Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost, & Where Did It Go?

by Michael Bywater

Works of art disappear, species are extinguished, books are lost, cities drown, things once thought immortal suddenly aren’t there at all. Whole libraries of knowledge, and whole galleries of secrets are gone. Our culture, our knowledge, and all our lives are shadows cast by what went before. We are defined, not by what we have, but by what we have lost along the way. Lost Worlds is a glossary of the missing, a cabinet of absent curiosities. No mere miscellany, it weaves a web of everything we no longer have. Michael Bywater, "Lost Worlds" columnist for the Independent on Sunday, teaches at Cambridge University.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science, Humor, Essays, Social Science

296 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2004

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book massively when I first read it - his demolition of the 'lost wisdom of the ancients' is superb and still makes me laugh in recollection - it is an attack on nostalgia, and that theme came through strongly on first reading but when read again the misanthropic tone ended up feeling nostalgic. Perhaps because the nostalgia that was worth denouncing and poking fun at has been joined by his finding worthy of denouncing. What was current when he wrote is now past and now both nostalgic and worth denouncing for being nostalgic. Like the 'golden age' all our lives slip from current, to previous, to the ridiculous to the nostalgic. Did I ever imagine I would be nostalgic for Punks on the King's Road, the Chelsea Drug store, the GLC, or heaven forbid, Margaret Thatcher? No I didn't but time makes all of us nostalgic for yesterday, because at some stage it becomes our youth. So in a complex way there is no difference between the water logged baggy wool Jantzen swimwear of the author's childhood and my - well my memories and nostalgia are embarrassing and private - but as past and foreign as that of Mr. Bywater.

So, if you want to enjoy a series of rants about laments for the Good Old Days, while being reminded of the Good Old Days, this may well be for you. As long as you remember the good old days is always a movable feast.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inevitably, perhaps, this book is a bit of a mixed bag. Posing as an attack on nostalgia, it manages to be both pleasingly misanthropic and, well, nostalgic. So, if you want to enjoy a series of rants about laments for the Good Old Days, while being reminded of the Good Old Days, this may well be for you.

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, I picked this up off the MIT Press bargain shelf because of the Stephen Fry pull quote, but thankfully, judging a book by its cover worked out well in this case. Yes, it's morose and curmudgeonly. It's also a hilarious and thoughtful lexicon of things lost, both on the general and the personal level (or perhaps everything is ultimately personal?)

This book evokes feelings that we don't quite have the words in English to describe. The closest I can think of is the Japanese mono no aware, or "sadness in things", the quality of beauty in something that is on the path to destruction. As far as I know, there is noting to describe the quality of beauty in a thing that has already been destroyed, and which is more beautiful for no longer being there. One gets a sense that Bywater misses these lost worlds, but also that he wouldn't want them back.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a real love/hate relationship with this book, which is why it took me a year and a half to finish it. There are times when the author seems so completely self-involved and enamored of his own intellect that he forgets there is a reader at the other end. There are more instances, however, of sardonic humor and moments that remind us that nostalgia is indeed the rust of memory, not its steel. This isn't a book to read cover-to-cover in one sitting, but instead to be taken in small doses. The cross-referenced "entries" are a plus, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the idea that this would ever really be a reference book.

In some ways, it is true--we are defined by what we have lost. And lest you think this a frivolous book, the last three entries solidify its street cred as a philosophical examination of our existence.

[G. Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty, and insightful. A joy to read

[Mike Bularz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up browsing around a year or two ago, was into all-things social studies then and imagined it to be a great bible of the ugly change i saw in society. Halfway, stopped reading it because I got sick of the footnote-within-a-footnote-within-a-parentheses sidebar stuff that put thoughts all over the page and felt like you were holding the book upside down for a second. Then over time I wanted to understand comedy and humor philosophically, did that, and came back to this just the other day. The real value of the book is in what the praise on the sleeve says, "bravura performace". The author has a novel and clever way of looking at things like that of a comedian and reading this with that outlook makes it worth it.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

He seems to know about everything as long as it's obscure and marginal: old network protocols and Latin conjugations, how meerschaums and primitive sweets were made...

It’s Grumpy Old Men except with teeth, wit, & iconoclasm and without mummery, ressentiment, & squidge.

“Remember, then, the founding principle of British public life, which is
this: if you don’t know already, I’m certainly not going to tell you.”

His fond memory of corporal punishment is a bit off, but generally he’s balanced, seeing what’s been gained by loss. Examines both our tendency to stupid nostalgia and stupid amnesia. Never heard of him, watch for it.

(I lost my copy immediately before finishing it.)

[Justin Neville · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice idea, but disappointing in execution.

I was lulled into a false sense of enjoyment at the outset as - presumably, just by chance - the first few of these alphabetical entries were reasonably pithy and amusing.

But, for the most part, the verbose style and overly arch tone of the vast majority of these pieces soon wore thin.

Much of the time, I didn't have a clue quite what he was whittering on about or was engaged enough to care.

Granted, if the whole premise is to bemoan lost things, a degree of curmudgeonliness is to be expected. But it all got too much too quickly. I skim-read most of it.

[Spurnlad · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book for dipping into, rather than reading. Some (most) of the entries 'try too hard'.

[Safa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately a lot of the humor was lost in me. I'll hold onto this book though and read it again in hopes I follow it better.

[Charlie Dent · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. boring, racist, weirdo

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really is a superb book. It's one of the most enjoyable, fascinating and often hilarious books I have read in recent years.

The book is a series of short essays, arranged in alphabetical order. They could be read straight through from A to Z (as I did), or in an order of the reader's choosing. Each essay is about a thing, person, or idea that (for some reason) no longer exists, has vanished or has been lost. Mr Bywater proves himself to be erudite on a wide range of topics, from Roman civilization to modern computers, from hats to patented inventions. He writes about each topic with wit, charm, style and verve. He has a great prose style in English, and also knows some Latin and Greek (which he helpfully translates).

He is very nostalgic for the past, lamenting the old days before call centres and management theory, when real men wore hats and called each other "old chap", when women were ladies, when teachers were stricter, etc. Sadly, these worlds have been lost forever. Let us hope they will return one day, like a phoenix from the ashes.

I would like to add another example of something that has been lost to humanity only recently: Pears Cyclopaedia.

Mr Bywater was a lifelong friend of writer Douglas Adams, and was the model for detective Dirk Gently. As a real-life Dirk Gently, he never ceases to talk at length while entertaining us.

I would heartily recommend this book to everyone!

[Hunted Snark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like it or not: the past is what defines us. So we are defined by loss.

I think this is Bywater's main theme in his bizarre collection of lost things. That and, I suspect but can't prove, it's partly a gentle eulogy for Douglas Adams. (If you've got a copy handy, read the entry for 'Zone, the Dead' and decide for yourself.)

Anyhow, he had me at entropy. I also love the way the cross-referencing ties the obscurest things together, the daft lists, and even the occasional dips into self-aware, wallowing nostalgia, because there's always something mordant just around the corner.


I know it looks like a bathroom book (short entries, in alphabetical order, just asking to live on the floor by the loo), but if you can spare it, it deserves more attention than that. It's got philosophy, poetry, entropy, melancholy, and really awful trams.


(4.5 stars really: I dislike going to 5)

[Andrew Garvey · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting little toilet book. No, not one that deserves to flushed down the bog but the kind of book that's best read over many short sittings, Bywater's listing and discussion of a ridiculous variety of things gone (many of which are best forgotten) is diverting enough but could have done with some major editing.

Some of the objects and ideas he writes about can't possibly be of interest to more than about twelve people on the planet. He's also not half as funny as he thinks he is.

Still, plenty of it is funny and the book is at times a fascinating tribute to and/or damnation of all kinds of oddball trivia. But, given there's so much of it (and close to half the book is footnotes) just don't expect to remember too much of it afterwards.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would have liked this more if I were British, because it's a catalog of lost things of that culture, and not everything listed is lost in America. Also, I would have preferred a Bill Bryson-type treatment of the material, with answers instead of a repetition in each section of the question "what did happen", "what could have happened".

[Nickolette]

OK, I didn't read the book. I only listened to the abridged BBC recording. Unfortunately abridged.. And wonderfully complimented by Steven Fry's rich baritone voice. Most probably I wouldn't bother to pick up the printed version, unless Mr. Fry is kind enough to read the whole thing for me.
Either way this sample gives a good taste of the wittiness and britishness of the book.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A true classic... a homage to all the things - tangible and intangible - that have gone out of our lives in the name of 'progress', but actually in the heedless devotion to the false gods of consumerism and conformity, leaving us quite impoverished. And all with the verve that is the hallmark of Mr Bywater's writings

[Jonathan Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very funny, very clever, but as you gradually plough your way through each individual entry, it does start to feel a bit 'samey'. Perhaps this is one of those books it's best to dip into occasionally rather than read from beginning to end.

[Snufkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very quirky, and some interesting and also quite hilarious examples. However the structure did not work (in dictionary form), and made it a very repetitive and at times painful process. Perhaps chapters by broader topic would be easier to digest.

[Az · Rating 1 out of 5]

Glad I didn't have to pay a penny for this.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. It wasn't bad, some of it was fun to read, some of it was interesting but a lot of the time I still wasn't sure what the point of it was. Maybe I was in the wrong frame of mind for it.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

genius how to have a rant about current culture and get nostalgic all in one. Astute observations and a look back to a different time from someone else's perspective.

[Arun · Rating 5 out of 5]

lots of facts about 'old stuff', loadsa nostalgia, thrilling use of words, love the way he puts down thoughts streaming through his (un)consciousness.

[Forester McClatchey · Rating 3 out of 5]

occasionally amusing, often invites the eyes to roll

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

abridged version read by stephen fry

[Dave Rubino · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trite and unfunny. Strives to touch commonalities and misses every mark.

[D'face · Rating 4 out of 5]

A grumpy guide to some of the words and concepts lost from the good old days.