Monday, November 1, 2010

“Endangered Pleasures:” a quarter into it


The first response:

Snobbery. A bit of snobbery is oozing from this book—I partially enjoy it, and I partially despise it. The notion of pleasure being related to class and financial stability is a little too bourgeois—and because of that feels a little dated.
Additionally, thinking back to the mid-90’s (its date of publication), pop culture was going through a grungification (NEW WORD): Nirvana; Pearl Jam; MTV’s “The Real World” and “House of Style;” movies such as “Reality Bites” and “Singles” were all canons of less-flash-recycled-trash-apathetic-coolness. Was Endangered Pleasures Holland’s call to stop the cultural progression? Part of me thinks it worked, we are back to the flashy-glam-over consumption-live beyond your means kind of lifestyle. But, that lifestyle is shifting due to the inability to sustain it financially.

With all that aside, in between the snobbery are some golden nuggets of sage wisdom from a woman who writes with a female voice that aches for independence and feminism but falls flat with a quiet female ego.

Let us strive to be merry. Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending. Pleasure itself is endangered (from the preface).


Very Virginia Wolf—I have a feeling they are chain smoking together in the afterlife.

I do enjoy the notion of communal delights, and the need to experience life with others to really fill a moment. But, Holland is unable to associate such an experience free of her smugness. “Pleasures shared are pleasures heightened—not to mention the happiness of showing others that ours are more refined than theirs” (Coffee). BURNED again with snobbery. However, I will state (and you all are my witness) that I firmly agree: “the ideal breakfast is probably a glass of cold champagne and a perfectly ripe pear, perhaps with a spoonful of caviar eaten straight from the jar” (Breakfast). And these delights all come with a price. They are delightful in the fact that they are commodity, rooting back to the notion of I have and you have not.

Holland admits “smugness is one of life’s basic joys” (Exercise), but I have a hard time of accepting complacency as a basic joy. I prefer happiness, acceptance, and humor. And she revisits this smugness time and time again: “Clothes, on the other hand, always come along to explain your wealth and power and social importance to strangers” (Clothes). Furthermore, her smugness is far from being eco-cheek, “Buy at retail, use hundred-watt bulbs, and leave the thermostat at seventy” (Saving Money). All these statement bring me back to a single image: a sad, insolent individual who lives without consideration of reactions, fellow humans, and simple, free, natural pleasures that are accessible to all and have been proven by scientific investigation to lift spirits and lighten stress: nature walks, meditation, laughter.

2 comments:

  1. Your first response makes me think that perhaps Holland wishes she were a secondary character in an Edith Wharton novel when smugness incited drama that defined the upper class. It's funny to think about it in today's context where televisions like Gossip Girl and reality TV like the Desperate Housewives of (insert city here) haven't sort of exposed smugness to be merely a lack of appreciation for natural pleasures. However, then I think about regular people or at least those I meet in New York from a cheap dive bar in Williamsburg to an expensive lounge in Soho, and I guess the one thing that I could say they all have in common is their healthy dose of smugness. Or maybe it's just me?

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  2. I don't think it's just you. Part of (I'm jumping ahead with no real explanation but I know you ladies will get it sans preface) modern alienation is using commodity to feel better about ourselves. We have what you don't. We are better than you. That smugness is perfectly placed in all pockets of city culture, from the island to the boroughs.

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