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A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Traveling across the country and meeting and listening to a host of incredible characters, including doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet.
- Sales Rank: #186542 in Books
- Published on: 2011-04-05
- Released on: 2011-04-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.99" h x .78" w x 5.19" l, .59 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Lawrence Osborne Reviews In Pursuit of Silence
Lawrence Osborne has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and other publications, and is the author of six books, including The Accidental Connoisseur and The Naked Tourist. His latest work, Bangkok Days, was published in 2009. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of In Pursuit of Silence:
At the beginning of George Prochnik’s inquiry into the nature of silence and its perpetual nemesis, noise, he observes, “Something seems to have made us fall in love with noise as a society. It's a torrid, choppy affair that we are often in denial about, or tend to laugh off as a bass-heavy, summer night’s fling.” It’s a strange and delicious premise: to launch an extended essay into the obscure root causes of our culture’s inability to be quiet, its self-saturation with its own largely uninteresting cacophony. Are we becoming noisier? Prochnik argues that we are, and that as we become noisier we also lose touch with the many dimensions of silence itself, a silence which research seems to suggest is as therapeutic--as essential--to the human animal as antibiotics or uncontaminated food.
Americans suffer enormously from noise pollution. Insomnia, aggression, heart disease, decreased longevity even...the side-effects of enduring other people’s noise are detailed here with disturbing elegance. It’s almost as if noise itself is a disease, a pathogen. But whereas a doctor or a “noise scientist” would have written a straightforward catalogue of this network of medical cause and effect, Prochnik goes for a more sinuous, open-ended literary method that enables him to cover a wider territory with less strain on the reader’s capacity to absorb science. He is asking, after all, a philosophical question rather than a scientific one. Why do we love noise, fear silence and evade a stillness that demonstrably puts us in closer connection with things that give us happiness if we let them?
Early on in his voyage Prochnik spends some time with a cop who is frequently called upon to intervene in domestic disputes. When he arrives he usually finds that the unhappy home is a raging cacophony of radios, TV’s, music all playing simultaneously--layer upon layer of mad noise used to prevent silence from arbitrating between the combatants. The cop tells Prochnik that he merely asks the subjects to turn off the appliances and the near-homicidal atmosphere dissolves almost at once. They had, he says, been arguing with noise itself rather than with each other.
It’s a small anecdote that shows how counterintuitive much of our real relationship with noise and silence really is. This delightful book considers facet after facet of this relationship and does so from the perspective of someone who is, so to speak, a “noise sufferer” himself. It could so easily have been a Sedaris-y kind of tongue-in-cheek memoir about a succession of sonic mishaps and misadventures, but Prochnik--by virtue of a kind of pressing moral insistence born of genuine unease and even anger--weaves a more objective tale as he plunges into the exotic milieus of engineers, scientists, astronauts and sundry monks, ascetics and artists who struggle with the eternal duel of noise and silence. The end result is a book that you read--as I did--on long intercontinental flights with the roar of engines around you, aware suddenly of how peculiar the cultural pathology is but drawn in by the book’s own measured stillness. It is not an easy feat to pull off.
A Note from The AuthorI’ve always been a lover of silence, and this love is bound up with my passion for books. The writer Stefan Zweig once defined a book as a “handful of silence that assuages torment and unrest.” For years before I began writing about the subject, I’d been feeling that silence was a diminishing natural resource. I wanted to understand whether this was more than a subjective impression. If so, why had the world become louder, and what could be done to reinstate silence as a value in our culture?
Living in New York City, I couldn’t help being aware that almost everyone I knew hated the city's noisiness. But if everyone despises noise so much, why is there so much of it? And why do so many noise-haters also spend hours of the day with iPods in their ears, sleep next to loud air-conditioners, turn on televisions the moment they walk into a room, and crank up their car radios the moment they sit down behind the wheel?
We’re never going to make progress toward creating a quieter world until we learn to understand our secret love affair with noise. Part of what we have to recognize is that noise is a compelling stimulant. This noise-high can be addictive and adding your own din into the mix can become a way of exerting control. Stepping back from all the stimulation is not easy, but it can be done. Rather than cutting out stimulation, I went searching for the kinds of sonic wonders that only become audible when we manage to quiet down the world around us.
Instead of being against noise, I think we need to begin making a case for silence. This means getting imaginative about expanding our understanding of silence in ways that develop associations between silence and a vibrant, fulfilling life. Anti-noise activists often compare noise pollution to air pollution. But unlike smoke, lots of noises are good, at least some of the time. Instead, we might frame noise as a dietary problem. Most of us absorb far too much sonic junk. We need to develop a more balanced sound diet in which silence, and sounds we associate with quiet states of mind, become part of our daily regimen.
My hope is that by making positive experiences of silence more broadly accessible, more people will be tempted to cultivate silence of their own volition. Who knows? If we manage to recover more quiet in the world, maybe people will even begin reading more books again--rediscovering what can be contained in a handful of silence. --George Prochnik
From Publishers Weekly
Silence is golden, but noise is more stimulating in this smart if occasionally overearnest rumination on our modern soundscape. Prochnik (Putnam Camp) is at his best investigating the culture of noise—the traffic, TV, and iPods—that ravages our hearing and peace of mind. He tunes in with a sprightly mix of science—babies, it seems, have evolved to squall at pitches the human ear finds maximally annoying—and reportage, visiting a designer who concocts soundtracks that make Abercrombie & Fitch patrons spend (loud, strong, fast beats pump energy—and social conformity into soldiers and teen shoppers alike) and the subculture of competitive loud car-stereo tournaments. (I didn't hear sound, the author observes of one window-shattering system. I just experienced my bones and heart bursting apart through my skin.) Prochnik's explorations of silence—visiting a Trappist monastery, searching for oases of quiet in Manhattan—are more muted, veering between health advice (meditation improves the brain) and muzzy spirituality. (The more we hear nothing, the more nothing we hear, intones a sniper.) Silence is good for falling asleep, but Prochnik's attentive take on noise keeps us wide awake. (Apr.)
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From Booklist
Starting with a visit to a Trappist monastery and moving through shopping malls, city gardens, and even an extreme car-audio competition, Prochnik amiably escorts readers through investigations into silence and noise in modern life. Name-dropping everyone from the expected (Thoreau) to the surprising (spacewalker Suni Williams), he asks questions of those who design the sound systems that make us spend at Abercrombie & Fitch as well as sound-proofing equipment exhibitors at Noise Con. Some prescient history is discussed, including the successful battle for quiet by Julia Rice (the “Queen of Silence”) on the Hudson River in the early twentieth century. Mostly Prochnik stays in the present, where he finds that people are accepting higher and higher noise levels, even though they crave quiet. Perhaps most illuminating is his time spent with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University, who offer an unexpectedly different perspective as they live without the impact of noise. Elegant and understated, this thoughtful look at rarely considered aspects of everyday life reveals an often unrecognized cost of modern living. --Colleen Mondor
Most helpful customer reviews
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
Understanding Sound in the Modern World
By Frederick Kaufman
This is a beautifully written, scientific and philosophical account of sound and meaning in our over-hyped, maximum-volume world. Prochnik has done outstanding research and great reporting, and he offers profound meditations on the Walkman, the iPad, PA systems, urban pocket parks, sound designers, Deaf Architecture, and Trappist monks, among many other fascinating (and often disquieting) topics. An amazing book.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
WHY IS THE SOUNDPROOF HOUSE I'VE FANTASIZED ABOUT A BAD IDEA?
By Kindle Customer
This book explains why. It will lead you to think about noise in a way you probably haven't ( a cop explains that loud noises probably contribute to domestic violence) and explain why it is bad for us- but also why total silence isn't good , either. A graceful and readable mix of research and anecdote, this book will interest anyone who wrestles with the effects of a too-loud world.
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
The delight of exploration
By France Kassing
George Prochnick takes us on an adventure through the many aspects of silence and sound. As we accompany him everywhere his quest takes him, be it a monastery or a boom car competition, we share discoveries that surprise and either thrill or dismay us. Just as in Manhattan's pocket parks, this book delivers a sense of well-being in its many delightful episodes. Beautifully written, I found myself eagerly awaiting the next expert the author would encounter just for the pleasure of reading his description of that person. I recommend this book heartily to anyone who wishes to expand their understanding of the world around them and have a great time doing it.
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