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All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess
An acclaimed debut author's glorious call to throw off restraint and balance in culture in favor of excess, abandon, and disproportion, in essays ranging from topics such as Sally Rooney, sadomasochism, and women who wait
All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural critic Becca Rothfeld’s soul cry for imbalance, obsession, gluttony, ravishment, ugliness, and unbound truth in aesthetics, whether we’re talking about literature, criticism, or design. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess; alas, in the contemporary Anglophone West, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor, privileged and oppressed, yawns hideously wide, while we stagnate in a cultural equality that imposes restraint.
All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural critic Becca Rothfeld’s soul cry for imbalance, obsession, gluttony, ravishment, ugliness, and unbound truth in aesthetics, whether we’re talking about literature, criticism, or design. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess; alas, in the contemporary Anglophone West, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor, privileged and oppressed, yawns hideously wide, while we stagnate in a cultural equality that imposes restraint.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
August 31, 2023
As a longtime admirer of Rothfeld’s criticism, this book was a highly anticipated read for me. This excitement dimmed slightly through the opening essays, where Rothfeld aims to situate the thesis of the text (as stated in the subtitle of the book: a “praise of excess”) in the political writings of John Rawls and chooses, rather surprisingly, to contrast her philosophy of maximalism with Marie Kondo’s guide to organization. There are some superficial points of disparity between Rothfeld’s embrace of the excessive and the ethos of the minimalist (namely—is it good or desirable to have more or less stuff?). But the two are so obviously distinct that the comparison does not help to elucidate Rothfeld’s positive view in much detail.
At her least persuasive, Rothfeld relies heavily on quoting those she disagrees with a sardonic bite, presumably expecting her reader to share these feelings of disdain for, e.g., the purported literary value of YA fiction and blandly philistine maxims to reduce one’s book collection to only the “necessities.” Even if she is correct in her assessment of these claims, I’m left wanting an explanation for how she came to these opinions rather than a theatrical dismissal of them.
Her strongest authorial voice is when she speaks as herself, weaving in personal narrative with critical analysis to intimate and honest effect. Rothfeld has a rich understanding, both in the texts that she consumes and in interpreting her own lived experience, and writes in a profoundly lyrical tone that renders the text not only deeply insightful but also luxurious. Although the essays follow no clear order and some have no apparent connection to the main claims regarding maximalism (such as the somewhat random dalliances into true crime, sexual consent, and Sally Rooney), there is something delightfully informal about the meandering soliloquies and I found myself jotting down lovely turns of phrases, looking up the books and films that are referenced, and musing over some of Rothfeld’s particularly striking characterizations. The text is intellectual without feeling dry or educational, and warmly personal without resorting to over-familiarity or effusiveness. Finally, Rothfeld’s strongest (and, in my opinion, least-explored) strength is in her wonderful marriage of the classic and the contemporary, such as an essay where she uses the films of Bergmann as a framing device for investigating the experience of stalking an ex’s new girlfriend online (or is it the other way around, where the personal shapes the critical? The text’s ambiguity here adds a meta-level of blurring between the self and the projection, which is a theme around which the essay orients). At times, she leans quite heavily into the nearly archaic—for instance, she predominantly discusses films from the 40s and 50s, and even her more contemporary movie references, such as to Cronenberg’s filmography, are still quite dated. It is clear that, literarily, she jumps through time more comfortably, as when she compares Rooney’s opus to both Jane Austen and the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy— initially surprising bedfellows that Rothfeld deftly ties together. These cross-temporal comparisons add a novel complexity to her criticism that I longed (and still long!) to see more of—not only in her choices of art, but in her reflections more broadly.
As a debut work, “All Things are Too Small” is an impressive feat. I don’t think it would be remiss to describe Rothfeld as a contemporary Sontag in many respects. The shortcomings of the work serve only to leave the reader hungry for more (more explanation, more details, more examples), exemplifying the very all-consuming desire that Rothfeld is concerned with understanding. And at her finest, Rothfeld’s writing soars dazzlingly. 4 out of 5 stars.
The ARC for this text was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
At her least persuasive, Rothfeld relies heavily on quoting those she disagrees with a sardonic bite, presumably expecting her reader to share these feelings of disdain for, e.g., the purported literary value of YA fiction and blandly philistine maxims to reduce one’s book collection to only the “necessities.” Even if she is correct in her assessment of these claims, I’m left wanting an explanation for how she came to these opinions rather than a theatrical dismissal of them.
Her strongest authorial voice is when she speaks as herself, weaving in personal narrative with critical analysis to intimate and honest effect. Rothfeld has a rich understanding, both in the texts that she consumes and in interpreting her own lived experience, and writes in a profoundly lyrical tone that renders the text not only deeply insightful but also luxurious. Although the essays follow no clear order and some have no apparent connection to the main claims regarding maximalism (such as the somewhat random dalliances into true crime, sexual consent, and Sally Rooney), there is something delightfully informal about the meandering soliloquies and I found myself jotting down lovely turns of phrases, looking up the books and films that are referenced, and musing over some of Rothfeld’s particularly striking characterizations. The text is intellectual without feeling dry or educational, and warmly personal without resorting to over-familiarity or effusiveness. Finally, Rothfeld’s strongest (and, in my opinion, least-explored) strength is in her wonderful marriage of the classic and the contemporary, such as an essay where she uses the films of Bergmann as a framing device for investigating the experience of stalking an ex’s new girlfriend online (or is it the other way around, where the personal shapes the critical? The text’s ambiguity here adds a meta-level of blurring between the self and the projection, which is a theme around which the essay orients). At times, she leans quite heavily into the nearly archaic—for instance, she predominantly discusses films from the 40s and 50s, and even her more contemporary movie references, such as to Cronenberg’s filmography, are still quite dated. It is clear that, literarily, she jumps through time more comfortably, as when she compares Rooney’s opus to both Jane Austen and the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy— initially surprising bedfellows that Rothfeld deftly ties together. These cross-temporal comparisons add a novel complexity to her criticism that I longed (and still long!) to see more of—not only in her choices of art, but in her reflections more broadly.
As a debut work, “All Things are Too Small” is an impressive feat. I don’t think it would be remiss to describe Rothfeld as a contemporary Sontag in many respects. The shortcomings of the work serve only to leave the reader hungry for more (more explanation, more details, more examples), exemplifying the very all-consuming desire that Rothfeld is concerned with understanding. And at her finest, Rothfeld’s writing soars dazzlingly. 4 out of 5 stars.
The ARC for this text was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
June 20, 2024
(2.5) Rothfeld, the Washington Post’s nonfiction book reviewer, is on hiatus from a philosophy PhD at Harvard. Her academic background is clear from her vocabulary. The more accessible essays tend to be ones that were previously published in periodicals. Although the topics range widely – decluttering, true crime, consent, binge eating, online stalking – she’s assembled them under a dichotomy of parsimony versus indulgence. And you know from the title that she errs on the side of the latter. Luxuriate in lust, wallow in words, stick two fingers up to minimalism and mindfulness and be your own messy self. You might boil the message down to: Love what you love, because that’s what makes you an individual. And happy individuals – well, ideally, in an equal society that gives everyone the same access to self-fulfillment and art – make for a thriving culture. That, with some Barthes and Kant quotes.
The writing has verve, from the alliterative word choice to the forcefulness of Rothfeld’s opinions. But in places her points of reference (from classic cinema, especially) are so obscure that I had no way in and the pieces felt like they would never end. My two favourites were “More Is More,” in which she’s as down on fragmentary autofiction (Jenny Offill et al.) as she is on Marie Kondo; and “Normal Novels,” about how she finds Sally Rooney’s self-deprecation and communism problematic. I knew the subject matter well enough to follow the arguments here, even if I ultimately disagreed with them.
Rothfeld is worth reading as a cultural critic, at least in small doses. She is clearly not interested in being a personal essayist, however, as the intimacy she keeps discussing in theory is almost completely absent. A piece on mental health, “Wherever You Go, You Could Leave,” opens with one tantalizing autobiographical line – “My first year of college, I attempted suicide and was promptly hastened home by an ominously smiling administrator” – then proceeds to poke fun at meditation for most of its 40 pages. It was interesting to see her fan-girl over her favourite novel, which I would even try if it wasn’t 480 pages: “I want to be reading Mating [by Norman Rush] constantly; I want to have been reading Mating forever, but always for the first time; I want everything in my life to be Mating and nothing but Mating”. Keep an eye out for the sequel: Actually, Moderation Is Cool: How I Learned to Temper My Expectations.
(The U.S. cover featuring a Bosch painting is so much better!)
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The writing has verve, from the alliterative word choice to the forcefulness of Rothfeld’s opinions. But in places her points of reference (from classic cinema, especially) are so obscure that I had no way in and the pieces felt like they would never end. My two favourites were “More Is More,” in which she’s as down on fragmentary autofiction (Jenny Offill et al.) as she is on Marie Kondo; and “Normal Novels,” about how she finds Sally Rooney’s self-deprecation and communism problematic. I knew the subject matter well enough to follow the arguments here, even if I ultimately disagreed with them.
Rothfeld is worth reading as a cultural critic, at least in small doses. She is clearly not interested in being a personal essayist, however, as the intimacy she keeps discussing in theory is almost completely absent. A piece on mental health, “Wherever You Go, You Could Leave,” opens with one tantalizing autobiographical line – “My first year of college, I attempted suicide and was promptly hastened home by an ominously smiling administrator” – then proceeds to poke fun at meditation for most of its 40 pages. It was interesting to see her fan-girl over her favourite novel, which I would even try if it wasn’t 480 pages: “I want to be reading Mating [by Norman Rush] constantly; I want to have been reading Mating forever, but always for the first time; I want everything in my life to be Mating and nothing but Mating”. Keep an eye out for the sequel: Actually, Moderation Is Cool: How I Learned to Temper My Expectations.
(The U.S. cover featuring a Bosch painting is so much better!)
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
July 1, 2024
I think that Rothfeld is at her best here when she writes about sex – her work on sex as transformation in her Cronenberg essays and on the ethics of sex beyond simply consent in “Only Mercy” are each brilliant. The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy, a celebration of the ravenous pleasure of desire, even as it transforms of us, is an expansion of an essay I'd already read and adored - All Good Sex Is Body Horror.
Some of her further essays, however, are less compelling to me – and a few feel as if they didn’t get their proper due in Rothfeld’s writing.
There are some interesting things in here. In More and More, decluttering and minimalism as an exercise in excising hungers. In Two Lives Simultaneous and Perfect, an emplacement of the erotic as a violation of social norms. In Our True Entertainment Was Arguing, a celebration of marriage and love not as finding another self, but as finding a lover who is a person in and of themselves – someone to speak with, the “conversations of love” that continue out of interest, with an “orientation toward eternity”.
A few more seem just slightly lacking. In Ladies in Waiting, the waiting love, and the value of seeing the beloved as an outside no matter how much we may want to collapse into one another. In Murder on the Installment Plane, the intertwining of the detective and the criminal until the lines between them blur (though I wished she’d gone further with this rather than ending with “I don’t know the ultimate end” – I frankly felt I could’ve found plenty to say). In Other People’s Loves, an examination of desire as “reliev[ing] us of the burden of our own visibility” – one that left me feeling just a tad unsatisfied. In Having a Cake and Eating It Too, an in-depth close reading of the writings of mystic Simone Weil on hunger for god – one that I thought could’ve had a wider scope. In Normal Novels, a critique of Sally Rooney, with little to do with the scope of the novel.
Fantastic writer, though, and I did think the sex essays justified the collection for me.
Some notes from Only Mercy that I wanted to highlight:
➽Angela Carter: “Our flesh arrives to us out of history… we still drag there with us the cultural impedimenta of our social class… our whole biographies”
➽“Every apparent pairing is in fact an orgy, consisting of the two participants and the entire social world”
➽I’m interested now in reading Srinivasan’s work because I generally agree with the point that the sexual revolution did not go far enough – it expanded the range of socially acceptable erotic practices but failed to meaningfully confront the societal and cultural biases behind some kink.
Critique of Emba and Perry’s Rethinking Sex and The Cade Against the Sexual Revolution – “for them, the best sex imaginable is just sex that is as harmless as possible”
➽“Why not effect the sort of political change that would in turn improve our tastes… why not fight for the possibility of ethical pleasure?
➽The conservative state is desperate to preserve the nuclear family because women step in to perform the childcare that the state fails to subsidize
➽“The real import of the dictum that ‘sex is serious’ is that sex is significant enough to matter even when it is unaccompanied by romance and ritual, even when it symbolizes nothing else at all”
➽Eroticism is a seeking of “an encounter between people stripped of their usual roles” – this is why I find patriarchy play to be boring potentially?
➽“Sex is a moral matter as it challenges us to make real – and therefore unexpected and sometimes disorienting – contact with other people, rather than glancing contact with the affirming balm of our own fantasies. If we come to bed set on securing any particular good, be it the time-honored staples of love and pregnancy or the modern debasements of pornographic reenactment, then we are not really prepared to respond to the unique claim that each lover lays on us.”
➽We have more ethical sex when we recognize “the violent individuality of our sexual partners”.
“An oppressive order is also a boring order” because it offers none of the surprise of eroticism
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Some of her further essays, however, are less compelling to me – and a few feel as if they didn’t get their proper due in Rothfeld’s writing.
There are some interesting things in here. In More and More, decluttering and minimalism as an exercise in excising hungers. In Two Lives Simultaneous and Perfect, an emplacement of the erotic as a violation of social norms. In Our True Entertainment Was Arguing, a celebration of marriage and love not as finding another self, but as finding a lover who is a person in and of themselves – someone to speak with, the “conversations of love” that continue out of interest, with an “orientation toward eternity”.
A few more seem just slightly lacking. In Ladies in Waiting, the waiting love, and the value of seeing the beloved as an outside no matter how much we may want to collapse into one another. In Murder on the Installment Plane, the intertwining of the detective and the criminal until the lines between them blur (though I wished she’d gone further with this rather than ending with “I don’t know the ultimate end” – I frankly felt I could’ve found plenty to say). In Other People’s Loves, an examination of desire as “reliev[ing] us of the burden of our own visibility” – one that left me feeling just a tad unsatisfied. In Having a Cake and Eating It Too, an in-depth close reading of the writings of mystic Simone Weil on hunger for god – one that I thought could’ve had a wider scope. In Normal Novels, a critique of Sally Rooney, with little to do with the scope of the novel.
Fantastic writer, though, and I did think the sex essays justified the collection for me.
Some notes from Only Mercy that I wanted to highlight:
➽Angela Carter: “Our flesh arrives to us out of history… we still drag there with us the cultural impedimenta of our social class… our whole biographies”
➽“Every apparent pairing is in fact an orgy, consisting of the two participants and the entire social world”
➽I’m interested now in reading Srinivasan’s work because I generally agree with the point that the sexual revolution did not go far enough – it expanded the range of socially acceptable erotic practices but failed to meaningfully confront the societal and cultural biases behind some kink.
Critique of Emba and Perry’s Rethinking Sex and The Cade Against the Sexual Revolution – “for them, the best sex imaginable is just sex that is as harmless as possible”
➽“Why not effect the sort of political change that would in turn improve our tastes… why not fight for the possibility of ethical pleasure?
➽The conservative state is desperate to preserve the nuclear family because women step in to perform the childcare that the state fails to subsidize
➽“The real import of the dictum that ‘sex is serious’ is that sex is significant enough to matter even when it is unaccompanied by romance and ritual, even when it symbolizes nothing else at all”
➽Eroticism is a seeking of “an encounter between people stripped of their usual roles” – this is why I find patriarchy play to be boring potentially?
➽“Sex is a moral matter as it challenges us to make real – and therefore unexpected and sometimes disorienting – contact with other people, rather than glancing contact with the affirming balm of our own fantasies. If we come to bed set on securing any particular good, be it the time-honored staples of love and pregnancy or the modern debasements of pornographic reenactment, then we are not really prepared to respond to the unique claim that each lover lays on us.”
➽We have more ethical sex when we recognize “the violent individuality of our sexual partners”.
“An oppressive order is also a boring order” because it offers none of the surprise of eroticism
Youtube | TikTok | Spotify | About |
April 8, 2024
I’d read some of Rothfeld’s articles and appreciated her outsider position on some popular topics, like Sally Rooney’s novels, so when I won an ARC for this book through Goodreads, I was excited. Unfortunately, when I spent a protracted length of time with her writing, it became clear that her ideas are half-baked, and her arguments deeply, sometimes oddly, flawed.
Although I didn’t entirely agree with Rothfeld’s first three essays, they were interesting and coherent enough that I was onboard for the ride. It was during “Murder on the Installment Plan” when the cracks in her thinking became glaringly obvious. It starts with her discussing Hannibal, Mindhunter, and other similar shows, and seems to be critiquing the fact that these TV shows about serial murderers are delivered in…episodes – the so called “installment plans.” Would she have fewer objections if they were instead very long movies played all in one go?
She was already losing me, then she wrote this:
The mystery novel, with its fixed template, lent itself to ready reproduction. But it did not satisfy readers’ appetites because it concluded altogether too completely. The initial remedy was popularized by Charles Dickens in the late 1830s, with the staggered publication, over the course of a year and a half, of The Pickwick Papers. Dickens was among the first to divide corpse into corpus, in much the same way that Jack the Ripper, the first celebrity serial killer, cut prostitutes into pieces just fifty years later.
(I’m going to bypass the faulty idea that mystery novels with complete conclusions don’t satisfy the reader, to get to what really confounded me about this paragraph.) The baffling implication here is that The Pickwick Papers’ publication in installments (pieces) would later somehow cause (inspire?) Jack the Ripper to mutilate and remove pieces of his victims. What evidence does she provide to prove this assertion? None, because, I’d assume, there isn’t any.
Although there is no way to prove that Jack wasn’t inspired by The Pickwick Papers, or any other serialized novel, there is some information that makes this unlikely. Firstly, Papers doesn’t involve any murders, let alone gruesome, serial murders. It��s a light hearted romp full of big caricatures and hijinks. The only thing that remotely comes close to a criminal proclivity is a minor court case about a dispute between a fellow and his landlady.
Second, Dickens’ Papers was by no means the first serialized novel (although its success did make the form more popular), so why mention it specifically? Lastly, it was published between 1836-1837, and Jack’s first suspected kill was in 1888. Given the years between the events and the general age Jack is suspected to be when the killing began, we can assume that Jack was either not yet born, or barely of reading age, in the 1830s. So, how could the event of a serialized novel have any effect on the man?
Rothfeld seems to be trying to make a connection between people consuming stories in parts (be it through a serialized novel or TV episodes) causing some people to view bodies as nothing but parts to be disassembled via murder and mutilation. And although it’s kind of an interesting idea if you squint at it, there’s little to hold her argument together except ~*vibes*~.
In “Other People’s Loves” Rothfeld tells how she used to stalk the new love interests of her ex’s (by stalking, she means looking at publicly available information online.) This is a fairly common, understandable practice, easily explained by simple curiosity and mild romantic obsession. It probably doesn’t need to be defended, yet she does so anyway, with this provably untrue assertion:
Indeed, part of what distinguishes online stalking from its dangerous, “IRL” analogue is that no online stalker wants to meet, much less seduce or harm or abduct, the object of her obsession. The online stalker aspires to remain invisible at all costs…
What? Perhaps harming the women she “stalks” has never crossed her mind, or those of her friends with whom she confides, but some people desperately do want to meet the people they stalk online. In fact, online stalking has resulted in “IRL” harm, including murder. Her belief that this doesn’t happen is so obviously wrong that it is beyond me as to how she could think this.
I could go on, but I’m going to limit myself to responding to only one more of her essays. “Wherever You Go, You Could Leave” critiques the rise of mindfulness/meditation from everything from psychiatric settings to self-help books and corporate productivity shills. She begins by relating how a therapist suggested she meditate and practice “non-judgmental awareness” after a suicide attempt during college:
I asked my therapist, Surely there were some things I was allowed to judge?
Nope.
What about things that merit judgement?
Nope.
What about the Koch brothers?
Nope.
How was this supposed to help me, suspending judgement about the Koch brothers?
I had to trust it would be good for me.
How could she know what was good for me without exercising the faculty of judgement?
Rothfeld seems to be so enamored with her thoughts and judgements that even when rumination on the Koch brothers (and probably other things too) drove her to try to skedaddle from this mortal plane, she still couldn’t bring herself to even entertain the idea that some of her thoughts might not be serving her well, and that developing the ability to not think on occasion might do her some good.
Rothfeld then goes on to unartfully, and unfairly summarize why meditation is beneficial as “cognition is an unmitigated evil” and that “acceptance of external circumstances, no matter how dire, is paramount.” To argue that those in favor of meditation are really saying that no one should ever think anything and must accept everything is just so silly I don’t know where to start.
Rothfeld doesn’t seem to have much respect for the therapist she saw during this time, but admits some of her suggestions did help, especially going to the movies:
And as the lights dimmed around the silver flicker of the screen, I was flooded with a sharp sense of human presence. Who knows why – my cognitive behavioral therapist, for all her merits, probably does not – but sitting in the dark with strangers and staring at the same play of shadows on the wall can be salvific, especially if the shadows are beautiful. It was good to be somewhere besides where I was, good to know that escape into the parallel world of art was available and that other people could escape there with me.
This paragraph really struck me. Rothfeld is ignorant as to why a movie could be a balm for the psyche, believing not even her therapist could come up with an explanation. The best she can guess is that it was escape into art that helped her.
I think the true reason may be that for the 90-120 minutes she sat in that dark movie theater, Rothfeld was totally engrossed in the narrative, and was NOT thinking about the Koch brothers. She probably wasn’t thinking very much – maybe not even at all at times! If she did have thoughts, she let them go easily, as her attention was constantly pulled back toward the film. She posits her relief came from “escape[ing] into the parallel world of art,” but the only thing she had escaped was her ruminations. Although she was not meditating, she was out of her head and in that theater experiencing the PRESENT moment fully.
This essay is an example of when a writer has an immediate judgement about something and instead of staying open to information that may challenge their thinking, instead hordes everything that supports it. She deploys the “strawman” strategy again and again, finding the weakest advocates with the weakest arguments and acting like they are the standard bearers. For instance, there are many good books that explore mindfulness and meditation, but she barely sites them while giving more space to Ariana Huffington and Sam Harris, of all people!
Overall, I’d say that at times, Rothfeld’s writing was engrossing and lucid, especially when she wrote about her personal experiences. Rothfeld trained as a philosopher, so I hoped she would bring obtuse philosophical ideas to a general audience, but whenever she engaged with philosophical arguments, her writing became tortured and opaque to the point I could only vaguely gleam what she was going on about.
To give Rothfeld her due, I found the essays about films by David Cronenberg far more convincing than some of the other essays. But, I haven’t seen the films she sites, so I can’t say whether her interpretations have legs or not. Also, there should be something said about a writer that inspires a reader to write a review this long and involved. Rothfeld certainly gave me a lot to think about, to her credit.
Although I didn’t entirely agree with Rothfeld’s first three essays, they were interesting and coherent enough that I was onboard for the ride. It was during “Murder on the Installment Plan” when the cracks in her thinking became glaringly obvious. It starts with her discussing Hannibal, Mindhunter, and other similar shows, and seems to be critiquing the fact that these TV shows about serial murderers are delivered in…episodes – the so called “installment plans.” Would she have fewer objections if they were instead very long movies played all in one go?
She was already losing me, then she wrote this:
The mystery novel, with its fixed template, lent itself to ready reproduction. But it did not satisfy readers’ appetites because it concluded altogether too completely. The initial remedy was popularized by Charles Dickens in the late 1830s, with the staggered publication, over the course of a year and a half, of The Pickwick Papers. Dickens was among the first to divide corpse into corpus, in much the same way that Jack the Ripper, the first celebrity serial killer, cut prostitutes into pieces just fifty years later.
(I’m going to bypass the faulty idea that mystery novels with complete conclusions don’t satisfy the reader, to get to what really confounded me about this paragraph.) The baffling implication here is that The Pickwick Papers’ publication in installments (pieces) would later somehow cause (inspire?) Jack the Ripper to mutilate and remove pieces of his victims. What evidence does she provide to prove this assertion? None, because, I’d assume, there isn’t any.
Although there is no way to prove that Jack wasn’t inspired by The Pickwick Papers, or any other serialized novel, there is some information that makes this unlikely. Firstly, Papers doesn’t involve any murders, let alone gruesome, serial murders. It��s a light hearted romp full of big caricatures and hijinks. The only thing that remotely comes close to a criminal proclivity is a minor court case about a dispute between a fellow and his landlady.
Second, Dickens’ Papers was by no means the first serialized novel (although its success did make the form more popular), so why mention it specifically? Lastly, it was published between 1836-1837, and Jack’s first suspected kill was in 1888. Given the years between the events and the general age Jack is suspected to be when the killing began, we can assume that Jack was either not yet born, or barely of reading age, in the 1830s. So, how could the event of a serialized novel have any effect on the man?
Rothfeld seems to be trying to make a connection between people consuming stories in parts (be it through a serialized novel or TV episodes) causing some people to view bodies as nothing but parts to be disassembled via murder and mutilation. And although it’s kind of an interesting idea if you squint at it, there’s little to hold her argument together except ~*vibes*~.
In “Other People’s Loves” Rothfeld tells how she used to stalk the new love interests of her ex’s (by stalking, she means looking at publicly available information online.) This is a fairly common, understandable practice, easily explained by simple curiosity and mild romantic obsession. It probably doesn’t need to be defended, yet she does so anyway, with this provably untrue assertion:
Indeed, part of what distinguishes online stalking from its dangerous, “IRL” analogue is that no online stalker wants to meet, much less seduce or harm or abduct, the object of her obsession. The online stalker aspires to remain invisible at all costs…
What? Perhaps harming the women she “stalks” has never crossed her mind, or those of her friends with whom she confides, but some people desperately do want to meet the people they stalk online. In fact, online stalking has resulted in “IRL” harm, including murder. Her belief that this doesn’t happen is so obviously wrong that it is beyond me as to how she could think this.
I could go on, but I’m going to limit myself to responding to only one more of her essays. “Wherever You Go, You Could Leave” critiques the rise of mindfulness/meditation from everything from psychiatric settings to self-help books and corporate productivity shills. She begins by relating how a therapist suggested she meditate and practice “non-judgmental awareness” after a suicide attempt during college:
I asked my therapist, Surely there were some things I was allowed to judge?
Nope.
What about things that merit judgement?
Nope.
What about the Koch brothers?
Nope.
How was this supposed to help me, suspending judgement about the Koch brothers?
I had to trust it would be good for me.
How could she know what was good for me without exercising the faculty of judgement?
Rothfeld seems to be so enamored with her thoughts and judgements that even when rumination on the Koch brothers (and probably other things too) drove her to try to skedaddle from this mortal plane, she still couldn’t bring herself to even entertain the idea that some of her thoughts might not be serving her well, and that developing the ability to not think on occasion might do her some good.
Rothfeld then goes on to unartfully, and unfairly summarize why meditation is beneficial as “cognition is an unmitigated evil” and that “acceptance of external circumstances, no matter how dire, is paramount.” To argue that those in favor of meditation are really saying that no one should ever think anything and must accept everything is just so silly I don’t know where to start.
Rothfeld doesn’t seem to have much respect for the therapist she saw during this time, but admits some of her suggestions did help, especially going to the movies:
And as the lights dimmed around the silver flicker of the screen, I was flooded with a sharp sense of human presence. Who knows why – my cognitive behavioral therapist, for all her merits, probably does not – but sitting in the dark with strangers and staring at the same play of shadows on the wall can be salvific, especially if the shadows are beautiful. It was good to be somewhere besides where I was, good to know that escape into the parallel world of art was available and that other people could escape there with me.
This paragraph really struck me. Rothfeld is ignorant as to why a movie could be a balm for the psyche, believing not even her therapist could come up with an explanation. The best she can guess is that it was escape into art that helped her.
I think the true reason may be that for the 90-120 minutes she sat in that dark movie theater, Rothfeld was totally engrossed in the narrative, and was NOT thinking about the Koch brothers. She probably wasn’t thinking very much – maybe not even at all at times! If she did have thoughts, she let them go easily, as her attention was constantly pulled back toward the film. She posits her relief came from “escape[ing] into the parallel world of art,” but the only thing she had escaped was her ruminations. Although she was not meditating, she was out of her head and in that theater experiencing the PRESENT moment fully.
This essay is an example of when a writer has an immediate judgement about something and instead of staying open to information that may challenge their thinking, instead hordes everything that supports it. She deploys the “strawman” strategy again and again, finding the weakest advocates with the weakest arguments and acting like they are the standard bearers. For instance, there are many good books that explore mindfulness and meditation, but she barely sites them while giving more space to Ariana Huffington and Sam Harris, of all people!
Overall, I’d say that at times, Rothfeld’s writing was engrossing and lucid, especially when she wrote about her personal experiences. Rothfeld trained as a philosopher, so I hoped she would bring obtuse philosophical ideas to a general audience, but whenever she engaged with philosophical arguments, her writing became tortured and opaque to the point I could only vaguely gleam what she was going on about.
To give Rothfeld her due, I found the essays about films by David Cronenberg far more convincing than some of the other essays. But, I haven’t seen the films she sites, so I can’t say whether her interpretations have legs or not. Also, there should be something said about a writer that inspires a reader to write a review this long and involved. Rothfeld certainly gave me a lot to think about, to her credit.
February 1, 2024
I don’t really have anything nice to say about this book. Reading it felt like a college exercise and it was so academic, dry and uninteresting. Essays should be engaging and interesting, not make you want to poke your eyes out.
Thank you to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company and Becca Rothfeld for an advanced copy of this book.
Thank you to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company and Becca Rothfeld for an advanced copy of this book.
April 19, 2024
I loved this so much it almost makes me upset to read the three star (or even lower!!!) reviews. Rothfeld is exuberant and passionate and deeply invested in literature, film, philosophy, criticism—but most of all she is obsessed with LOVE, BEAUTY, and the disruptively divine experiences we can have with both.
I loved this. The collection includes some of Rothfeld’s hits, like her gorgeous essay on Éric Rohmer’s films (originally published in Cabinet), her (imo) original and fascinating critique of Sally Rooney, which is worth reading even for hardcore Rooney fans, as it really makes the experience of reading her novels so much richer…as well as some new essays that touch on the flaws of Western-style Buddhism, the limits of egalitarian politics in the face of desire, the thorny inadequacy of consent as a concept…
Overall, very thought-provoking and genuinely so pleasurable to read.
I loved this. The collection includes some of Rothfeld’s hits, like her gorgeous essay on Éric Rohmer’s films (originally published in Cabinet), her (imo) original and fascinating critique of Sally Rooney, which is worth reading even for hardcore Rooney fans, as it really makes the experience of reading her novels so much richer…as well as some new essays that touch on the flaws of Western-style Buddhism, the limits of egalitarian politics in the face of desire, the thorny inadequacy of consent as a concept…
Overall, very thought-provoking and genuinely so pleasurable to read.
March 16, 2024
I received an advance copy of this book as part of a goodreads giveaway.
I don't think I was the intended audience for this book. I thought I would be reading a celebration of excess and instead it was more like complaints (not arguments) against minimalism. The tone was more academic than I am used to and sometimes veered into an arrogance I found distracting.
The author's personal experiences and beliefs seemed so entirely different from mine that it seemed like a glimpse into an alien world. But what else is reading for? The essays were thought provoking.
I don't think I was the intended audience for this book. I thought I would be reading a celebration of excess and instead it was more like complaints (not arguments) against minimalism. The tone was more academic than I am used to and sometimes veered into an arrogance I found distracting.
The author's personal experiences and beliefs seemed so entirely different from mine that it seemed like a glimpse into an alien world. But what else is reading for? The essays were thought provoking.
July 19, 2024
not for everyone but decidedly for me! the essays about eroticism especially were knives to my wee heart! surprised myself by crying towards the end of Only Mercy? i need to buy a copy when it comes out in paperback so i may underline every single word bc this is a maximalist household goddamnit
December 7, 2023
I took a chance in this book although normally I don’t read these types. However, I was sent a widget and plowed ahead.
I didn’t get much out of the book. I thought I might find some useful tips about declutterring because I have too many books and totes, but I quickly became lost in the author’s mishmash of titles and commentary.
Most of the references the author made I’d never heard before except for Kondo, who I have no,use for since she preaches limited books.
I’m sure this book might be helpful for some readers, but it wasn’t for me.
Thanks to Henry Holt and NetGalley for the early read.
I didn’t get much out of the book. I thought I might find some useful tips about declutterring because I have too many books and totes, but I quickly became lost in the author’s mishmash of titles and commentary.
Most of the references the author made I’d never heard before except for Kondo, who I have no,use for since she preaches limited books.
I’m sure this book might be helpful for some readers, but it wasn’t for me.
Thanks to Henry Holt and NetGalley for the early read.
May 5, 2024
the writing is super competent and rothfeld is obviously super bright (which she does REALLY want you to know), but i guess my main gripe is that i don’t really think the essays are what the book advertises? like an essay about mindhunter or mindfulness meditation—despite however tenuously you may want to draw those connections—don’t really fit my idea of “essays about excess”. other than the intro essay, they don’t really fit that description at all! the best essay here is one that was already released online, Normal Novels.
“there’s nobody you hate more than you one year ago” - somebody, probably. when i read these essays written by a very snarky person getting angry at dumb books or whatever nobody cares about i see a lot of the stuff i hated most about myself—a trigger happy, contrarian soul just looking to have the Cool New Opinion and show everybody that they’ve Read the Smart Books.
maybe i’m just changing, idk.
“there’s nobody you hate more than you one year ago” - somebody, probably. when i read these essays written by a very snarky person getting angry at dumb books or whatever nobody cares about i see a lot of the stuff i hated most about myself—a trigger happy, contrarian soul just looking to have the Cool New Opinion and show everybody that they’ve Read the Smart Books.
maybe i’m just changing, idk.
December 6, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are my own.
All Things are Too Small is a collection of essays written by cultural critic Becca Rothfeld. I’ve only stumbled on Rothfeld’s criticism recently, but found her thoughts on wunderkind author Sally Rooney, and her takes on gender, to name two essays, particularly interesting. I can’t say that I’ve read a lot of academic criticism, aside from articles in my English undergrad studies, but I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of it. Rothfeld’s writing strikes a great balance for me: well-written enough and complex enough to satisfy me with new ideas, while being mostly pretty comprehensible to anyone scared away from truly “academic” writing.
The marketing around ATaTS positions it as a collection of essays defending excess against the ascendant minimalist threat. This is what drew my attention to the book in the first place, since it’s an idea I’m fascinated by. In my college years I was caught up in the minimalism trend: the allure of ruthlessly culling my possessions until I could, at a moment’s notice, leave my boring American life behind to backpack around Europe was particularly gripping. What I wanted were not things, but experiences. I tried to meditate, to sort the clutter of my mind into something sleeker, cleaner. The popularity of Marie Kondo represents maybe the height of the minimalist victory, as many of us began to assess our possessions on whether or not they “sparked joy,” and eliminate (though not after saying a fond farewell to) those that didn’t make the cut.
The book’s first two essays, All Things are Too Small and More is More, are the ones that most directly deal with this idea. I found them to be some of the more thought-provoking essays in the book, though one of them centers on dissecting a particular kind of fragmented autofiction that is both critically popular in the literary fiction world today, and a kind of book I rarely - if ever - read. The core of her argument, and the one I found most compelling whenever it surfaced in other essays, is that minimalism focuses on eliminating everything that isn’t necessary to life, but that the joys of life, the things that make us human, are the things we don’t simply need, but the things we want. Rothfeld argues that art and beauty are generally “excessive,” and it’s these things that go beyond our bare subsistence that make life worth living.
But venture much further in the book, and it quickly becomes obvious that the “anti-minimalism” theme of the whole book is just marketing, an attempt to find something, anything, to tie these disparate essays together. In reality, the book finds Rothfeld blending sociological insight, classic auteur film, her own life’s narrative, and political ideology into a scattershot collection that varies in quality.
I enjoyed Normal Novels (the essay I’d already read comparing the work of Sally Rooney to, of all things, Fifty Shades of Grey), and The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy (looking at body horror and the erotic through the lens of auteur filmmaker David Cronenberg), while others like Other People’s Loves and Our True Entertainment Was Arguing are centered on pieces of fiction I either haven’t experience or have entirely forgotten, and thus didn’t get as much out of.
My favorite essays here are the ones most tied to the (marketed) central premise, such as the aforementioned first two, Wherever You Go, You Could Leave (a take-down of the mindfulness idea market that wasn't wholly convincing but was interesting), Murder on the Installment Plan (tracing the history of serialized stories through the mystery/crime novel, and my favorite, Only Mercy.
Only Mercy is an exploration of sex in the post #MeToo era, particularly framed around the idea of consent, and deliberately proposing a conception of sex and consent that differs from ideas popular among the post-liberal right (the sexual revolution has gone too far and women actually want stable, emotional, monogamous, child-bearing sex), and the left (our sexual desires are shaped by unequal cultural values, and though any adult can have any kind of sex they want with any other adult(s), it behooves us to try to change our desires to be more egalitarian).
Rothfeld diagnoses her two example approaches to sex as both failing to consider sex in its own right, as a thing people might do and enjoy regardless of its other meanings. To spoil her ultimate conclusion - Rothfeld views sex, and particularly kink, as play. In this way, she brings it back to the vaguely-overarching theory of the collection: play, like art, is not strictly necessary. You might say, it’s excessive, something done for its own sake, because it’s fun, because it’s enjoyable, because it makes life work living.
It’s not brought up at all in the essay, but for me, I couldn’t help carrying that conception of play to my favorite hobby and creative endeavor: running role-playing games for my friends. It’s a form of play that isn’t so different from imaginative make-believe on the playground, but one that takes our adult interests into consideration. Contemporary society doesn’t give adults much acceptable outlets for play; in many circles it even considers play to be incompatible with responsible, sober adulthood. For many people, it’s just sex, if they’re lucky, that feels this way.
For me, play is the ultimate end, a good in and of itself. If the world I want ever comes to pass, the egalitarian world where peoples’ basic needs are met, what is left? Our wants. Our fun. Our play. Our pointless, excessive play.
Overall, this is an intriguing collection of criticism that I didn’t always agree with, or, frankly, understand, but whenever it kept closest to its vague central thesis of the importance of the excessive, the maximalist, the playful, it both challenged me and gave me new ways of thinking about the parts of life most important to me.
All Things are Too Small is a collection of essays written by cultural critic Becca Rothfeld. I’ve only stumbled on Rothfeld’s criticism recently, but found her thoughts on wunderkind author Sally Rooney, and her takes on gender, to name two essays, particularly interesting. I can’t say that I’ve read a lot of academic criticism, aside from articles in my English undergrad studies, but I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of it. Rothfeld’s writing strikes a great balance for me: well-written enough and complex enough to satisfy me with new ideas, while being mostly pretty comprehensible to anyone scared away from truly “academic” writing.
The marketing around ATaTS positions it as a collection of essays defending excess against the ascendant minimalist threat. This is what drew my attention to the book in the first place, since it’s an idea I’m fascinated by. In my college years I was caught up in the minimalism trend: the allure of ruthlessly culling my possessions until I could, at a moment’s notice, leave my boring American life behind to backpack around Europe was particularly gripping. What I wanted were not things, but experiences. I tried to meditate, to sort the clutter of my mind into something sleeker, cleaner. The popularity of Marie Kondo represents maybe the height of the minimalist victory, as many of us began to assess our possessions on whether or not they “sparked joy,” and eliminate (though not after saying a fond farewell to) those that didn’t make the cut.
The book’s first two essays, All Things are Too Small and More is More, are the ones that most directly deal with this idea. I found them to be some of the more thought-provoking essays in the book, though one of them centers on dissecting a particular kind of fragmented autofiction that is both critically popular in the literary fiction world today, and a kind of book I rarely - if ever - read. The core of her argument, and the one I found most compelling whenever it surfaced in other essays, is that minimalism focuses on eliminating everything that isn’t necessary to life, but that the joys of life, the things that make us human, are the things we don’t simply need, but the things we want. Rothfeld argues that art and beauty are generally “excessive,” and it’s these things that go beyond our bare subsistence that make life worth living.
But venture much further in the book, and it quickly becomes obvious that the “anti-minimalism” theme of the whole book is just marketing, an attempt to find something, anything, to tie these disparate essays together. In reality, the book finds Rothfeld blending sociological insight, classic auteur film, her own life’s narrative, and political ideology into a scattershot collection that varies in quality.
I enjoyed Normal Novels (the essay I’d already read comparing the work of Sally Rooney to, of all things, Fifty Shades of Grey), and The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy (looking at body horror and the erotic through the lens of auteur filmmaker David Cronenberg), while others like Other People’s Loves and Our True Entertainment Was Arguing are centered on pieces of fiction I either haven’t experience or have entirely forgotten, and thus didn’t get as much out of.
My favorite essays here are the ones most tied to the (marketed) central premise, such as the aforementioned first two, Wherever You Go, You Could Leave (a take-down of the mindfulness idea market that wasn't wholly convincing but was interesting), Murder on the Installment Plan (tracing the history of serialized stories through the mystery/crime novel, and my favorite, Only Mercy.
Only Mercy is an exploration of sex in the post #MeToo era, particularly framed around the idea of consent, and deliberately proposing a conception of sex and consent that differs from ideas popular among the post-liberal right (the sexual revolution has gone too far and women actually want stable, emotional, monogamous, child-bearing sex), and the left (our sexual desires are shaped by unequal cultural values, and though any adult can have any kind of sex they want with any other adult(s), it behooves us to try to change our desires to be more egalitarian).
Rothfeld diagnoses her two example approaches to sex as both failing to consider sex in its own right, as a thing people might do and enjoy regardless of its other meanings. To spoil her ultimate conclusion - Rothfeld views sex, and particularly kink, as play. In this way, she brings it back to the vaguely-overarching theory of the collection: play, like art, is not strictly necessary. You might say, it’s excessive, something done for its own sake, because it’s fun, because it’s enjoyable, because it makes life work living.
It’s not brought up at all in the essay, but for me, I couldn’t help carrying that conception of play to my favorite hobby and creative endeavor: running role-playing games for my friends. It’s a form of play that isn’t so different from imaginative make-believe on the playground, but one that takes our adult interests into consideration. Contemporary society doesn’t give adults much acceptable outlets for play; in many circles it even considers play to be incompatible with responsible, sober adulthood. For many people, it’s just sex, if they’re lucky, that feels this way.
For me, play is the ultimate end, a good in and of itself. If the world I want ever comes to pass, the egalitarian world where peoples’ basic needs are met, what is left? Our wants. Our fun. Our play. Our pointless, excessive play.
Overall, this is an intriguing collection of criticism that I didn’t always agree with, or, frankly, understand, but whenever it kept closest to its vague central thesis of the importance of the excessive, the maximalist, the playful, it both challenged me and gave me new ways of thinking about the parts of life most important to me.
July 12, 2024
Despite Rothfield’s disdain for many of my faves, I loved so much of this. Especially the chapter on mindfulness and thinking. This felt like those arguments your parents have with their friends when they visit.
It was fast, punchy and ridiculously funny.
However there were some glaring blind spots that were made all the more obvious at her insistence on pointing them out in others. Namely race and racially inequity. This book is glaringly white in its art and referential content, of which there are so many; Very few are outside the scope of white western canon.
It was fast, punchy and ridiculously funny.
However there were some glaring blind spots that were made all the more obvious at her insistence on pointing them out in others. Namely race and racially inequity. This book is glaringly white in its art and referential content, of which there are so many; Very few are outside the scope of white western canon.
June 12, 2024
Have you ever been in a social setting, overheard someone making a controversial point about a subject and found yourself agreeing with them only to be appalled by their delivery and lack of social awareness? That's how I felt reading this book.
This is a pretentious book. It's unreservedly, happily-rolling-in-it pretentious. That's fine. I'm also very pretentious. Rothfeld simply seems to find the concept of politeness completely foreign. Let me explain in the briefest way I can manage.
Rothfeld has a plethora of opinions about activities that are not only a waste of time, but a personal affront to the essence of humanity. She has taken not shutting the fuck up when other people are doing something she's deemed stupid, self-delusional or contrary to her beliefs as her life calling. Some of these things include decluttering, meditation and reading Sally Rooney.
If I may one-up Rothfeld in pretentiousness, since being able to call people out on stupid shit is clearly one of her core beliefs, I can only comment on the things about which I know she's wrong for lack of contextual information. I haven't read Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey or Sally Rooney because I don't read books I know are not for me only so I can complain about other people enjoying them. I have, however, watched video essays about why other people like them. It's about giving other people the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming they're all morons, you see? Or conflating escapist fantasy with people's actual desires for themselves.
There are many moments in the course of reading this book when Rothfeld is so close to getting it. So close to extending other people the common courtesy of assuming they know themselves better than she gives them credit for. So very close to understanding others in a shining moment of empathy that it's painful when she fails to do so only to explain to the reader from the point of view of a Jane Austen character what she's failing to do herself.
I could get into the specific misunderstandings she has regarding people's personal beliefs and the imposition of those practices as a corporate tool within capitalism, of the impossibility of marketing an unsellable idea as a product, and the disconnect there is between what these ideas are meant to be and what they have become, but Rothfeld has decided people have been prescribed empty-headedness as a cure for every ailment in a monumental feat of assuming she is smarter than everybody else because she's the only one who sees through this charade.
Rothfeld discusses neo-Protestantism and the resurgence of puritanical morality as the source of many evils. This is correct. And yet she fails to understand that the use of "Let people enjoy things" in context had to do with this angle, and is not necessarily a complaint against people criticising Marvel movies for their artistic value or lack thereof. This happens as well, of course, but there is a rampant problem on Tumblr in which people conflating the content of a text taken at face value with the author's morality take it upon themselves to ostracise and harass people who express any enjoyment of it (e.g. Nabokov was a paedophile and if you like Lolita you are one as well). This is a manufactured problem within the American school system because children have not been taught to read for the past 15 years, but we don't have time for that now. We also don't have time to discuss how little she seems to understand about BDSM dynamics.
To sum up, Rothfeld thinks other people are wasting their lives trying to empty them rather than filling them. This is a perfectly reasonable opinion to hold. It may even be a perfectly reasonable opinion to express. Despite this, I would advise her to make sure she knows how to communicate with others without coming across as a supercilious asshole.
This is a pretentious book. It's unreservedly, happily-rolling-in-it pretentious. That's fine. I'm also very pretentious. Rothfeld simply seems to find the concept of politeness completely foreign. Let me explain in the briefest way I can manage.
Rothfeld has a plethora of opinions about activities that are not only a waste of time, but a personal affront to the essence of humanity. She has taken not shutting the fuck up when other people are doing something she's deemed stupid, self-delusional or contrary to her beliefs as her life calling. Some of these things include decluttering, meditation and reading Sally Rooney.
If I may one-up Rothfeld in pretentiousness, since being able to call people out on stupid shit is clearly one of her core beliefs, I can only comment on the things about which I know she's wrong for lack of contextual information. I haven't read Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey or Sally Rooney because I don't read books I know are not for me only so I can complain about other people enjoying them. I have, however, watched video essays about why other people like them. It's about giving other people the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming they're all morons, you see? Or conflating escapist fantasy with people's actual desires for themselves.
There are many moments in the course of reading this book when Rothfeld is so close to getting it. So close to extending other people the common courtesy of assuming they know themselves better than she gives them credit for. So very close to understanding others in a shining moment of empathy that it's painful when she fails to do so only to explain to the reader from the point of view of a Jane Austen character what she's failing to do herself.
I could get into the specific misunderstandings she has regarding people's personal beliefs and the imposition of those practices as a corporate tool within capitalism, of the impossibility of marketing an unsellable idea as a product, and the disconnect there is between what these ideas are meant to be and what they have become, but Rothfeld has decided people have been prescribed empty-headedness as a cure for every ailment in a monumental feat of assuming she is smarter than everybody else because she's the only one who sees through this charade.
Rothfeld discusses neo-Protestantism and the resurgence of puritanical morality as the source of many evils. This is correct. And yet she fails to understand that the use of "Let people enjoy things" in context had to do with this angle, and is not necessarily a complaint against people criticising Marvel movies for their artistic value or lack thereof. This happens as well, of course, but there is a rampant problem on Tumblr in which people conflating the content of a text taken at face value with the author's morality take it upon themselves to ostracise and harass people who express any enjoyment of it (e.g. Nabokov was a paedophile and if you like Lolita you are one as well). This is a manufactured problem within the American school system because children have not been taught to read for the past 15 years, but we don't have time for that now. We also don't have time to discuss how little she seems to understand about BDSM dynamics.
To sum up, Rothfeld thinks other people are wasting their lives trying to empty them rather than filling them. This is a perfectly reasonable opinion to hold. It may even be a perfectly reasonable opinion to express. Despite this, I would advise her to make sure she knows how to communicate with others without coming across as a supercilious asshole.
June 24, 2023
Even the book description is nonsensical.
May 13, 2024
Please go buy this book. I found myself grinning, nodding, and occasionally pumping the air with my fist as I devoured these pages. Such a refreshing and exciting series of reflections- no, exaltations - about some of the most complex and important tenets of the good life. I can’t wait to read it again.
“No matter how viciously or vehemently we perceive it, art persists, and try as we might, we cannot consume it. We could scarcely lick the lines of poems we love. We read and recite writing without wearing out its eloquence. Art is nourishment that never spoils, that regenerates itself.” (p. 157, “Having a Cake and Eating it Too”)
“No matter how viciously or vehemently we perceive it, art persists, and try as we might, we cannot consume it. We could scarcely lick the lines of poems we love. We read and recite writing without wearing out its eloquence. Art is nourishment that never spoils, that regenerates itself.” (p. 157, “Having a Cake and Eating it Too”)
June 6, 2024
My head nearly fell off from nodding along to this so much.
I don't have to "agree" with a nonfiction book to appreciate it, but it doesn't hurt. Though what really works here is that Rothfeld not only slays sacred cows, but also argues passionately for the things she wants instead: unrestrained, uncontrollable, larger-than-life ecstasy.
I don't have to "agree" with a nonfiction book to appreciate it, but it doesn't hurt. Though what really works here is that Rothfeld not only slays sacred cows, but also argues passionately for the things she wants instead: unrestrained, uncontrollable, larger-than-life ecstasy.
July 23, 2024
There were five star essays in this collection, essays that I highlighted like crazy and wanted to discuss as soon as I finished them, essays that literally kept me up at night, brain buzzing with ideas. There were essays that felt like a chore. The only difference was whether Rothfeld was referencing texts that I had read or texts that I hadn't.
"All Things Are Too Small"
The question I kept asking, that I hoped Rothfeld would at least address, was, "What about climate change?"
"I once saw a man in a restaurant finish his plate of pasta, order the same dish again, eat it, then order and finish it a third time. His was the sanest response to his predicament, but he wouldn't have had to grasp at such exorbitance if any plate available were big enough... There is no way around the sense, lodged hard in the throat, that the greatest human longings exceed any possible fulfillment... All things are too small" (7-8).
"More is More"
In this essay, I had the wonderful experience of seeing the merits of Rothfeld's argument while simultaneously disagreeing with it at a constitutional level. I love fragment novels, and while the aesthetic of modern minimalism doesn't appeal to me, I do love the paring down my possessions to the necessities.
"The fragment novel, which is divested of all extravagance, is therefore an artwork from which the art has been removed, a body drained of all it's blood and carnality" (55).
"Ladies in Waiting"
"Waiting seems central to the experience and practice of masochistic piety's messianic successor, romantic love, the force that is supposed to redeem twenty-first-century women as religious salvation once redeemed their forebears" (59).
"The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy"
I'm not a horror fan, so I don't know who Cronenburg is. But the comparison of new love/lust to monstrousness was absolutely grotesque and poignant. Like, the idea that Gregor Samsa becoming a giant bug was actually a good thing because at least it made his life a little more interesting? Wild. And then saying, yeah, falling in love is kind of like turning into a giant bug. Wild!
"More disturbing than fiction in which a person goes to sleep human and wakes up freshly verminous, more terrifying than disfiguring medical procedures or zombifying pathogens, is the grafting of one life to another. I had no rational grounds for deciding that I wanted my particles to be spliced with my husband's, but before I had any say in the matter, our bodies were already minced into a different meat" (92).
The idea of wanting to be completely obliterated by an experience is a common thread in this text, as is consent/love/sex. At times, Rothfeld is critical of this obliteration (specifically in reference to minimalism and meditation,) while at other times she hoists it up as one of the premiere experiences a person can have.
"Over and over, she is told: you don't have to do anything you don't want to do; you don't have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable... The procedure the consenter is instructed to follow is not unlike the operation favored by decision theorists. First, she is to imagine what sex with the partner under consideration will be like; second, she is to assign a value to the experience that she has conjured; third, she is to assign a probability of accuracy to her prediction..." Then she can give consent, and withdraw it if anything violates her preconceptions. However, Rothfeld continues, "Three faulty assumptions are baked into this model. The first is that people in general, thus women in particular, can predict, if roughly, what a prospective partner will be like during sex; the second is that people in general, thus women in particular, can predict what they will be like during sex with a prospective partner; the third is that sex can and should be comfortable " (103-4).
"Wherever You Go, You Could Leave"
Rothfeld expresses the same frustration around meditation that I have experienced, specifically arguing that any practice that aims to quiet thoughts is actually aiming to repress the self, because thoughts are the self.
"None of the advocates of mindfulness think - if you'll pardon the word, which is in fact as hard to avoid as the activity is to renounce - more highly of thinking than they do of cinema or theater. As far as they are concerned, there is not much that is fulfilling or even pleasantly diverting about following a thought to another thought, perhaps all the way to a conclusion" (155).
Only Mercy: Sex After Consent
In this essay, Rothfeld examines the arguments of both left and right wing thinkers, the latter of which she calls the "new puritans," around consent and pleasure in the post-MeToo era.
"Before we declare sexual liberation a flop, we might try actually achieving it," (260). She continues to say that there is no conversation about what "sex should be about" (271), only conversations around its failings.
Maybe a solution is "To take the sort of care with sex that an artist takes with her work, this is what it means to follow through with the task of sex being 'serious'" (279).
Another is that it is an opportunity to "make real - and therefore unexpected and sometimes disorienting - contact with other people, rather than glancing contact with the affirming balm of our own fantasies" (285).
Besides connection, "sex for its own sake involves a jubilee of generosity" (286).
"Normal Novels"
Rothfeld both praises and critiques Sally Rooney's first two novels, even going so far as to compare them to Twilight and Fifty Shades, in that they are stories of so-called "normal girls" who are made extraordinary, who are loved and respected, because of their normalcy.
"Our True Entertainment Was Arguing"
A validating read! I know Elijah and I have made many friends uncomfortable with our incessant arguing, but here, Rothfeld argues that the ability to "give as good as you get" is a foundation for what I'm going to call "true love."
"A good conversation involves variation. It never settles into sameness or boredom or the monotony of canned responses. It never rests in one place for long. It is always hurtling ahead into the next room. For when we have no rooms left to answer, no intellectual dramas left to resolve, no care left to convey, no questions left to answer, no quips left to volley back like tennis balls, our love has come to a close. But, if we are lucky, we will find someone to whom we can say, at least until death compels us to shut up: a lifetime is not enough for all we have to tell each other" (367).
This essay also made me think about English class, why it is important. How our ability to communicate and to think isn't just about sending emails at work or writing essays in college, it's about the quality of the connections that we will have over the course of our lives, and about our ability to truly engage with our own ideas and the ideas of others. If I ever taught AP Lang or Lit, I would consider teaching this essay.
"All Things Are Too Small"
The question I kept asking, that I hoped Rothfeld would at least address, was, "What about climate change?"
"I once saw a man in a restaurant finish his plate of pasta, order the same dish again, eat it, then order and finish it a third time. His was the sanest response to his predicament, but he wouldn't have had to grasp at such exorbitance if any plate available were big enough... There is no way around the sense, lodged hard in the throat, that the greatest human longings exceed any possible fulfillment... All things are too small" (7-8).
"More is More"
In this essay, I had the wonderful experience of seeing the merits of Rothfeld's argument while simultaneously disagreeing with it at a constitutional level. I love fragment novels, and while the aesthetic of modern minimalism doesn't appeal to me, I do love the paring down my possessions to the necessities.
"The fragment novel, which is divested of all extravagance, is therefore an artwork from which the art has been removed, a body drained of all it's blood and carnality" (55).
"Ladies in Waiting"
"Waiting seems central to the experience and practice of masochistic piety's messianic successor, romantic love, the force that is supposed to redeem twenty-first-century women as religious salvation once redeemed their forebears" (59).
"The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy"
I'm not a horror fan, so I don't know who Cronenburg is. But the comparison of new love/lust to monstrousness was absolutely grotesque and poignant. Like, the idea that Gregor Samsa becoming a giant bug was actually a good thing because at least it made his life a little more interesting? Wild. And then saying, yeah, falling in love is kind of like turning into a giant bug. Wild!
"More disturbing than fiction in which a person goes to sleep human and wakes up freshly verminous, more terrifying than disfiguring medical procedures or zombifying pathogens, is the grafting of one life to another. I had no rational grounds for deciding that I wanted my particles to be spliced with my husband's, but before I had any say in the matter, our bodies were already minced into a different meat" (92).
The idea of wanting to be completely obliterated by an experience is a common thread in this text, as is consent/love/sex. At times, Rothfeld is critical of this obliteration (specifically in reference to minimalism and meditation,) while at other times she hoists it up as one of the premiere experiences a person can have.
"Over and over, she is told: you don't have to do anything you don't want to do; you don't have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable... The procedure the consenter is instructed to follow is not unlike the operation favored by decision theorists. First, she is to imagine what sex with the partner under consideration will be like; second, she is to assign a value to the experience that she has conjured; third, she is to assign a probability of accuracy to her prediction..." Then she can give consent, and withdraw it if anything violates her preconceptions. However, Rothfeld continues, "Three faulty assumptions are baked into this model. The first is that people in general, thus women in particular, can predict, if roughly, what a prospective partner will be like during sex; the second is that people in general, thus women in particular, can predict what they will be like during sex with a prospective partner; the third is that sex can and should be comfortable " (103-4).
"Wherever You Go, You Could Leave"
Rothfeld expresses the same frustration around meditation that I have experienced, specifically arguing that any practice that aims to quiet thoughts is actually aiming to repress the self, because thoughts are the self.
"None of the advocates of mindfulness think - if you'll pardon the word, which is in fact as hard to avoid as the activity is to renounce - more highly of thinking than they do of cinema or theater. As far as they are concerned, there is not much that is fulfilling or even pleasantly diverting about following a thought to another thought, perhaps all the way to a conclusion" (155).
Only Mercy: Sex After Consent
In this essay, Rothfeld examines the arguments of both left and right wing thinkers, the latter of which she calls the "new puritans," around consent and pleasure in the post-MeToo era.
"Before we declare sexual liberation a flop, we might try actually achieving it," (260). She continues to say that there is no conversation about what "sex should be about" (271), only conversations around its failings.
Maybe a solution is "To take the sort of care with sex that an artist takes with her work, this is what it means to follow through with the task of sex being 'serious'" (279).
Another is that it is an opportunity to "make real - and therefore unexpected and sometimes disorienting - contact with other people, rather than glancing contact with the affirming balm of our own fantasies" (285).
Besides connection, "sex for its own sake involves a jubilee of generosity" (286).
"Normal Novels"
Rothfeld both praises and critiques Sally Rooney's first two novels, even going so far as to compare them to Twilight and Fifty Shades, in that they are stories of so-called "normal girls" who are made extraordinary, who are loved and respected, because of their normalcy.
"Our True Entertainment Was Arguing"
A validating read! I know Elijah and I have made many friends uncomfortable with our incessant arguing, but here, Rothfeld argues that the ability to "give as good as you get" is a foundation for what I'm going to call "true love."
"A good conversation involves variation. It never settles into sameness or boredom or the monotony of canned responses. It never rests in one place for long. It is always hurtling ahead into the next room. For when we have no rooms left to answer, no intellectual dramas left to resolve, no care left to convey, no questions left to answer, no quips left to volley back like tennis balls, our love has come to a close. But, if we are lucky, we will find someone to whom we can say, at least until death compels us to shut up: a lifetime is not enough for all we have to tell each other" (367).
This essay also made me think about English class, why it is important. How our ability to communicate and to think isn't just about sending emails at work or writing essays in college, it's about the quality of the connections that we will have over the course of our lives, and about our ability to truly engage with our own ideas and the ideas of others. If I ever taught AP Lang or Lit, I would consider teaching this essay.
October 23, 2023
perfect, the play of the life of Rothfeld’s mind is intoxicating
July 8, 2024
to wait is to love. 3.5, rounding up for some thought provoking questions
July 5, 2024
DNF - was just too pretentious. Someone compared it to Susan Sontag and I agree - she even called people “philistines” like Sontag. I did agree with her argument about Marie Kondo and minimalism. But I just couldn’t deal with all the academic condescension, and I was really not feeling the chapter on waiting/sex. Maybe I’ll come back to it another time, but there’s just too many other things I’d rather read right now.
June 14, 2024
I was so excited for this book because I love (almost) all things excessive and opulent, but in the end, the essays felt so disjointed thematically. This one aspect distracted me so much. I might have to read each essay separately a second time to get a better grasp on them. I did enjoy quite a few of the essays as standalones, even if I disagreed (and I almost always disagreed with the reasons supporting the thesis). But there were some essays that were written with too strong of a bias that it was unpleasant to read, even when I had the same general opinion. I know this is a collection of opinion pieces, but even then, some essays felt more like rants than fleshed out arguments.
Read
December 24, 2023DNF. Rothfeld's writing is eloquent and seemed well-done; I just wasn't in the mood while I was reading it. The concept of this collection of essays sounds intriguing, and I think wanting physical things wars with a feeling of financial security for many of us. To be honest, not quite sure whether or not that was Rothfeld's point, as I simply was not in a frame of mind to comprehend her arguments.
April 16, 2024
I was certainly too dumb for some of these essays but others were spectacular. You can tell Rothfeld is deliriously smart
March 31, 2024
rothfeld is many things — a sharp stylist, incisive skeptic, aesthetically attuned philosopher — but above all else (as is the nature of the critic), she is a delightful hater. i could only hope to someday be able to so snappily snobby, so academically argumentative in dispensing my own censoriousness. such brutal takedowns of sally rooney and mindfulness could not have passably been regarded as fair debates if not buoyed by rothfeld's sumptuous prose and clear-eyed purview — only k-ming chang could surpass her whip-smart deployment of alliteration.
i usually find it difficult to slog through essay collections, even if i do find them interesting, so i was surprised when i sped through all things are too small in the matter of a week, especially given its relative lengthiness. but perhaps the dynamism of rothfeld's style, or the book's contrarian subject matter, or its topicality to my own academic studies made it all the more traversable. i do, however, understand why some have felt less than enamored by the book — at times, there's an awful lot of work assigned to the reader to follow rothfeld's thread, and even more so to agree with her. i'd find it difficult to imagine someone who is not squarely in rothfeld's intellectual milieu to be convinced by her work, given that her criticism is at times so acerbic, her references so wide-ranging, her stylistic idiosyncrasies so fine-tuned. the effusiveness of her writing can also at times appear to meander from the marketed focus on excess — though i will say there appears to be a huge discrepancy between marketing intention and impact, to which i would rather berate the publisher than the writer.
regardless, all things are too small was for me superbly entertaining and bitingly thought-provoking, even if at times not wholly cohesive and at others even overly contemptuous (this coming from someone who thought she was a world-class hater until encountering this book). i found rothfeld's connections from her arguments to her personal life especially compelling and her purely academic works less persuasive, though perhaps that says more about me. anyway, i will be rushing to put norman rush's mating on my tbr, and am happy to say that the book has opened up a new genre of enjoyment i previously was closed off to. much thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for a review!
i usually find it difficult to slog through essay collections, even if i do find them interesting, so i was surprised when i sped through all things are too small in the matter of a week, especially given its relative lengthiness. but perhaps the dynamism of rothfeld's style, or the book's contrarian subject matter, or its topicality to my own academic studies made it all the more traversable. i do, however, understand why some have felt less than enamored by the book — at times, there's an awful lot of work assigned to the reader to follow rothfeld's thread, and even more so to agree with her. i'd find it difficult to imagine someone who is not squarely in rothfeld's intellectual milieu to be convinced by her work, given that her criticism is at times so acerbic, her references so wide-ranging, her stylistic idiosyncrasies so fine-tuned. the effusiveness of her writing can also at times appear to meander from the marketed focus on excess — though i will say there appears to be a huge discrepancy between marketing intention and impact, to which i would rather berate the publisher than the writer.
regardless, all things are too small was for me superbly entertaining and bitingly thought-provoking, even if at times not wholly cohesive and at others even overly contemptuous (this coming from someone who thought she was a world-class hater until encountering this book). i found rothfeld's connections from her arguments to her personal life especially compelling and her purely academic works less persuasive, though perhaps that says more about me. anyway, i will be rushing to put norman rush's mating on my tbr, and am happy to say that the book has opened up a new genre of enjoyment i previously was closed off to. much thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for a review!
July 11, 2024
Through the sludge of essayists in the modern day- often too caught up in looking inward than in writing something at generally interesting (let alone profound)- emerges Rothfeld!! It speaks to her talent that I stumbled upon one of her book reviews, read one more article, and immediately purchased her book.
I feel that many people are writing essays with nothing really to say, or something obvious to say, or they’re just “mimicking profundity”. I appreciate that Rothfeld actually has opinions, even if I don’t agree with all of them, and that those opinions have actually added to or challenged the way I see something about the world. I doubly appreciate that along with a large vocabulary (which many writers have), she also has snappy, beautiful prose (which FEW modern writers have).
I think her essays shined the most when she was willing to really delve into the ideas of who/what she was critiquing (ex: the sally rooney essay or only mercy). Unfortunately her arguments felt weaker when she was so decisive in her dismissal (ex: minimalism or mindfulness)- still very good but I think could’ve been stronger. Sometimes she would critique someone and even if that person were ultimately wrong, hers the least generous possible read, and that kinda damaged her authority in those essays for me.
Her moments of vulnerability and excitement really shined- ex: the stalking her ex’s new girl essay or praising “Mating” at the end of the novel. There were a lot of “All Things are Too Small” essays, and I do wish there were more “Essays in Praise of Excess” essays because the ones where she was really descriptive of something she liked were just so enjoyable.
Overall a great debut! I will be watching for her next book for sure
I feel that many people are writing essays with nothing really to say, or something obvious to say, or they’re just “mimicking profundity”. I appreciate that Rothfeld actually has opinions, even if I don’t agree with all of them, and that those opinions have actually added to or challenged the way I see something about the world. I doubly appreciate that along with a large vocabulary (which many writers have), she also has snappy, beautiful prose (which FEW modern writers have).
I think her essays shined the most when she was willing to really delve into the ideas of who/what she was critiquing (ex: the sally rooney essay or only mercy). Unfortunately her arguments felt weaker when she was so decisive in her dismissal (ex: minimalism or mindfulness)- still very good but I think could’ve been stronger. Sometimes she would critique someone and even if that person were ultimately wrong, hers the least generous possible read, and that kinda damaged her authority in those essays for me.
Her moments of vulnerability and excitement really shined- ex: the stalking her ex’s new girl essay or praising “Mating” at the end of the novel. There were a lot of “All Things are Too Small” essays, and I do wish there were more “Essays in Praise of Excess” essays because the ones where she was really descriptive of something she liked were just so enjoyable.
Overall a great debut! I will be watching for her next book for sure
May 15, 2024
there is so much to note in this fantastic work! I feel altered by this the same way I did when I finished middle march. how lucky are we to live in the same time period as such a cutting yet sympathetic and lovable genius like Becca rothfeld! going to throw out my favorite quotes:
"to be sure, it is uncomfortable to stand on the precipice of metamorphosis, but unless we are willing to assume genuine risk, we cannot be undone and remade."
"what's the point of contemplating a human life from an inhuman perspective?"
"even in utopia, we will be at the mercy of unpredictable forces."
the below are from my favorite essay, the last one:
"care is possible only between people who regard each other as equals. this much becomes obvious when we examine misfires, attempts at love that fail to become what they are trying to be."
"you can relish the art of disagreement only when you have an evenly matched opponent...the kind of equality necessary for love is the kind necessary to sustain conversation"
"but the conversations one love blaze on out of interest and internal momentum. their interlocutors don't leave, not because they are lazy, but because they have more to say."
"but if we are lucky, we will find someone to whom we can say, at least until death compels us to shut up: a lifetime is not enough for all we have to tell each other."
"to be sure, it is uncomfortable to stand on the precipice of metamorphosis, but unless we are willing to assume genuine risk, we cannot be undone and remade."
"what's the point of contemplating a human life from an inhuman perspective?"
"even in utopia, we will be at the mercy of unpredictable forces."
the below are from my favorite essay, the last one:
"care is possible only between people who regard each other as equals. this much becomes obvious when we examine misfires, attempts at love that fail to become what they are trying to be."
"you can relish the art of disagreement only when you have an evenly matched opponent...the kind of equality necessary for love is the kind necessary to sustain conversation"
"but the conversations one love blaze on out of interest and internal momentum. their interlocutors don't leave, not because they are lazy, but because they have more to say."
"but if we are lucky, we will find someone to whom we can say, at least until death compels us to shut up: a lifetime is not enough for all we have to tell each other."
May 13, 2024
Probably my favorite thing I've read all year! Becca Rothfeld is frighteningly intelligent, empathetic (both in terms of her respect for the breadth of the human emotional experience and in her ability to identify not just what makes her opponents wrong, but also what they get right), and downright _funny_. I wish I could emphasize how refreshing it is for someone to be able to both hate in a funny way and to also depict the things she loves passionately (film, art, good sex) with such aplomb that the appreciation is contagious.
Rothfeld also stands out to me in this collection in terms of her commitment to identifying what the good life might actually consist of. Her compatriots on the left are adept at dissecting what's wrong with capitalism or problematizing society as it is, but I confess that sometimes I tire of a neverending stream of books that always end with the same diagnosis without an appropriately rigorous engagement with an appropriately specific vision of what society should look like. I get the sense that Rothfeld cares about this kind of specificity - a hope for the future that is as clear-eyed as hindsight is.
P.S. The essay on Sally Rooney made me feel vindicated for not loving Normal People :)
Rothfeld also stands out to me in this collection in terms of her commitment to identifying what the good life might actually consist of. Her compatriots on the left are adept at dissecting what's wrong with capitalism or problematizing society as it is, but I confess that sometimes I tire of a neverending stream of books that always end with the same diagnosis without an appropriately rigorous engagement with an appropriately specific vision of what society should look like. I get the sense that Rothfeld cares about this kind of specificity - a hope for the future that is as clear-eyed as hindsight is.
P.S. The essay on Sally Rooney made me feel vindicated for not loving Normal People :)
April 2, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the advanced copy! The following is my honest review:
In her debut essay collection, Rothfeld pushes back against the current cultural norms of restraint, balance, and modesty by extolling the virtues of excess and abandon. Topics vary widely, from aesthetics to consent, Marie Kondo to Sally Rooney, but underlying each is an urge to be more, more, more.
Rothfeld’s criticism is nothing short of refreshing. When we’re flooded with messages to divest ourselves of our earthly belongings and approach love with cold, calculated caution, it’s a thrill to read essays that praise giving in to our basest desires and luxuriating in excess. I’ve suspected for a little while that, post-pandemic, we’re going to move away from minimalist culture, and Rothfeld demonstrates why its death can’t come soon enough.
More importantly, I appreciate a writer willing to take risks and state an unpopular perspective—Rothfeld argues, for example, that perhaps Sally Rooney is not as groundbreaking a writer as she’s made out to be (a “hot take” with which I’d agree), and that preoccupation with sexual consent limits playfulness and experimentation in the bedroom. (To be clear, Rothfeld is not advocating for a disposal of consent, but rather a redefining of it.) It sometimes feels these days that every writer with any sort of visibility is saying the same things, afraid to express authenticity lest it lead to internet hate; I’m overjoyed to know Rothfeld is not among this group.
Though these essays are critical rather than personal, I didn’t find them unapproachable, and I enjoyed Rothfeld’s smartly sassy style. She weaves in just enough personal anecdotes to prevent the essays from sounding dry or academic, but not so many that they detour into memoir. For Rothfeld’s voice alone, I’ll continue to seek out her work.
My criticisms of the collection are minor: namely, that most of Rothfeld’s references are fairly archaic or obscure, which occasionally led to some passages confusing me before I researched further. I don’t mind doing a little extra work while reading, and am myself a fan of classic cinema and mystical literature, but I’d love to have seen Rothfeld argue against modern values with more modern sources.
In short, if you’re a fan of thoughtful, yet stylish cultural criticism, or simply have had your fill of minimalism and reticence, this collection is a must read.
In her debut essay collection, Rothfeld pushes back against the current cultural norms of restraint, balance, and modesty by extolling the virtues of excess and abandon. Topics vary widely, from aesthetics to consent, Marie Kondo to Sally Rooney, but underlying each is an urge to be more, more, more.
Rothfeld’s criticism is nothing short of refreshing. When we’re flooded with messages to divest ourselves of our earthly belongings and approach love with cold, calculated caution, it’s a thrill to read essays that praise giving in to our basest desires and luxuriating in excess. I’ve suspected for a little while that, post-pandemic, we’re going to move away from minimalist culture, and Rothfeld demonstrates why its death can’t come soon enough.
More importantly, I appreciate a writer willing to take risks and state an unpopular perspective—Rothfeld argues, for example, that perhaps Sally Rooney is not as groundbreaking a writer as she’s made out to be (a “hot take” with which I’d agree), and that preoccupation with sexual consent limits playfulness and experimentation in the bedroom. (To be clear, Rothfeld is not advocating for a disposal of consent, but rather a redefining of it.) It sometimes feels these days that every writer with any sort of visibility is saying the same things, afraid to express authenticity lest it lead to internet hate; I’m overjoyed to know Rothfeld is not among this group.
Though these essays are critical rather than personal, I didn’t find them unapproachable, and I enjoyed Rothfeld’s smartly sassy style. She weaves in just enough personal anecdotes to prevent the essays from sounding dry or academic, but not so many that they detour into memoir. For Rothfeld’s voice alone, I’ll continue to seek out her work.
My criticisms of the collection are minor: namely, that most of Rothfeld’s references are fairly archaic or obscure, which occasionally led to some passages confusing me before I researched further. I don’t mind doing a little extra work while reading, and am myself a fan of classic cinema and mystical literature, but I’d love to have seen Rothfeld argue against modern values with more modern sources.
In short, if you’re a fan of thoughtful, yet stylish cultural criticism, or simply have had your fill of minimalism and reticence, this collection is a must read.
May 6, 2024
Rothfeld is an excellent writer, overall, and I liked most of these essays. The Sally Rooney critique was boring to me and I was hoping she would offer more reasoning to why she felt the way she did, other than her not really enjoying "boring" men. The political critique of Rooney's books isn't new, so it felt secondhand while reading it even though I know it was published earlier as well. The sex and consent essay was interesting, but it used two books to structure her points. One was Acts of Service which I hated and the other was Little Rabbit which I didn't mind. I still think there's a weird energy in those two books and Rothfeld's essay that felt very strawman /to me/. All three vaguely (or directly) use lesbianism as a comparison in a way that I find annoying and unfair, so I found reading it a bit off-putting. Overall, I had a good time reading these essays and I highlighted a lot.
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