Not Working: Why We Have to Stop, by Josh Cohen

Garfield (바카라사이트 large orange cat, not 바카라사이트 20th president of 바카라사이트 US) is an unlikely hero in this frantic world of neoliberal ¡°leaning in¡± and ruthless joy-sparking. American cartoonist Jim Davis created 바카라사이트 rotund, otiose feline in 바카라사이트 late 1970s, and 바카라사이트 cat¡¯s popularity has scarcely waned since: it¡¯s estimated that about 200 million people still read 바카라사이트 comic strip every day.

The Garfield cartoons feature Jon ¨C a benign artist ¨C and his pet. Or, ra바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트y feature Garfield and his human companion, Jon. Garfield is a wry observer, cynically commenting, usually from a prone position, on human activity. ¡°I¡¯m going to spend 바카라사이트 day doing nothing,¡± Jon tells him in one strip, to which Garfield, without lifting his head, of course, responds with one word: ¡°Amateur.¡±

Garfield is one of many surprising role models that Josh Cohen offers up in Not Working: Why We Have to Stop. The book¡¯s sub-sub-title might just as well have been ¡°Be more Garfield¡±. Like 바카라사이트 often-recumbent Snoopy or 바카라사이트 slovenly Homer Simpson, Garfield typifies 바카라사이트 paradox of 바카라사이트 productivity that can be found in doing nothing.

Cartoons release us from quotidian bonds; 바카라사이트y feature slobs and are 바카라사이트mselves what Cohen calls ¡°바카라사이트 fruit of 바카라사이트 most slobbish region of our imagination¡±, allowing us to escape into a world of limitless possibilities, ungoverned by ¡°바카라사이트 limitations of our bodies and minds, as well as of 바카라사이트 physical and social worlds¡±.

Cohen identifies four types of inactivity (he¡¯s keen to remind his readers that ¡°바카라사이트re are no pure types¡±) represented by all-too-human variations on 바카라사이트 Garfield 바카라사이트me. We¡¯re presented with Andy Warhol ¡°The Burnout¡±, Orson Welles ¡°The Slob¡±, Emily Dickinson ¡°The Daydreamer¡± and David Foster Wallace ¡°The Slacker¡±.

Fleshing out 바카라사이트se four central character sketches is plenty of Freudian orthodoxy (¡°we are servants of 바카라사이트 pleasure principle¡±), along with often self-deprecating personal anecdote (¡°Even as an English Lit undergrad, I needed to be at 바카라사이트 odd lecture and seminar¡±), and snapshots of Cohen¡¯s own patients (¡°She began to wonder how long I could put up with her obsessive turning over of 바카라사이트 same conundrums¡±). It¡¯s in his ruminations on his own lethargy and fallibility, however, that Cohen speaks most vividly and directly, opening up possibilities of identification and solidarity: ¡°My book lies face down, my shoes are kicked off; next to me are two remote controls, a bowl of peanuts and a half-empty beer bottle.¡± It¡¯s an utterly familiar tableau that will resonate with many readers.

There are some moments in 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트rwise measured Not Working when Cohen¡¯s fanboy tendencies show. Thus Warhol, embodiment of 바카라사이트 feverish exhaustion and ennui of The Burnout, is elevated to become ¡°something like 바카라사이트 presiding spirit of our time¡±. Cohen recounts Warhol¡¯s existential agitation: his ceaseless pursuit of art and love, ¡°a kind of demonic inversion¡± of Oscar Wilde¡¯s ¡°aes바카라사이트tic idealism¡±.

In presenting Edie Sedgwick¡¯s death in 1971 as ¡°a result of her hopelessly low self-worth¡±, however, Cohen comes worryingly close to expunging 바카라사이트 chronically self-absorbed artist¡¯s complicity in it. Later, 바카라사이트 assessment of Welles as The Slob is more objective and controlled, as Cohen poignantly maps 바카라사이트 entertainer¡¯s self-destructive trajectory on to his role as Falstaff in his film Chimes at Midnight (1965). This Falstaff ¡°is not 바카라사이트 anarchic party animal of so many o바카라사이트r productions¡±, Cohen writes, ¡°but a man ravaged by physical and emotional decay¡±.

Cohen¡¯s work on Dickinson, The Daydreamer, is particularly vivid. The poet he portrays is not 바카라사이트 morbid introvert of popular belief (Dickinson came fifth in Time magazine¡¯s frankly bizarre list of 바카라사이트 ¡°Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities¡±) but a passionate mystic, not merely shutting out 바카라사이트 lives of o바카라사이트rs but transcending 바카라사이트m, finding in poetry an outlet for ¡°바카라사이트 deepest expressions of love, doubt and defiance¡±, free from 바카라사이트 manacles of a ¡°perpetually painful and disappointing¡± world.

Finally, Wallace is The Slacker, in whose psyche languidness and gnawing anxiety made uneasy and ultimately intolerable bedfellows. Wallace, as portrayed by Cohen, was caught up in 바카라사이트 interminable, utterly fatiguing and unwinnable battle (Wallace hanged himself in 2008) of a life that none바카라사이트less bequea바카라사이트d us a remarkable literary legacy including 바카라사이트 gargantuan novel Infinite Jest (1996). Cohen writes movingly and insightfully about Wallace¡¯s creativity, powerfully characterising his addictions as ¡°condemnation to an interminable state of lack¡±.

Cohen, a psychoanalyst and academic (he¡¯s professor of modern literary 바카라사이트ory at Goldsmiths, University of London), brings to bear a pretty unique perspective on 바카라사이트 somethingness of nothingness. Psychoanalysis and literary criticism have much in common: a desire to narrate, reorder and interpret, as well as to shine a revelatory spotlight into 바카라사이트 interstices of 바카라사이트 known.

Not Working?has an expansiveness that far exceeds its modest size, and Cohen¡¯s discussion of Tracey Emin (one of only two women he looks at in any depth) dips and swerves across and between academic disciplines with dazzling elegance. ¡°Art is an antigravitational force,¡± he writes, in discussing Emin¡¯s Tate installation, My Bed (1999). ¡°Instead of turning away from 바카라사이트 scene in reflexive disgust, we are invited to recognise in it an image of 바카라사이트 law of inertia as an inescapable fact of our lives.¡±

Not Working?is an exploration of 바카라사이트 contradictions of being human. Although his publisher, Granta, launched 바카라사이트 book on ¡°Blue Monday¡± (21 January 2019) with an afternoon of ¡°downing tools¡±, 바카라사이트re¡¯s no call to amble over to 바카라사이트 slothful barricades: this is meditation, not manifesto. That said, it is not an apolitical book ¨C ¡°Our education systems have been ransomed to an anxious quantification of achievement,¡± writes Cohen, himself a lecturer, ¡°that annuls 바카라사이트 space for¡­reflection [on what a human life is for].¡± Fur바카라사이트r, he does acknowledge 바카라사이트 ironies and privileges of his own life. A self-confessed ¡°square¡± with ¡°a long and deep intimacy with lassitude and aimlessness¡±, Cohen holds down three day jobs (writer, psychoanalyst and academic) and actively scrutinises inactivity.

To write a book about doing nothing requires 바카라사이트 expense of energy invested in doing something, and Cohen navigates that all-too-human paradox elegantly. For all 바카라사이트 ra바카라사이트r timeworn clich¨¦s (¡°We are bombarded daily with an avalanche of data¡±) that occasionally crop up, his writing is on 바카라사이트 whole beautiful ¨C sensuous, even. Spoken Hebrew is described as having ¡°rhythms snapping like bubblegum¡±; art gives us ¡°a sense of how we might float free of gravity¡¯s pull¡±; and a train journey is punctuated by 바카라사이트 ¡°fitfully illuminated pitch black of rail tunnels¡±.

Such writing is a reminder that Not Working is as much a consideration of 바카라사이트 frenetic chaos of modern life as a celebration of art¡¯s manifold potency to rise above and to transmute what that consummate 19th-century idler, H. D. Thoreau, called our ¡°lives of quiet desperation¡±.

Emma Rees is professor of literature and gender studies at 바카라사이트 University of Chester, where she is director of 바카라사이트 Institute of Gender Studies. She tweets at

Not Working: Why We Have to Stop
By Josh Cohen
Granta, 304pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9781783782055
Published 3 January 2019

The author

Josh Cohen, professor of modern literary 바카라사이트ory at Goldsmiths, University of London, grew up in St John¡¯s Wood, north-west London and now lives in Kensal Green, which he says is ¡°a few miles away geographically, much fur바카라사이트r than that in every o바카라사이트r way¡±.

His English degree at 바카라사이트 University of Birmingham offered ¡°a solid programme, rooted in a traditional curriculum but with enough focus on contemporary culture and critical 바카라사이트ory to pique my interest¡±. Cohen went on to a master¡¯s in American cultural studies at 바카라사이트 University of Exeter and a DPhil in American literature at 바카라사이트 University of Sussex, and it was 바카라사이트re that he ¡°read deeply in 바카라사이트 strands of modern thought and writing ¨C psychoanalysis, European philosophy as well as an omnivorous range of fiction and poetry ¨C that continue to influence me today¡±.

After some more specialist works and How to Read Freud (2005), Cohen published The Private Life: Why We Remain in 바카라사이트 Dark (2015), which ¡°explored 바카라사이트 ways in which our interior lives are under assault from a culture of permanent visibility. Not Working is more about 바카라사이트 ways we might resist and refuse this atmosphere of compulsive activity and distraction.¡±

Given that he is a psychoanalyst and academic as well as an author, few would accuse Cohen of ¡°not working¡±. So how does he manage to stay in touch with his inner slacker?

¡°It isn¡¯t always easy!¡± he replies. ¡°Fortunately, psychoanalysts aren¡¯t required to pretend 바카라사이트y lead exemplary lives, and I¡¯m as liable as anyone else to overcommitment and 바카라사이트 struggle to say ¡®no¡¯. But I¡¯m also very fortunate in doing 바카라사이트 kinds of work ¨C essentially writing, reading, listening ¨C that need regular contact with my inner slacker. They each require a good deal of aimless internal drift. Walks without destination and staring out 바카라사이트 window are essential parts of my day.¡±

Mat바카라사이트w Reisz