The Lonely City by Olivia Laing (July 2020)
This book is broadly about loneliness, but the concept comes through more as theme than as topic, at least from my reading. It reminded me at times of how I felt as I read Plant Dreaming Deep - like I was being ushered past locked doors during a house tour. In the case of The Lonely City, my interest in Laing's experience of loneliness was often redirected toward her research, which analyzed how artists have used their experiences of loneliness to inform their work. I can imagine this book will amaze, delight, or inspire many readers, but for me it needed a little more connection to the author's experience to reach the loftiest levels of my reading list.
There were quite a few remarks and insights that have stayed with me over the past three months, some of which have very little to do with the loneliness theme. For example, my transition into remote work has seen my interactions with colleagues changed in a manner highlighted by this book - our communication tools are demonstrating considerable influence over the interactions within my team. The most interesting change has been the perception of effective leadership skills - with our communication technologies of choice essentially reduced to a holy trinity of email, chat, and video, leadership skills have been redefined on the fly as some combination of organization and execution, which has marginalized traditional qualities such as presence, vision, and decisiveness that were seen just months ago as crucial qualities for successful management.
The thoughts specific to loneliness that I liked the most explored its mechanics and considered its various consequences, both in terms of negative impact to the individual yet also in its positive influence on the work of renowned artists. But I thought its most important observations saw loneliness with slightly unusual perspectives - for example, that loneliness is always a reminder that we are alive, or that its collective cure requires constant vigilance against stigma and exclusion. The most significant insight - which points out that we look at challenging emotions such as loneliness as problems to be cured rather than responses to the world - suggested to me that we should be careful of moving too fast toward alleviation, even in the current moment of chronic isolation, because in our individual experience is always valuable intuition about the missing pieces of a better tomorrow.
TOA Rating: Three solitaires out of four.
