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Loading... The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (original 2016; edition 2017)by Olivia Laing (Author)1   Widsith | May 9, 2019 |    ) caedocyon | Mar 6, 2024 | blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 | ) mykl-s | Jul 24, 2023 | Some of her subjects are well-known; the work of Edward Hopper and Andy Warhol are familiar to most, but the likes of David Wojnarowicz and Henry Darger were completely new to me. Laing is clearly enamoured with the political art of Wojnarowicz, but I found Darger's life story and work wholly fascinating and bizarre, and the great find of reading this book. I still don't know what to make of him and his paintings of cherubic children being tortured by evil aliens. This leads me to the key weakness I found in this book. Laing goes into great detail describing pictures or photos, but leaves the reader to imagine what she is talking about, or go scurrying to Google to find the piece that she's discussing. This book would have been a whole lot better with some plates showing the works that she is dissecting. Other than that, a really absorbing and fascinating read. (  ) gjky | Apr 9, 2023 | I made some notes on the first couple of chapters when I first started reading this in 2018, and at the time I enjoyed Olivia's personal accounts of her own experience a lot more than the deep dives into the different artists. I especially disliked Hopper. However, now that I read the last handful of chapters at the beginning of 2021, the tables had turned. Or maybe it just so happened that the artists were much more to my liking. Whatever the case may be, what began as a pretty lackluster experience, ended on a much more positive note. The accounts were interesting and pulled me in, and I actually even teared up a little at one point. This is a pretty sharp look at loneliness and all it brings with it. There were times where I felt annoyed or agitated because the observations were less than flattering, but still so spot on. Kind of forces you to accept some uncomfortable truths. ( ) tuusannuuska | Dec 1, 2022 | Author Olivia Laing opens the book with a chapter on loneliness in general and the difficulties of finding much research in the psychology surrounding it, as well as the reasons so little experimental data or study about it exists. She talks about how this malady stalks so many of the professional who would study it and she gives statistical data about the extent of its presence in both the US and the UK. With these comes also statistics about the fullest, worst impacts of loneliness including illnesses, crimes, anger issues and the huge suicide rates that continue rapidly rising. She also discusses how social media only serves to exacerbate the isolation and loneliness. Using a technique she will utilize throughout the book, Laing discusses her own sense of loneliness and isolation, even within one fo the most vibrant and alive cities on earth, New York. Her narrative moves on to adding other components: interpretations of various artworks, discussions of the artists who created them, and, sometimes, even the early lives of those artists and how those may have contributed to the profound loneliness of these gifted creators. My own favorite painting, "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper, receives her first analysis which is also combined with a discussion of Hopper's early life. Other visual artists are also discussed throughout the book including, most prominently, Andy Warhol. Many noted figure within most of the visual and performing arts are used as exemplars of loneliness and how their work often reveals it to viewers. Hopper's works reveal an obsession with it even though he denied its presence in his productions. In addition to discussing the life stories of so many of the people she analyzes, she also discusses how many of them were also from marginalized populations including minorities, homosexuals, those impoverished, emigres, the handicapped, the unattractive, and others. Throughout the narrative, Laing intertwines her own experiences of loneliness, stimulating both empathy and self-revelation in readers. I read this book as an audiobook, the first time I had listened to an audiobook in many years. I have a hearing handicap which has very much pushed me into he realms of the marginalized, a handicap which makes it very difficult to attend social events or make new friends. This book resonated strongly with me, helping me to both see and understand how much I have lost by being on the fringes of humanity. ( ) PaulLoesch | Apr 2, 2022 | ) viviennestrauss | Nov 3, 2021 | I had ups and downs with the book, sometimes being utterly interested and unable to stop reading, while bored at some other points. All in all, it was not quite what I had expected of it, but still a very interesting book. Interesting, but not pleasant if that's what you are looking for, I think it's inevitable to feel sad reading the book. (  ) kladimos | Sep 23, 2021 | Lonely City consisted mainly of lengthy biographies of lonely people in New York, such as Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, etc. That’s all well and fine if you’re not a biography-reader in general. You learn a lot about these individuals. However, if you’re like me, you just want enough information to make you say “Ooo I need to add that person’s biography / memoir to my list!” You don’t want to know every interesting detail before you even crack open the official biography. Know what I mean? So I felt this book gave way too much information. I wanted to know more about the author, Olivia Laing, and her experiences. ( ) Jinjer | Jul 19, 2021 | ) jpsnow | Oct 21, 2020 | ) mitchtroutman | Jun 14, 2020 | ) aezull | Apr 10, 2020 | The Lonely City opens with a discussion of loneliness and the idea that you can be lonely anywhere but there is a special sense of loneliness when one is surrounded by millions of people in an urban environment. Laing then examines different artists lives and their struggle with loneliness. Perhaps the idea of being lonely in NYC is magnified greatly when you are famous. Laing describes the what it was like for someone like Andy Warhol to be surrounded by people and ultimately remain lonely. David Wojnarowicz and AIDS, Billie Holiday and "Strange Fruit", Henry Darger and being a recluse, Klaus Sperber and AIDS and general eccentricness, and, of course, the internet (and technology) creating millions of friends you do not know. The chapter that really reached out and grabbed me, though, was the one on Edward Hopper. The name may not ring a bell at first but his painting of a diner scene is known by all. The couple who are together but alone a single customer and a single worker. The streets are empty and the sense is one of profound loneliness and perhaps being trapped in the dim drab that surrounds the scene. Notice there is no door to the diner. Looking through Hopper’s other paintings there are people alone in their environment or even when they have another human being in the scene there is an awkward tension, almost trying to regain privacy. Loneliness is a feeling and like most feelings are hard, if not impossible to describe with words. A look at any number of Hopper’s paintings and one will see what loneliness is and relate to that feeling. I read this book on a flight to California, crammed in a middle seat of a fully booked 737 and it was a fitting book for the flight. Crammed in a mass of humanity, not knowing anyone, and perhaps just as importantly not wanting to know the two people invading my personal space. I dove into my Kindle. The man on my left watched a movie on his tablet and the man on my right kept opening and closing a book grumbling about wanting a cigarette. A very good read about social interaction and the avoidance of it. ( ) evil_cyclist | Mar 16, 2020 |  ) AlisonSakai | Oct 28, 2019 |  ) carliwi | Sep 23, 2019 | Having spent sizeable chunks of my own life being lonely in unfamiliar cities, I immediately liked the idea as well as the melancholy tone of this book. Laing has all kinds of interesting insights to offer on how loneliness manifests itself – but it should be noted that while The Lonely City presents itself as a memoir of this time in her life, under the hood it's really a book of art criticism, examining the life and work of visual artists (mostly) who addressed loneliness as a subject. Her main case studies are Hopper, Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, Henry Darger and Klaus Nomi, some of whom I had never heard of, but all of whose work emerges in this study as full of the pain and the hypersensitivity of loneliness – infused with (in a phrase she uses about Hopper) ‘an erotics of insufficient intimacy’. Unfortunately it is necessary for the reader to put these references together for themselves, as the book itself is critically short of illustrations. I loved the memoir bits and thought the criticism bits were only OK, which meant I found the book as a whole a little uneven, though often fascinating. Although Laing has a load of interesting things to say about the artists she discusses, I couldn't shake off the feeling that they sometimes appeared to act as a cover, or safety net, for when talking about herself became too difficult. Tracing Wojnarowicz's nocturnal excursions into the New York gay scene of the 1980s, for instance, leads Laing to a moody consideration of her own sexuality – her sense that she is ‘in the wrong place, in the wrong body, in the wrong life’ – in terms that are first allusive, and finally more direct: I'd never been comfortable with the demands of femininity, had always felt more like a boy, a gay boy, that I inhabited a gender position somewhere between the binaries of male and female, some impossible other, some impossible both. Trans, I was starting to realise, which isn't to say I was transitioning from one thing to another, but rather that I inhabited a space in the centre, which didn't exist, except there I was. The narrative really comes alive at these points; but it isn't long before Laing ducks back behind another artist again and retreats, if that's not an unfair word, into more analytic criticism. And again – the criticism was interesting! – I just felt that the art and the memoir got in each other's way as often as they reinforced each other. Which was a shame, because I found her really excellent when concentrating on the life writing – on, for instance, the way loneliness has been mediated, yet in some ways worsened, by the modern online world – especially when it comes to the contradictory impulses that drove her on social media: I wanted to be in contact and I wanted to retain my anonymity, my private space. I wanted to click and click and click until my synapses exploded, until I was flooded by superfluity. I wanted to hypnotise myself with data, with coloured pixels, to become vacant, to overwhelm any creeping anxious sense of who I actually was, to annihilate my feelings. At the same time I wanted to wake up, to be politically and socially engaged. And then again I wanted to declare my presence, to list my interests and objections, to notify the world that I was still there, thinking with my fingers, even if I'd almost lost the art of speech. I wanted to look and I wanted to be seen, and somehow it was easier to do both via the mediating screen. Laing's neat summary of the internet – ‘what seemed transient was actually permanent, and what seemed free had already been bought’ – is perhaps a clue to the appeal of the artists she focuses on, who were either far outside any corporate influence or, like Warhol, were making commodification the whole point of their work. Seeing these lonely artists through Laing's gaze is enlightening – but the links and segues are so good that I spent much of the book pining for a straight-up memoir. (  )1 Widsith | May 9, 2019 | Latkes | Mar 21, 2019 | Olivia Laing shares an antidote for loneliness in her absorbing 2016 reflection on disconnection The Lonely City. She catalogs multiple varieties of loneliness expressed through the art and artists whose footsteps she followed in her solitarily roaming of the streets of New York City. Part memoir and part art history, this collection of short biographies explores humanity’s eternal striving for connection while inspiring my own reflections on empathy for loneliness. The well-documented role of connection to others, and if you like, connection to a god, shared human consciousness, the laws of the universe, or ancestors in wellness cannot be overstated. Laing’s stories of Hopper, Darger, Wojnarowicz, and Warhol provide perspective about the search for connection through art. Beginning with Hopper’s Nighthawks and ending with the dangers of the Internet Laing touches on themes useful when listening to the loneliness of our fellows. Loneliness seems to be at heart of much mental illness. So, for professional listeners, including mental health counselors, these stories can help provide a foundation for understanding the isolation of human pain. However, there is room for additional work on this topic. While Laing does a nice job exploring the search for connection with others she leaves the connection with one's self alone. It struck me through all of these stories each of the artists were really in search of acceptance from themselves, even as they reached to others for solace. My experience of disconnection, honed over 30 years of slowly eroding self-enforced isolation, provides a foundation for empathy useful in many professional situations. Listening to loneliness is a humbling activity with many practical applications. I am grateful to Laing for her work and for the reflections provoked while reading this book. The Lonely City is a book for those who appreciate non-conformity, art history, good writing, and connecting to disconnected selves and fellows. It has a place on the bookshelf of every counselor. ( ) RmCox38111 | Dec 25, 2018 | I won this book on Goodreads, and I was not disappointed! Olivia Laing writes very well. Some passages are moving, especially in the chapter on Henry Darger. Something I really liked is the analysis of some artworks. To sum up, if you like art, this book is really worth it. ( ) JulietteGF | Mar 27, 2018 | ) missizicks | Mar 7, 2018 | ) JaredOrlando | Oct 3, 2017 | För att kunna hantera den nya och obekväma situationen, utforskar Laing flera artisters liv, vars tillvaron präglats av ensamhet (Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol m.fl.) Hon berättar om sina tankar och känslor från den perioden på ett uppriktigt sätt, men har fokus på konst som verktyg för att hantera ensamhet. ( ) Damir_C | Sep 10, 2017 | ) KimMeyer | Sep 7, 2017 | ) mahallett | May 30, 2017 | Olivia Laing moved to New York to be with a man with whom she had fallen in love, though shortly after her arrival there the relationship foundered. Her plans left utterly awry she had to find accommodation for herself (which she achieved through a series of sublets from friends of friends of friends, and then try to carve out a new life for herself in a city in which she was a complete outsider. She achieved that, but succumbed at times to a crushing, almost immobilising, loneliness, which led her to research what was merely suspected, and what was actually understood, about that sensation. Her exegesis of the nature of loneliness is fascinating, and she renders the psychological analyses in a completely accessible manner. It is, however, also heartrendingly sad in places, and there were times when I simply had to stop reading for a while. Such was the power of her writing, however, that after a brief hiatus, I returned agog for more. Along the way, she also explores the effect of loneliness on the work of several prominent artists, including Edward Hopper, David Wojnarowicz and Andy Warhol, all of whom suffered from crushing loneliness throughout their careers. Laing recapitulates their respective careers with a brisk but engaging analysis, and demonstrates how their early experiences of isolation, disenfranchisement and loneliness contributed to their eventual success. Laing also delivers a brief history of the emergence and eventual diagnosis of AIDS, and the marginalisation that it wrought upon the gay community in the early years after its identification. A courageous and moving book. ( ) Eyejaybee | Apr 28, 2017 | |
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Having spent sizeable chunks of my own life being lonely in unfamiliar cities, I immediately liked the idea as well as the melancholy tone of this book. Laing has all kinds of interesting insights to offer on how loneliness manifests itself – but it should be noted that while The Lonely City presents itself as a memoir of this time in her life, under the hood it's really a book of art criticism, examining the life and work of visual artists (mostly) who addressed loneliness as a subject.
Her main case studies are Hopper, Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, Henry Darger and Klaus Nomi, some of whom I had never heard of, but all of whose work emerges in this study as full of the pain and the hypersensitivity of loneliness – infused with (in a phrase she uses about Hopper) ‘an erotics of insufficient intimacy’. Unfortunately it is necessary for the reader to put these references together for themselves, as the book itself is critically short of illustrations.
I loved the memoir bits and thought the criticism bits were only OK, which meant I found the book as a whole a little uneven, though often fascinating. Although Laing has a load of interesting things to say about the artists she discusses, I couldn't shake off the feeling that they sometimes appeared to act as a cover, or safety net, for when talking about herself became too difficult. Tracing Wojnarowicz's nocturnal excursions into the New York gay scene of the 1980s, for instance, leads Laing to a moody consideration of her own sexuality – her sense that she is ‘in the wrong place, in the wrong body, in the wrong life’ – in terms that are first allusive, and finally more direct:
I'd never been comfortable with the demands of femininity, had always felt more like a boy, a gay boy, that I inhabited a gender position somewhere between the binaries of male and female, some impossible other, some impossible both. Trans, I was starting to realise, which isn't to say I was transitioning from one thing to another, but rather that I inhabited a space in the centre, which didn't exist, except there I was.
The narrative really comes alive at these points; but it isn't long before Laing ducks back behind another artist again and retreats, if that's not an unfair word, into more analytic criticism. And again – the criticism was interesting! – I just felt that the art and the memoir got in each other's way as often as they reinforced each other. Which was a shame, because I found her really excellent when concentrating on the life writing – on, for instance, the way loneliness has been mediated, yet in some ways worsened, by the modern online world – especially when it comes to the contradictory impulses that drove her on social media:
I wanted to be in contact and I wanted to retain my anonymity, my private space. I wanted to click and click and click until my synapses exploded, until I was flooded by superfluity. I wanted to hypnotise myself with data, with coloured pixels, to become vacant, to overwhelm any creeping anxious sense of who I actually was, to annihilate my feelings. At the same time I wanted to wake up, to be politically and socially engaged. And then again I wanted to declare my presence, to list my interests and objections, to notify the world that I was still there, thinking with my fingers, even if I'd almost lost the art of speech. I wanted to look and I wanted to be seen, and somehow it was easier to do both via the mediating screen.
Laing's neat summary of the internet – ‘what seemed transient was actually permanent, and what seemed free had already been bought’ – is perhaps a clue to the appeal of the artists she focuses on, who were either far outside any corporate influence or, like Warhol, were making commodification the whole point of their work. Seeing these lonely artists through Laing's gaze is enlightening – but the links and segues are so good that I spent much of the book pining for a straight-up memoir. (