- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (2 Sep 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 067403113X
- ISBN-13: 978-0674031135
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 14.9 x 1.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 748,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Loneliness as a Way of Life
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"What does it mean to be lonely?" Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry, documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory, literature, and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden dimension of the human condition. His book shows how loneliness shapes the contemporary division between public and private, our inability to live with each other honestly and in comity, the estranged forms that our intimate relationships assume, and the weakness of our common bonds.A reading of the relationship between Cordelia and her father in Shakespeare's "King Lear" points to the most basic dynamic of modern loneliness - how it is a response to the problem of the "missing mother." Dumm goes on to explore the most important dimensions of lonely experience - Being, Having, Loving, and Grieving. As the book unfolds, he juxtaposes new interpretations of iconic cultural texts - "Moby-Dick", "Death of a Salesman", the film "Paris", "Texas", Emerson's "Experience," to name a few - with his own experiences of loneliness, as a son, as a father, and as a grieving husband and widower.Written with deceptive simplicity, "Loneliness as a Way of Life" is something rare - an intellectual study that is passionately personal. It challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way. To fail to do so, this book reveals, will only intensify the power that it holds over us.
About the Author
Thomas Dumm is Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. His most recent book is A Politics of the Ordinary.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Given that this book is actually driven by a highly personal event - the death of the author's wife - it is a surprisingly torpid piece of work. Whilst I sympathise with the author, the end result is one of the most tedious works of "philosophy" I've ever read. Everything is simply asserted and nothing is argued and the language is unnecessarily convoluted. I gave up after half the first chapter. I suggest you save yourself the trouble and leave this book where it belongs - lonely.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Audience confusion
21 Aug 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The problem Professor Dumm and his book suffers from is the need to speak to two different audiences that prove utimately incompatible, the academic and the intelligent, lay public. Professor Dumm is a scholar, a political scientist at Amherst. He wants to be published by an academic, refereed press. So his book must meet whatever methodological and ideological standards that hold sway. Whatever those are right now, abstract, theory-driven writing is required. Hence he spends a lot of time discussig his theory of the Missing Mother, which I do not find at all convincing. Like all academic books, this one is heavily footnoted, and it alludes frequently other scholarly work, as well as to classical literature. It is not a very readable book.
All of this is well and good, but it certainly does not speak very adequately to Professor Dumm's second audience: people who are motivted to read the book, becaue they may be seeking consolation from their loneliness, or they may just be seeking a better understanding of loneliness, whether they are lonely or not. In other words, intelligent, but non-academic people. In my case, though not seeking consolation, I am lonely, and the idea of lonliness as a way of life was intriguing to me. But I was frustrated by Professor Dumm's book, because so little of it seems to speak directly and plainly to exactly its title, loneliness as a way of life. There are parts which I think are intended by Professor Drumm to do that. I have in mind those parts when he goes inward to his reflections about his own loneliness, it's sources, and what he thinks about it. But there are too few of those. And Professor Dumm's writing style is not intimate, though he certainly addresses intimate matters.
But, the book simply is not broad or rich enough to speak adequately to both audiences, the academic and laypeople interested in loneliness; it cannot bear that weight. I don't think a book can be both academic and intimate. The academic crowds out the lay by a wide margin. I realize Professor Dumm may never have expected his book to speak to anyone but an academic audience. But, in that case, Harvard Press, or the blurbs on the dust cover, would have been better off talking about this book's contribution to the academic literature, and not about it's general wisdom on loneliness that is a part of so many peoples' lives.
So read it for its academic content, which, as I say, I don't rate highly. But, I am not an academic. I can't recommend it as a way of understanding better or addressing one's own loneliness.
All of this is well and good, but it certainly does not speak very adequately to Professor Dumm's second audience: people who are motivted to read the book, becaue they may be seeking consolation from their loneliness, or they may just be seeking a better understanding of loneliness, whether they are lonely or not. In other words, intelligent, but non-academic people. In my case, though not seeking consolation, I am lonely, and the idea of lonliness as a way of life was intriguing to me. But I was frustrated by Professor Dumm's book, because so little of it seems to speak directly and plainly to exactly its title, loneliness as a way of life. There are parts which I think are intended by Professor Drumm to do that. I have in mind those parts when he goes inward to his reflections about his own loneliness, it's sources, and what he thinks about it. But there are too few of those. And Professor Dumm's writing style is not intimate, though he certainly addresses intimate matters.
But, the book simply is not broad or rich enough to speak adequately to both audiences, the academic and laypeople interested in loneliness; it cannot bear that weight. I don't think a book can be both academic and intimate. The academic crowds out the lay by a wide margin. I realize Professor Dumm may never have expected his book to speak to anyone but an academic audience. But, in that case, Harvard Press, or the blurbs on the dust cover, would have been better off talking about this book's contribution to the academic literature, and not about it's general wisdom on loneliness that is a part of so many peoples' lives.
So read it for its academic content, which, as I say, I don't rate highly. But, I am not an academic. I can't recommend it as a way of understanding better or addressing one's own loneliness.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
The only book I've ever tossed in the trash!
8 Aug 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Loneliness as a Way of Life was, quite simply, unreadable. A wordly, self important rehashing of the writing of others, with no insights for the average reader. I only bought this book because I saw and ad in a respected publication but now I realize anyone can buy an ad. A complete waste of time, money and thought. Mr. Dumm owes me the purchase price, and many hours of my life back.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Way too slow for the casual reader
2 Dec 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
While there is no doubt that this book is well-researched, it is not what I expected at all. As a lonely survivor of incredible personal losses (husband, brother, father) I was looking for a personal account of how we come to live with our loneliness. This author has suffered similar tragedies, but he writes in the cold, professorial tones of someone lecturing students. It is a short book, but a very slow read. Grab a hi-liter. You are headed back to the lecture hall. Very impersonal. I wanted solace. You won't find it here.
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