you can distinguish two sorts of boredom, simple and existential. The one he's most interested in the simple one and he puts an easy definition for it at the end of the first chapter. The book has a simple structure. It has six chapters that look at art, psychology, animal behavior, philosophy, history, and neurology more or less in turn. If there is anything to complain about, it is that the book is so short. Sometimes this makes the arguments seem a bit cramped and hard to untangle which can sometimes make it seem like he is rambling, which I don't think he actually is. Once you get the hang of the book it is very lively, as the title says, and it is often very funny. Who'd have thought that music helps elephants from getting bored?
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is subtitled: "a lively history". For me this couldn't be less accurate.
It's incredibly difficult to make a book about such an intangible topic hang together well, and Toohey has failed. There's a constant struggle in the book between the academic and the more populist additions. It takes more to make an academic book more popularly readable than removing the references/footnotes (tut tut) and adding miscellaneous anecdotes, art criticisms, quotes and book reviews. The definition of boredom is also constantly expanded, perhaps rightly so, but giving me the impression that without the expanded definition he couldn't have filled more than a couple of chapters.
I must admit that this book was a present and I wouldn't have chosen to buy it myself, so perhaps others will find some interest where I failed.For me, it was just dreary.
It's incredibly difficult to make a book about such an intangible topic hang together well, and Toohey has failed. There's a constant struggle in the book between the academic and the more populist additions. It takes more to make an academic book more popularly readable than removing the references/footnotes (tut tut) and adding miscellaneous anecdotes, art criticisms, quotes and book reviews. The definition of boredom is also constantly expanded, perhaps rightly so, but giving me the impression that without the expanded definition he couldn't have filled more than a couple of chapters.
I must admit that this book was a present and I wouldn't have chosen to buy it myself, so perhaps others will find some interest where I failed.For me, it was just dreary.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A most pleasant fellow
1 Dec 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Peter Toohey, a professor at the University of Calgary, author of "boredom: a lively history," has brightened his 190 text pages with 27 illustrations. His sharp insights inspire closer looks at art, photographs, history, and ourselves, as he traces the varied postures of boredom, the appearance and universal fascination with boredom by painters, thinkers, authors, playwrights, historians, scientists, photographers, and just about everyone who has ever been bored. And who hasn't? Mr. Toohey has done an exhaustive search of anyone who has ever touched upon the subject. That he has completed his compilation in so few pages is pleasing and not boring at all.
Mr. Toohey's location at the University of Calgary, approximately 200 miles north of Glacier National Park (shared by the U.S. and Canada) might seem out in the boondocks and a bit boring, but that is not the case. Calgary, Alberta, is a very large metropolitan area some 50 miles east of the Canadian Rockies. The city, the university, and the professor, as the book reveals, are good to know.
Mr. Toohey has a pleasant tentative way of expressing himself. He presents the facts as he has gathered them, letting the reader form his or her own conclusions, while offering his own in a self-effacing way. And he can be subtly funny. I have never met Professor Toohey other than in his book, but I think I should like to sit in at the back of some of his classes. In a calm and straightforward way, he would most assuredly not be boring.
Mr. Toohey's location at the University of Calgary, approximately 200 miles north of Glacier National Park (shared by the U.S. and Canada) might seem out in the boondocks and a bit boring, but that is not the case. Calgary, Alberta, is a very large metropolitan area some 50 miles east of the Canadian Rockies. The city, the university, and the professor, as the book reveals, are good to know.
Mr. Toohey has a pleasant tentative way of expressing himself. He presents the facts as he has gathered them, letting the reader form his or her own conclusions, while offering his own in a self-effacing way. And he can be subtly funny. I have never met Professor Toohey other than in his book, but I think I should like to sit in at the back of some of his classes. In a calm and straightforward way, he would most assuredly not be boring.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Lively and Entertaining
5 Sep 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoyed this lively and entertaining collection of musings and learned a lot from it. Dr Toohey has read a lot of books to kill the time. In fact it is largely a book made out of other books. The author does not present his own experimental work and is not a psychologist by training. (The jacket and the New York Times review seem to suggest that living in Calgary is enough to make you an expert on boredom.) He gives clear and interesting explanations of what philosophers say about emotions. He believes that boredom is not necessarily a bad thing.
The sections on neurology tell us, among other things, that smell sensations travel from the nose to spinal pathways and thence to the insula.
The sections on neurology tell us, among other things, that smell sensations travel from the nose to spinal pathways and thence to the insula.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Fun and fast read
20 Feb 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
An interesting book that makes a case for the positive aspects of boredom as well as documenting the influence that boredom has had on art and literature. Worth a quick read.
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