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Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things
Ci circondiamo di oggetti di uso comune, senza i quali ci sentiamo persi. Ma raramente ci soffermiamo a considerare la loro storia e il loro significato. In questa divertente e ingegnosa esplorazione dei nostri rapporti con le cose quotidiane, Steven Connor si rivolge a quegli oggetti che, pur nella loro mondana ovvietà, possiedono una qualità magica, una vita quelle cose che spesso ci sorprendono per il loro potere di perturbarci, di sedurci, di placarci. Prendete le borse, per esempio. Perché la maggior parte delle donne usa la borsa, mentre gli uomini si affidano alle tasche? Il fascino delle chiavi non risiede nella possibilità sempre presente che possano essere perse? E avevate osservato che nessun oggetto spinge alla contemplazione più di un elastico? Lungo un percorso che si snoda dalle chiavi ai fazzoletti, dalle caramelle agli occhiali, Steven Connor intraprende un viaggio di carattere insieme storico, filosofico e linguistico. Ci svuota le tasche, ci ispeziona i cassetti, riattivando così la nostra connessione con quelle cose bizzarre alle quali ci lega un'intimità che avevamo dimenticato.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 9, 2011
26 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Steven Connor
47 books10 followersSteven Connor is Grace 2 Professor of English in the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Director of the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). Among his many books are explorations of aspects of the cultural history of the senses, including Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism (2000), The Book of Skin (2004), and Beckett, Modernism and the Material Imagination (2014). His most recent books are Dream Machines (2017), The Madness of Knowledge: On Wisdom, Ignorance and Fantasies of Knowledge (2019), and Giving Way: Thoughts on Unappreciated Dispositions (2019).
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 13, 2011
I will admit I'm a terrible hoarder, particularly of ephemera, and it is only iron self control that keeps me from throwing away my train tickets. One a day old, that is simply rubbish, but two, three, seven years old, even if it is for the exact same journey .. well that’s magic. So I particularly wanted to read this as, whilst not quite about ephemera, is about the little things which keep us ticking along, which remind ourselves we are human.
This was not exactly what I expected. Much more poetical than I was thinking, Mr Conner does a wonderful job of making you think like you never thought you needed to about bags, and why we carry them, and coins, and keys.
The joy in it comes from seeing the everyday magic in little things, though it did tend a little toward hyperbole, e.g., on buttons; “Like the button itself which is only good as long as there is a buttonhole to answer it, we are sundered from our other halves, detached from our first attachments, ever at one remove from entirety.”
Altogether, a lovely book. I think I might overuse the adjective lovely.
As a side note, each chapter on a different thing, buttons, card, plugs, did have the unfortunate side effect of making the word seem meaningless by the end of the chapter, repeated dozens of times.
This was not exactly what I expected. Much more poetical than I was thinking, Mr Conner does a wonderful job of making you think like you never thought you needed to about bags, and why we carry them, and coins, and keys.
The joy in it comes from seeing the everyday magic in little things, though it did tend a little toward hyperbole, e.g., on buttons; “Like the button itself which is only good as long as there is a buttonhole to answer it, we are sundered from our other halves, detached from our first attachments, ever at one remove from entirety.”
Altogether, a lovely book. I think I might overuse the adjective lovely.
As a side note, each chapter on a different thing, buttons, card, plugs, did have the unfortunate side effect of making the word seem meaningless by the end of the chapter, repeated dozens of times.
November 3, 2014
Everyone has a drawer full of bits and bobs, odds and sods, and those things that defy categorisation. And not only is it full of the the things mentioned in this book, it is almost impossible to find the exact item that you are looking for when you need it.
Connor has managed to extract some of those items from his drawer, and bring them together in this book, where he looks at why we use them, their history and other anecdotes on his chosen objects. There are chapters on pins, sticky tape, rubber bands, batteries and keys and a handful of other things that are useful and accumulate in your drawers.
Really a 2.5 star book, as some time the chapters drift off into a very wide ranging history of the item. But lots of the facts and snippets of the everyday objects were fascinating. One little detail that I liked was that each chapter had a small icon of the item, and these were repeated in the margin of each chapter.
Worth reading if you want to discover the history of those items in that drawer; but it won't help you find them!
Connor has managed to extract some of those items from his drawer, and bring them together in this book, where he looks at why we use them, their history and other anecdotes on his chosen objects. There are chapters on pins, sticky tape, rubber bands, batteries and keys and a handful of other things that are useful and accumulate in your drawers.
Really a 2.5 star book, as some time the chapters drift off into a very wide ranging history of the item. But lots of the facts and snippets of the everyday objects were fascinating. One little detail that I liked was that each chapter had a small icon of the item, and these were repeated in the margin of each chapter.
Worth reading if you want to discover the history of those items in that drawer; but it won't help you find them!
February 8, 2019
This was mentioned on one of my favourite podcasts, No Such Thing as a Fish by the writers and researchers for the tv show QI.
It’s a book which might initially seem difficult to sell to anyone else. Whole chapters are dedicated to pins, wires, cards, combs. Couple this with some rather complex and at times purely academic writing, it shouldn’t really be as enjoyable to read as it is. But it’s fascinating to read Connor take on these humdrum objects and tell us their history, their development in our culture and their meanings outside of their literal use.
This treads similar ground to James Ward’s brilliant book Adventures in Stationery, so if you read that and liked it, I’d recommend this.
Ultimately this strange book is very enjoyable. It’s great to get a highly educated and erudite take on the mundane small objects that litter our daily lives.
It’s a book which might initially seem difficult to sell to anyone else. Whole chapters are dedicated to pins, wires, cards, combs. Couple this with some rather complex and at times purely academic writing, it shouldn’t really be as enjoyable to read as it is. But it’s fascinating to read Connor take on these humdrum objects and tell us their history, their development in our culture and their meanings outside of their literal use.
This treads similar ground to James Ward’s brilliant book Adventures in Stationery, so if you read that and liked it, I’d recommend this.
Ultimately this strange book is very enjoyable. It’s great to get a highly educated and erudite take on the mundane small objects that litter our daily lives.
May 9, 2020
A delightful exploration of eighteen different everyday "magical" objects, from "Bags" to "Wires." That may not sound so exciting, but Steven Connor offers a deliciously curious mix of history, language, psychology, poetry, trivia, and personal observation, which will make you look in new ways at objects you've held hundreds of times.
Connor has a wonderful ability to notice interesting things in the everyday, and then to describe them almost poetically - things like finding the end of the sellotape. He also highlights a lot of paradoxes and contrasts in the ways we've thought of these items. And above all, he's just a great writer, who comes up with sentences like this: "Bucking, convulsive, with its nozzle spurting like a severed vein, trying to back away from the horror of its own haemorrhage, the hysterically unloosed hosepipe is chaos itself."
Connor has a wonderful ability to notice interesting things in the everyday, and then to describe them almost poetically - things like finding the end of the sellotape. He also highlights a lot of paradoxes and contrasts in the ways we've thought of these items. And above all, he's just a great writer, who comes up with sentences like this: "Bucking, convulsive, with its nozzle spurting like a severed vein, trying to back away from the horror of its own haemorrhage, the hysterically unloosed hosepipe is chaos itself."
October 12, 2020
Muy buena forma de describir la historia de los productos que nos rodean, y como entrelazar las historias con ellos. Sirve para estimular la creatividad con cada relato, y aunque se necesita un poco de contexto para entender ciertos relatos que da, me parece que es mínimo.
December 29, 2021
The physics and poetry of everyday objects like pins, rubber bands, buttons, pills and more. Some of the puns and meanings aren't as clear to an American reader, but mostly I was swept along with Connor's meditations and meanderings on things we usually take for granted.
June 23, 2014
Paraphernalia is a fascinating little book of all of the magical everyday items of our lives. As an English professor, Steven Connor explores not only what makes everyday items special to us, but where the words came from and how the many words are related. It sometimes felt too detailed, and I tended to skim through certain parts of the chapters, but it was worth reading for little snippets that opened my eyes to the world around me.
Connor is a skilled writer, and I found myself amazed at how he explained the emotional connection we share with objects that I had never paid conscious attention to. I still find myself thinking about the chapter on batteries, and how he perfectly described the emotional difficulty I have throwing away old, useless batteries, that I could never have put into words.
Reading it as part of the read-a-thon overwhelmed me a little. It's not a book that needs to be read beginning to end. It would be the perfect book to have lying around, and to pick up and read a random chapter.
Connor is a skilled writer, and I found myself amazed at how he explained the emotional connection we share with objects that I had never paid conscious attention to. I still find myself thinking about the chapter on batteries, and how he perfectly described the emotional difficulty I have throwing away old, useless batteries, that I could never have put into words.
Reading it as part of the read-a-thon overwhelmed me a little. It's not a book that needs to be read beginning to end. It would be the perfect book to have lying around, and to pick up and read a random chapter.
March 21, 2014
I love that this book reminded me to notice all the little things around me, and to appreciate and surround myself with things that have meaning. That said, it was very wordy - and consequently an effort to read. It both inspired and bored me at the same time. Who knew that was possible?!
Want to read
October 18, 2011As heard on Thinking Allowed.
October 26, 2012
mind drifts whenever I read this book.
March 9, 2014
Worth reading for the introduction..
did-not-finish
March 2, 2016I was looking for fun and entertainment, and found academia and post-modernism instead. If that's what you're after, you'll be pleased. I didn't feel like reading it at present.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews