Book Review: In Praise of Slowness

In Praise of Slowness
Carl Honoré
310 pages. HarperSanFrancisco, 2004, $15. Orion, £11.

Buy from Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon FR

I’m slow. I admit it. I like taking my time, doing things to enjoy them, rather than rush through what I have to do. (Though I never miss deadlines…) I like lazing around, enjoying the beautiful weather and landscape here in the French Alps, and watching the mountains grow. One of my favorite activities is sitting on the terrace of my house, listening to music and reading.

I also like to take naps in the afternoon, I like to cook (I very much like baking bread), and like to stroll. I don’t care for speed; I don’t drive fast, I don’t walk fast, and I try not to eat fast.

I wasn’t always like this, though. I grew up in New York City, where everything is fast, and where you have to hurry so you don’t get left behind. I ran for busses and subway trains, hurried to get to work or to get home, rushed to dates, appointments and movies, and ended up with an ulcer.

Of course, that is the past. It wasn’t leaving New York that cured me – though that helped – but integrating some of the good things about living in France into my lifestyle. Don’t think that the French are always slow, though; they drive faster than most (except, perhaps, the Italians), and they’ve become a very stressed out society, especially in big cities.

But 8 years ago, I made a choice. It was the best career change I ever made, and I don’t think I’ll ever regret it: I became a freelancer. Initially, I worked as a translator, and over the years shifted into writing. Both these activities can be done anywhere, as long as you have a phone line to connect to the Internet, and five years ago I moved to a village in the French Alps, where I can now enjoy the wonderful climate and exhilarating landscapes.

So, when I came across Carl Honoré’s book, In Praise of Slow (in the US, the title is In Praise of Slowness), I immediately wanted to see if I was part of this “movement that challenges the cult of speed by proving that slower is often better.” Honoré is, like me, a freelance writer, and for him, the eureka moment came while waiting in line at an airport with nothing to do. While skimming a newspaper, he chanced across an article about “The One-Minute Bedtime Story”. As he says, “think Hans Christian Andersen meets the executive summary.” It turns out that people are in such a hurry that they focus on the product rather than the process, and would rather read ten one-minute stories to their kids than to tell them one real, heart-felt story.

This is just one example of how people spend so much time cutting corners and rushing things that they no longer see their lives, or their children’s lives, go by. We’ve all seen the power executives, juggling their cellphones, PDAs, Blueberries, laptops and the rest as they try and keep up with the hectic pace of their business. Rather than take a deep breath and focus on one task at a time, business men and women now “multi-task” constantly, trying to keep up, yet never really grasping what they are doing.

Okay, I’ll admit it – while I’m slow, I take advantage of modern technology. Just yesterday, I was instant-messaging a friend in Portland, Oregon, while awaiting a phone call from an editor who was on a train between New York and Boston. I love the ability to work with people around the world, but I cheat: I don’t have to rush in between those calls.

Honoré looks at speed, how we live and work, and seeks out the flip-side: people around the world who have changed the way the live, and who eschew some of the trappings of the modern road warrior in exchange for simpler, slower living. They spend more time with their kids, get to do things they’ve always wanted to do (such as gardening, knitting, or cooking), and calm down. They feel better, live less expensively (when you’re not in a hurry, you learn to appreciate what you have, not what others have), and get to know their friends and family better.

In this book, Carl Honoré is an investigative journalist. He seeks out the “slow movement” wherever it can be found. He meets with proponents of slow food in Italy, and visits slow cities in the US. He tries out many slow activities: meditation, slow weightlifting, and even Tantric sex. He discovers the joys of working less, resting more, and listening to music at a slower tempo.

Honoré is not prescriptive, however; he is not out to evangelize the world. In the introduction, he says, “this book is not a declaration of war against speed.” It’s true that speed, at time, has its value. Fast planes, fast trains, and lightning fast data transfers all make my life easier at times. The real lesson of this book is in the details. How you can live fast part of the time and use your “leisure” time to recharge your batteries. He cites many people who have experimented with one or more slow activities, yet who don’t subscribe to the entire lifestyle. All these people point out how slowness at certain times allows them to be more efficient when working or living fast.

If you feel that life is getting ahead of you, and that you’re always trying to catch up, you should read this book and start exploring living slow. Even if you just adopt one or two of the ideas here – slow eating, slow exercise, slow sex – the change in your entire body can be astounding. Perhaps you’ll get hooked, and look for even better ways to live a slow life. You might even find that simplicity is good.

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