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Pretentiousness: Why It Matters
Pretentiousness is for anyone who has braved being different, whether that's making a stand against artistic consensus or running the gauntlet of the last bus home dressed differently from everyone else. It's an essential ingredient in pop music and high art. Why do we choose accusations of elitism over open-mindedness? What do our anxieties about "pretending" say about us?
Co-editor of frieze, Europe's foremost magazine of contemporary art and culture, Dan Fox has authored over two hundred essays, interviews, and reviews and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications produced by major international art galleries and institutions.
Co-editor of frieze, Europe's foremost magazine of contemporary art and culture, Dan Fox has authored over two hundred essays, interviews, and reviews and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications produced by major international art galleries and institutions.
144 pages, Paperback
First published February 10, 2016
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About the author
Dan Fox
120 books15 followersDan Fox is a writer, musician, and co-editor of frieze magazine, Europe’s foremost magazine of art and culture. He is based in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews
October 30, 2019
An impassioned cri de coeur in favour of pretension as a tool for the furtherance and nurturing of art and artistic impulses in our cynical universe. A fantastic potted history of pretense opens the essay, moving on to musings on attitudes to pretension in the arts, and its importance in lifting us from the slough of mass-market miseries (a bog in which the multitudes, for whom ‘pretentiousness’ is still a sneer-term, are languishing), and the importance of rising from one’s prejudices to embrace the outré and unusual and original. Preaching to the converted, here: however, after reading one might slip the book into an intolerant friend’s napsack and lock them in a car for several hours. That friend might emerge with a fondness for Tarkovsky’s later period and a Spotify playlist featuring Arvo Pärt and Phil Glass. Quote time: “Puncture the word ‘pretentious’ and out scuttles a bestiary of class anxieties: fears about getting above your station, and policing those suspected of trying to migrate from their social background. The word is bent to fit emotional attitudes towards economic and social inequality, and used as shorthand in arguments over authenticity, elitism and populism. In the arts, pretentiousness is the brand of witchcraft used by scheming cultural mandarins to keep the great unwashed at bay. It’s a way of saying that contemporary art is a ‘con’ and that subtitled films are ‘difficult’ — that they do not appeal to everyone and therefore must be aimed at the sorts of people who think they are better that everyone else. The sorts of people who like French or Chinese or Mexican films because they won’t stand up for their country’s alleged clear-eyed pragmatism over another’s pseudery. The intellectually insecure drop the word ‘pretentious’ to shut down a conversation they don’t understand, when simply saying ‘I don’t know’ or asking ‘Can you explain this?’ would be more gracious ways to admit to being in the dark. Cutting someone down for pretension reveals, ironically, the mark of embarrassed arrogance rather than humility. The word ‘pretentious’ is deployed as an insidious euphemism of distaste for sexual difference, a synonym for ‘effeminacy’ or ‘dandyism’. Apply it to the topics of gender, sexuality, and race, and the accusation of pretension swiftly becomes a measure of how antediluvian the accuser’s attitudes are.” (p.129-130)
December 31, 2016
Marked passages:
Anti-intellectualism is a snobbery just like anti-pretension; the anti-intellectual is often anxious not to be marked as part of an educated elite, the kind of person that they suspect uses ideas and language to maintain a position of power. Prolier-than-thou pretension is insidious; it perpetuates a received idea of what "normal" is. The privately educated artists putting on the acts of being a blue-collar worker - changing accent, hiding intellectual and artistsic interests in order to play to an insulting stereotype of working-class culture as a place where creative, imaginative, and intellectual pursuits exist only in the most unselfconscious ways - simply reaffirms class prejudice.
de Certeau and Goffman
la perruque: When you are at work and you are doing everything to look busy, but you are not actually busy. You are actually surfing the Internet, but you look busy: that's la perruque. When a client is yelling at you and you mentally go elsewhere and revert to customer-service script, that's also la perruque. It's a performance you have to give, because you authentically need to not be working at that very moment. So instead of working at work, you work at performance. Our culture demands total transparency, at the same time that it demands near-constant performance. So how can you know a person?
Anti-intellectualism is a snobbery just like anti-pretension; the anti-intellectual is often anxious not to be marked as part of an educated elite, the kind of person that they suspect uses ideas and language to maintain a position of power. Prolier-than-thou pretension is insidious; it perpetuates a received idea of what "normal" is. The privately educated artists putting on the acts of being a blue-collar worker - changing accent, hiding intellectual and artistsic interests in order to play to an insulting stereotype of working-class culture as a place where creative, imaginative, and intellectual pursuits exist only in the most unselfconscious ways - simply reaffirms class prejudice.
de Certeau and Goffman
la perruque: When you are at work and you are doing everything to look busy, but you are not actually busy. You are actually surfing the Internet, but you look busy: that's la perruque. When a client is yelling at you and you mentally go elsewhere and revert to customer-service script, that's also la perruque. It's a performance you have to give, because you authentically need to not be working at that very moment. So instead of working at work, you work at performance. Our culture demands total transparency, at the same time that it demands near-constant performance. So how can you know a person?
March 16, 2016
This wide-ranging essay discusses pretentiousness as it relates to class, taste, and modern art. Fox grew up outside of Oxford but now lives in New York City, where he is the co-editor of frieze. From its Latin etymology we learn that pretentious means “to stretch before,” so to hold something in front of you like a mask. He thus starts off by talking about acting techniques and rhetoric, then broadens this out to themes of authenticity and self-discovery. The most interesting part of the book concerns class connotations. This is a somewhat meandering work, and though it has good individual lines it is not always riveting. I appreciated a short autobiographical section at the end, in which Fox reflects on his “oddball middle-class upbringing” and how his parents encouraged his engagement with art and culture. I wished he would have opened with this personal material rather than ending with it, to give a sense of his perspective straightaway.
See my full review at Nudge.
See my full review at Nudge.
December 22, 2021
Earlier this month I read The Intimate Resistance, an essay about becoming an authentic person through proximity. Dan Fox’s Pretentiousness: why it matters is also an essay about being an authentic person, but this time through pretentiousness.
In the English language to call someone pretentious is an insult, especially in the art world where it is an indication of an artist’s ambition surpassing the actual art. Dan Fox does present arguments that this is not necessarily a bad thing and that pretention is essential for growth.
The book begins with the more classic meaning of pretentiousness, which is ‘pretending to be someone you are not’ thus the acting world is pretentious, however a lot of professions stemmed out of the acting world where the person has to put on an act – this means law , education and entrepreneurship. Without pretension these jobs would take on a different shape.
I have already mentioned pretention in the arts, Fox does state that it is tied up with social class. Those musicians who took art in different directions such as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry all came from a working class background, making art their only way of escaping the confines of their upbringing. Dan Fox also notes that concepts of pretention change over time, as an example David Bowie was seen as pretentious in his day but now he’s seen as a trailblazer. Hence why pretention matters. It’s the artists with lofty ideas which break through and change the norm.
Dan Fox concludes with the importance making overt tributes to books and films within an album title. Sure it sounds pretentious but it is an artists’ way of paying tribute that we may later discover. I’ll be honest and state that a lot of supposedly pretentious references helped me find out about a lot certain novels and movies : Lotus Plaza’s Spooky Action at a Distance album helped me find out about the quantum physics theory, Radiohead’s Fitter, Happier lead me on to my favourite book of all time, What a Carve Up! etc etc. Wherever pop (in the broadest sense) goes, pretention follows.
As one can see I enjoyed reading this essay. Dan Fox’s style is accessible and witty. I like the mixed media approach and I could relate to what was written. There were many times I said inwardly ‘yeah that’s true’ – especially at the section where he states that we are quick to call others pretentious without saying that we are all pretentious in our own way.
Anyway if you’ve wanted to record that album about a diseased tightrope walking elephant named Ned who has an existential crises – here’s your chance – you may pave the way for others.
In the English language to call someone pretentious is an insult, especially in the art world where it is an indication of an artist’s ambition surpassing the actual art. Dan Fox does present arguments that this is not necessarily a bad thing and that pretention is essential for growth.
The book begins with the more classic meaning of pretentiousness, which is ‘pretending to be someone you are not’ thus the acting world is pretentious, however a lot of professions stemmed out of the acting world where the person has to put on an act – this means law , education and entrepreneurship. Without pretension these jobs would take on a different shape.
I have already mentioned pretention in the arts, Fox does state that it is tied up with social class. Those musicians who took art in different directions such as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry all came from a working class background, making art their only way of escaping the confines of their upbringing. Dan Fox also notes that concepts of pretention change over time, as an example David Bowie was seen as pretentious in his day but now he’s seen as a trailblazer. Hence why pretention matters. It’s the artists with lofty ideas which break through and change the norm.
Dan Fox concludes with the importance making overt tributes to books and films within an album title. Sure it sounds pretentious but it is an artists’ way of paying tribute that we may later discover. I’ll be honest and state that a lot of supposedly pretentious references helped me find out about a lot certain novels and movies : Lotus Plaza’s Spooky Action at a Distance album helped me find out about the quantum physics theory, Radiohead’s Fitter, Happier lead me on to my favourite book of all time, What a Carve Up! etc etc. Wherever pop (in the broadest sense) goes, pretention follows.
As one can see I enjoyed reading this essay. Dan Fox’s style is accessible and witty. I like the mixed media approach and I could relate to what was written. There were many times I said inwardly ‘yeah that’s true’ – especially at the section where he states that we are quick to call others pretentious without saying that we are all pretentious in our own way.
Anyway if you’ve wanted to record that album about a diseased tightrope walking elephant named Ned who has an existential crises – here’s your chance – you may pave the way for others.
January 9, 2016
pretension is about over-reaching what you're capable of, taking the risk that you might fall flat on your face. without people stretching themselves and—self-consciously or otherwise—risking failure, most of the major works of art, music, literature, cinema, dance, philosophy, science, clothing, design, architecture, engineering, horticulture, and cuisine that we cherish would simply not exist. new discoveries would not be made, or—like many great innovations—accidentally stumbled across. it is the engine oil of culture, every creative motor needs it in order to keep running and not seize up and corrode with complacency.new york-based british writer and frieze magazine co-editor dan fox's treatise on pretentiousness, aptly titled pretentiousness: why it matters, seeks to reframe the word's context and application, going so far as to argue that pretentiousness should perhaps be celebrated and encouraged as it often spurs creative advances. essayistic and a touch academic, fox's book offers a refreshing perspective, as well as a background on the word's origin and its application over time. encompassing theater, art, film, and music for the most part, pretentiousness delves into long-held pejorative connotations, finding their basis in fear, classism, and arrogance. fox articulates his reasonings well, lobbying for a new understanding that frees others to create, explore differences, and take risks. in all, pretentiousness is an interesting work on an almost universally (and unjustly) maligned notion used almost exclusively to upbraid or bring down.
being pretentious is rarely harmful to anyone. accusing others of it is. you can use the word "pretentious" as a weapon with which to bludgeon other people's creative efforts, but in shutting them down the accusation will shatter in your hand and out will bleed your own insecurities, prejudices and unquestioned assumptions. and that is why pretentiousness matters. it is a false note of objective judgment and when it rings we can hear what society values in culture, hear how we perceive our individual selves. pretentiousness matters because of what it teaches us about the creative process. try it: try holding pretension up to the light. turn it and observe where the light and shade falls.
December 23, 2018
Pretentiousness is something we never seem to apply to ourselves in the present tense. You may often hear it used as an insult when aimed at someone else, and you might even be bold enough to admit to it in your younger days, but rarely will you hear a person say “I am pretentious”.
Perhaps the best way to review this book is to quote Jarvis Cocker from the back cover:
Dan Fox makes a very good case for a re-evaluation of the work “pretentious”. The desire to be more than we are shouldn’t be belittled. Meticulously researched, persuasively argued - where would be be as a culture if no-one was prepared to risk coming across as pretentious. Absolument nowhere, darling - that’s where.
And the second half of this book is interesting. I found the first half rather dragged. And I think the difference is that the author is playing on home ground in the second half as he writes about music and modern art, whereas in the first half he is very much setting the scene and it felt to me a bit like he had been told what he had wasn’t long enough so could he find a way to expand it, perhaps by adding a (long) introduction? So we get several dozen pages (the whole book is less than 160 pages) about the history of acting and pretending which sort of culminate with
Where the word ‘pretentious’ differs from ‘pretending’ is that it carries with it the sting of class betrayal…
which left this reader, at least, wondering why we had spent so long looking at pretending if it is something different from the topic of the book.
I’m being a bit facetious because there are clear links that the author makes, but I found the first few chapters a bit haphazard. However, once the subject moves over to music and modern art, Fox really hits his stride and gives us a lot of interesting thinking. I am also aware that this opinion of mine might be driven by the fact that the second half of the book has considerable overlap with my pretentious youth when I was a devotee of prog rock, which I would now admit IS rather pretentious (but I still like it!).
In essence, Fox is defending a person’s right to be pretentious:
When a furious reviewer slams a book for being pretentious, they are essentially angry because it deviates from the aesthetic standards or world view they’ve chosen to subscribe to.
and warning us to be careful when we are tempted to use the word to describe what someone else has done:
You have your established schema for what a work of art should be, and then something alien arrives and throws that schema into doubt.
or
If what’s pretentious for one person is innovative and enthralling for another, is debating pretentiousness simply just another way of talking about taste?
He is defending pretension as a means of growth:
To fear being accused of pretension is to police oneself out of curiosity about the world
The essay as a whole is a plea to disregard the baggage that the word “pretentious” carries with it and to allow people to reach beyond themselves. As Fox says as the book draw to a close (apart from a final chapter that is a sort of look back to Fox’s formative years that I didn’t quite get the reason for):
Pretension is about over-reaching what you’re capably of, taking the risk that you might fall flat on your face. Without people stretching themselves and - self-consciously or otherwise - risking failure, most of the major works of art, music, literature, cinema, dance, philosophy, science, clothing, design, architecture, engineering, horticulture and cuisine (there are lots of long lists like this in the book) that we cherish simply would not exist. New discoveries would not be made, or - like many great innovations - accidentally stumbled across. It is the engine oil of culture: every creative motor needs it in order to keep running and not seize up and corrode with complacency.
And with that, I will return to my prog rock collection.
Perhaps the best way to review this book is to quote Jarvis Cocker from the back cover:
Dan Fox makes a very good case for a re-evaluation of the work “pretentious”. The desire to be more than we are shouldn’t be belittled. Meticulously researched, persuasively argued - where would be be as a culture if no-one was prepared to risk coming across as pretentious. Absolument nowhere, darling - that’s where.
And the second half of this book is interesting. I found the first half rather dragged. And I think the difference is that the author is playing on home ground in the second half as he writes about music and modern art, whereas in the first half he is very much setting the scene and it felt to me a bit like he had been told what he had wasn’t long enough so could he find a way to expand it, perhaps by adding a (long) introduction? So we get several dozen pages (the whole book is less than 160 pages) about the history of acting and pretending which sort of culminate with
Where the word ‘pretentious’ differs from ‘pretending’ is that it carries with it the sting of class betrayal…
which left this reader, at least, wondering why we had spent so long looking at pretending if it is something different from the topic of the book.
I’m being a bit facetious because there are clear links that the author makes, but I found the first few chapters a bit haphazard. However, once the subject moves over to music and modern art, Fox really hits his stride and gives us a lot of interesting thinking. I am also aware that this opinion of mine might be driven by the fact that the second half of the book has considerable overlap with my pretentious youth when I was a devotee of prog rock, which I would now admit IS rather pretentious (but I still like it!).
In essence, Fox is defending a person’s right to be pretentious:
When a furious reviewer slams a book for being pretentious, they are essentially angry because it deviates from the aesthetic standards or world view they’ve chosen to subscribe to.
and warning us to be careful when we are tempted to use the word to describe what someone else has done:
You have your established schema for what a work of art should be, and then something alien arrives and throws that schema into doubt.
or
If what’s pretentious for one person is innovative and enthralling for another, is debating pretentiousness simply just another way of talking about taste?
He is defending pretension as a means of growth:
To fear being accused of pretension is to police oneself out of curiosity about the world
The essay as a whole is a plea to disregard the baggage that the word “pretentious” carries with it and to allow people to reach beyond themselves. As Fox says as the book draw to a close (apart from a final chapter that is a sort of look back to Fox’s formative years that I didn’t quite get the reason for):
Pretension is about over-reaching what you’re capably of, taking the risk that you might fall flat on your face. Without people stretching themselves and - self-consciously or otherwise - risking failure, most of the major works of art, music, literature, cinema, dance, philosophy, science, clothing, design, architecture, engineering, horticulture and cuisine (there are lots of long lists like this in the book) that we cherish simply would not exist. New discoveries would not be made, or - like many great innovations - accidentally stumbled across. It is the engine oil of culture: every creative motor needs it in order to keep running and not seize up and corrode with complacency.
And with that, I will return to my prog rock collection.
May 3, 2022
Dan Fox did something with this book.
It’s a great look into the topic of Pretentiousness and why it matters, while almost always straddling the line of being a pretentious book by a pretentious writer.
I love how he goes through the history and discusses the nature of those who observe culture and society vs the nature of those who absorb society and cultures (the vultures) - it’s very satisfying.
Pretentiousness: Why It Matters has moments of clarity that make this book endearing as well. The postscript was amazing as it's always necessary to examine oneself as well, especially when talking about other people's shit.
Lastly, I picked up a few new reads out of this book that I'm excited about, including: A Year With Swollen Appendices, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, and Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.
It’s a great look into the topic of Pretentiousness and why it matters, while almost always straddling the line of being a pretentious book by a pretentious writer.
I love how he goes through the history and discusses the nature of those who observe culture and society vs the nature of those who absorb society and cultures (the vultures) - it’s very satisfying.
Pretentiousness: Why It Matters has moments of clarity that make this book endearing as well. The postscript was amazing as it's always necessary to examine oneself as well, especially when talking about other people's shit.
Lastly, I picked up a few new reads out of this book that I'm excited about, including: A Year With Swollen Appendices, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, and Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.
January 23, 2018
Does it count as a good book if you feel the strong desire to throw it across the room every few pages?
I agree with Dan Fox's central point, that only by going beyond ourselves can we make progress towards the things that matter to us in life. We must take risks. But risk taking is not the same as "pretentiousness", at least as I would define it. I would follow the dictionary definition: "expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature."
For Fox, pretentiousness is the act of pretending, pure and simple. It is, for him, something that is always done in good faith and that is a social good that is being kept down because it makes others feel uncomfortable—because it blurs the lines of class. He refuses to admit that, just as often, pretentiousness is a bludgeon used to cover for holes in a way of thinking.
In the end, substance matters. This book itself is an illustration of that. Its author would have been well served to have cut back on his laundry list of film and music references and to have actually said something about a subset of them.
I agree with Dan Fox's central point, that only by going beyond ourselves can we make progress towards the things that matter to us in life. We must take risks. But risk taking is not the same as "pretentiousness", at least as I would define it. I would follow the dictionary definition: "expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature."
For Fox, pretentiousness is the act of pretending, pure and simple. It is, for him, something that is always done in good faith and that is a social good that is being kept down because it makes others feel uncomfortable—because it blurs the lines of class. He refuses to admit that, just as often, pretentiousness is a bludgeon used to cover for holes in a way of thinking.
In the end, substance matters. This book itself is an illustration of that. Its author would have been well served to have cut back on his laundry list of film and music references and to have actually said something about a subset of them.
Read
October 10, 2025stands on business. I <3 pretentiousness
May 28, 2016
Pretending Tendencies:
Author Fox breaks down the word and what it means to be pretentious. He advocates for pretense as the primary particle in the creation of and appreciation of art. This presumably - see epilogue - to atone for his own pretentiousness but this is done in a way that makes it seem like it's really cool and integral to art to be pretentious. And quite honestly I do get it. It ought not be a pejorative. Look if Mick Jagger and Brian Eno are pretentious then I am pretentious too and it's ok.
Author Fox breaks down the word and what it means to be pretentious. He advocates for pretense as the primary particle in the creation of and appreciation of art. This presumably - see epilogue - to atone for his own pretentiousness but this is done in a way that makes it seem like it's really cool and integral to art to be pretentious. And quite honestly I do get it. It ought not be a pejorative. Look if Mick Jagger and Brian Eno are pretentious then I am pretentious too and it's ok.
November 19, 2023
Ahhh so fun, short, n snappy. Great lil exploration of one of my very least favorite things to be called and now I know exactly whyyyy that bothers me! “Being pretentious is rarely harmful to anyone. Accusing others of it is. You can use the word “pretentious” as a weapon with which to bludgeon other people’s creative efforts, but in shutting them down the accusation will shatter in your hand and will bleed your own insecurities, prejudices, and unquestioned assumptions.” Really enjoyed the class analysis and fears around pretending to be above one’s station, how pretentiousness hampers the creative process, relationship between high art and pop culture all yum yum food for though.
July 31, 2025
I will dress even weirder now and it will all be the fault of Mr Dan Fox (and Helena as always ❤️)
May 14, 2024
hij heeft gelijk, pretentie is zo slecht nog niet. ik ga nooit meer in de verdediging schieten wanneer iemand me zoiets verwijt
December 26, 2024
Ikke pretensiøs nok.
September 14, 2024
I used to think that "pretentiousness" as a concept was one of those widely abused words to the point where it meant nothing. This furthered me along down the line I was already walking and now I just don't believe in it at all. I do not believe it is valid as a descriptor, criticism, or measuring stick.
Even if I didn't take it that far it's emboldened my decision to officially put "pretentiousness" on top of the fridge where the kids can't get to it. Nearly all claims of pretentiousness are making an unspecific, parochial statement, and the true criteria for pretentiousness have fallen away completely.
I'm not sure I need to accept all of Fox's assertions about pretentiousness and class to get there (though I am interested in them and think there's definite meat on the bone-- I would not go so far as to say that claims of pretentiousness "all come back to class" as Fox claims). Not only is it anti-intellectual, but it's also a profoundly boring, incurious criticism that has no real place in any serious critic's toolbelt. We should continue to lament that it remains a popular dig for everyday people.
There is only successful art and unsuccessful art. Enough oxygen to people who project strange assumptions onto artists.
Even if I didn't take it that far it's emboldened my decision to officially put "pretentiousness" on top of the fridge where the kids can't get to it. Nearly all claims of pretentiousness are making an unspecific, parochial statement, and the true criteria for pretentiousness have fallen away completely.
I'm not sure I need to accept all of Fox's assertions about pretentiousness and class to get there (though I am interested in them and think there's definite meat on the bone-- I would not go so far as to say that claims of pretentiousness "all come back to class" as Fox claims). Not only is it anti-intellectual, but it's also a profoundly boring, incurious criticism that has no real place in any serious critic's toolbelt. We should continue to lament that it remains a popular dig for everyday people.
There is only successful art and unsuccessful art. Enough oxygen to people who project strange assumptions onto artists.
July 10, 2025
I think Fox's take on the the concept of pretension is insightful and somewhat mind-blowing. He acknowledges connections between class, art, and the status quo we are dictated by. He makes you reconsider the purpose of the adjective 'pretentious' and illustrates the power of language and how we each each wield this power, regardless of who we are.
March 22, 2024
'I understood pretension as permission for the imagination'
-- Dan Fox, PRETENTIOUSNESS, WHY IT MATTERS
-- Dan Fox, PRETENTIOUSNESS, WHY IT MATTERS
September 23, 2018
Written in a clear, engaging style with lots of cultural references, this essay makes a case that pretentiousness is a good thing. Fox is appalled that people are called pretentious when they "get above themselves": blue collar kids aspiring to a career in the arts; artists producing "difficult" works; small town kids falling in love with trendy subcultures. He also notes that critiquing pretentious is often a cover for anti-intellectualism and/or homophobia, a way bludgeon people into mindless conformism.
Alas, in his passion to defend the aspirational, expansive aspects of pretension, Fox doesn't examine all the ways the word is used. For example, he notes that some artwork bills itself as revolutionary or transformative when it isn't, but doesn't acknowledge that said work is a prime target for getting called (rightly, to my mind) pretentious. He also fails to explore the nefarious connections between cultural capital and financial capital, how the deliberately impenetrable (and to my mind, extremely pretentious) jargon of "theory" is wielded to enhance the value of art as a commodity.
My few quibbles aside, this is "must reading" for anyone interested in the politics of culture or the sociology of art.
Alas, in his passion to defend the aspirational, expansive aspects of pretension, Fox doesn't examine all the ways the word is used. For example, he notes that some artwork bills itself as revolutionary or transformative when it isn't, but doesn't acknowledge that said work is a prime target for getting called (rightly, to my mind) pretentious. He also fails to explore the nefarious connections between cultural capital and financial capital, how the deliberately impenetrable (and to my mind, extremely pretentious) jargon of "theory" is wielded to enhance the value of art as a commodity.
My few quibbles aside, this is "must reading" for anyone interested in the politics of culture or the sociology of art.
May 30, 2020
El crítico de arte Dan Fox nos propone en este ensayo breve, una encarecida defensa y una necesaria revisión de la pretenciosidad como categoría estética. Tachamos de pretenciosos aquellos actos, palabras y formulaciones artísticas ampulosas, puede que incluso vacías, pero para Fox estas formas de expresión hiperbólicas, en ocasiones fallidas, son mucho más que la faceta más caprichosa del ego creador. El gesto pedante de un artista pone en relieve una ambición que nada tiene que ver con el lucimiento personal y la voluntad de trascender. Fox se sirve de ejemplos diversos que van desde la música pop al arte conceptual, para componer este alegato hacia algunos de esos gestos recargados que han ayudado a ensanchar algunos los límites de las artes contemporáneas.
Ser pretencioso es también ser osado, incluso indisciplinado. No cabe duda de que el uso de la impostación y el ejercicio de una despreocupada forma de falsedad, son también algunas estrategias ácidas de oposición: a un cierto orden que regula el curso de los acontecimientos, y que, por ende, establece una distinción entre lo adecuado y lo que desborda la frontera de lo permitido.
Ser pretencioso es también ser osado, incluso indisciplinado. No cabe duda de que el uso de la impostación y el ejercicio de una despreocupada forma de falsedad, son también algunas estrategias ácidas de oposición: a un cierto orden que regula el curso de los acontecimientos, y que, por ende, establece una distinción entre lo adecuado y lo que desborda la frontera de lo permitido.
April 15, 2017
Having already read a number of extracts (an example), I knew Pretentiousness was a book I wanted to read, but I still approached it with a certain amount of caution, aware that a defence of pretentiousness might feel automatically exclusive of the likes of me. But it is actually quite the opposite, as Fox's argument goes back to the roots of the word and its ideas of performance, putting on a mask; he discusses autodidactism and how notions of pretentiousness are often tied to classism (the mistrust of those who have 'ideas above their station'). Ironically (or perhaps not?), it's so readable that I raced through it and was left wanting more.
December 14, 2016
3.5 stars.
October 27, 2024
“Start with externals, and proceed to internals, and treat life as a good joke. If a dozen men would stroll down the Strand and Piccadilly tomorrow, wearing tight scarlet trousers fitting the leg, gay little orange-brown jackets and bright green hats, then the revolution against dulness which we need so much would have begun. And, of course, those dozen men would be considerably braver, really, than Captain Nobile or the other arctic ventures. It is not particularly brave to do something the public wants you to do. But it takes a lot of courage to sail gaily, in brave feathers, right in the teeth of a dreary convention.”
—D. H. Lawrence, The Evening News, September, 27, 1928
(Quoted in the book)
This book is about how putting someone down for being uneducated and putting someone down for being pretentious are really two sides of the same coin. It’s also about the great romance of art, beauty, culture, and moreover color, emotion, and being too much… to transform individuals and cities, and their necessity. It’s about cities and globalism and genius permutations.
The first chapter on the history of the western conception of pretentiousness and its relation to theater was really absorbing (specifically the back and forth between method acting which came from Russia and arch, prescribed laws of acting, the clash between the restraints of neoclacissism and romanticism, and the counterattack from Mamet and Brecht against naturalism, arguing for artificiality so people invest their emotions in real social change, and interestingly the mix of both colorful expressive theater and natural emotions in Shakespeare’s plays // socially contextualized roles to looking within the individual, inner authenticity and how it’s become tied up with politics both with the left against capitalism and the right against the government and rights of the individual).
My personal favorite part was the postscript on the author’s own journey of pretension and love for culture. His own career journey from Manchester to NYC as well as the truly unconventional lives of his brothers and parents. I’d like to read more about him. I also appreciated his digressions in architecture and how it reflects culture.
There was a middle chapter that really tackled the main topic head-on which was helpful. Much of the book focuses on the implications of class in matters of pretension. I loved the musings on the intersection of the music and art world as well.
Overall, it felt disorganized and at times profound but lacking enough cohesion to drive any big points home or offer any comprehensive revelations. It asks more questions and raises more musings than providing answers which I think is a lost opportunity.
Honestly, sometimes it’s enough to even read the title of a book, all of it condensed into a line. I saw it a while back and agreed. I feel inspired and wish my life to follow the same trajectory if it’s not too late to escape the ‘small town.’
quotes:
‘I was lucky. I understood pretension as permission for the imagination.’
‘Both Mum and Dad had seen the world, they knew that out there was where you had to be, however you got there. All you first had to do was transform the familiar.
Without the possibility of transformation, Mum would never have left the farm in Wales, and Dad would still be a priest following what the church would call his "true" vocation…’
‘At Oxford, another student once put me down by saying, "It must be nice doing your hobby as a degree." The idea that fine art could be a serious course of study wound him up, presumably because he could not understand how the amore of the amateur could translate into a serious life pursuit. And yet in some sense he would prove to be right: I have no qualification for what I do. I never studied art history or journalism, and I learned to write and to edit on the job. I became a professional art critic by doing it, by feeling my way through. In that sense my career as a "professional" magazine editor and art critic has been along the same ama-teurist spectrum as any number of other pursuits I've fol-lowed, making music or art.’
‘When I eventually began listening to the Bowie records in Mark's collection, I'd hear the line "I've lived all over the world, I've left every place" and it made an intuitive kind of sense. At that time it didn't much matter that my here and now was the names of Cotswold villages, that I'd barely been an hour down the motorway to London, let alone Tokyo or Berlin. Wheatley, Staten Island, Great Milton, Massif Central, Cuddesdon, São Paolo. Those were the conditions of life under pop.’
‘If you were romantic enough and half-closed your eyes, run-down 1970s Manchester could have been 1970s Berlin-the kind of city where existential crises could be had, where daily life was experienced on a battlefield for global ideologies. Saville's appropriation of European avant-garde imagery was, in his words, about "changing the here and now instead of going somewhere else." That was something I could relate to, a way of pushing the intensely local up against something too big to grasp.’
‘Wheatley, Oxford, Lontion and an eye for detail. big in small towns, sweeping sentiment and an eye for detail, it all sounds pleasingly, simplistically, romantic. But doesn't all that daydreaming imply a snobbery of geography that equates the small town with the small mind and the big city with promises of success and creative self-realization? Even if you get down the motorway from Wheatley to London there's always that moment when you have to acknowledge that you're not somewhere even more exciting-Mexico City, say, or Los Angeles-you're stuck in a bedsit in Rotherhithe.
Unless displaced somewhere by war, money, or famine, we like to think of ourselves as having an authentic right to a place. It is other people who are "immigrants," not us, not our forebears. It's those people down the street who are gentrifying the neighborhood: we, after all, are sensitive to cultural context and would never dream of eroding what attracted us here in the first place, would we? Surely we're not pretentious gentrifiers, we just came here because we dreamt of leaving our small town for a life of the mind in the big city, right?’
‘Truth is, more often than not pretension is simply someone trying to make the world more interesting, responding to it the way they think is appropriate. It's more likely that what you think is one person's pretension is anoth ex's good faith.’
‘Pretension is about overreaching what you're capable of, taking the risk that you might fall flat on your face.
Without people stretching themselves and—self-consciously or otherwise-risking failure, most of the major works of art, music, literature, cinema, dance, philosophy, science, clothing, design, architecture, engineering, horticulture, and cuisine that we cherish would simply not exist. New discoveries would not be made, or-like many great innovations-accidentally stumbled across. It is the engine oil of culture; every creative motor needs it in order to keep running and not seize up and corrode with complacency.’
‘Circle back, for a moment, to the figures of the amateur and the professional. All but the most cynical artists are amateurs-amateurs in the original French sense of the word, a "lover of" what they do. Professional artists are those who operate inside established networks and systems geared toward supporting their work—a professional community with a shared language. The meaning of the art they make can be hard to parse, yet millions of people make things just as strange and difficult.’
‘The enduring popularity of these story archetypes says something about a collective fascination with role-playing, fears about identity, age-old debates about nature versus nurture, and the superstition that life's trials are simply the gods screwing with us. They tap into the existential suspicion that identities might be mutable— like the time-traveling, gender-swapping protagonist of Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography. Dissemblance is enjoyable when it's kept safe inside the local multiplex or the pages of a novel, but once you put down the book or leave the cinema, the rule is you don't take the pretense with you.’
‘"In modern political performances," writes Richard Sennett in The Culture of the New Capitalism, "the marketing of personality further and frequently eschews a narrative of the politician's history and record in office; it's too bor-ing. He or she embodies intentions, desires, values, beliefs, tastes—an emphasis which has again the effect of divorcing power from responsibility." The consummate politician is a screen onto which are projected the nebulous desires of the electorate, media and business.’
‘A discomfort with pretense is also a discomfort with power, or with the fear that nobody is in control, only acting as if they are.’
‘After all, isn't everyone himself already? How can he help being himself? Who or what else could he be? To pursue authenticity as an ideal, as something that must be achieved, is to be self-consciously paradoxical. But those who seek authenticity insist that this paradox is built into the structure of the world they live in. This world, they say, represses, alienates, divides, denies, destroys, the self. To be oneself in a world is not a tautology but a problem.’ (Quote from Berman)
‘"Thus by a significant reversal, actors' practice was enshrined in the principles of rhetoric, which then, histori-cally, became a prescriptive set of rules for the actor."’
‘The mimesis of theater, thought Plato, could only lead to self-corruption; if you played a slave you might end up servile off-stage too. He argued that imitation was mere rheto-ric, incapable of expressing the truth like philosophy could.
Indeed, European acting history became bound up with the rules of classical rhetoric used by lawyers, theologians, and diplomats. Stage acting came straight from the legal and political toolboxes of persuasion. The history of pretense is tied up with the history of power.’
‘We tell those with unrealistic expectations to "get real," "face reality," or "wake up and smell the coffee," as if the rest of their activities were a dream.
Yet we value dreams. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," wrote Shakespeare.’
‘Play, according to psychologist D. W. Winnicott, allows children to see, risk-free, what happens when their internal world engages with the external one. Yet by the time you reach an age at which you can legally drink, vote, drive, consent to sex, or get married, it's presumed you know where to draw the line between fact and fantasy, where innocent play congeals into pretension.’
—D. H. Lawrence, The Evening News, September, 27, 1928
(Quoted in the book)
This book is about how putting someone down for being uneducated and putting someone down for being pretentious are really two sides of the same coin. It’s also about the great romance of art, beauty, culture, and moreover color, emotion, and being too much… to transform individuals and cities, and their necessity. It’s about cities and globalism and genius permutations.
The first chapter on the history of the western conception of pretentiousness and its relation to theater was really absorbing (specifically the back and forth between method acting which came from Russia and arch, prescribed laws of acting, the clash between the restraints of neoclacissism and romanticism, and the counterattack from Mamet and Brecht against naturalism, arguing for artificiality so people invest their emotions in real social change, and interestingly the mix of both colorful expressive theater and natural emotions in Shakespeare’s plays // socially contextualized roles to looking within the individual, inner authenticity and how it’s become tied up with politics both with the left against capitalism and the right against the government and rights of the individual).
My personal favorite part was the postscript on the author’s own journey of pretension and love for culture. His own career journey from Manchester to NYC as well as the truly unconventional lives of his brothers and parents. I’d like to read more about him. I also appreciated his digressions in architecture and how it reflects culture.
There was a middle chapter that really tackled the main topic head-on which was helpful. Much of the book focuses on the implications of class in matters of pretension. I loved the musings on the intersection of the music and art world as well.
Overall, it felt disorganized and at times profound but lacking enough cohesion to drive any big points home or offer any comprehensive revelations. It asks more questions and raises more musings than providing answers which I think is a lost opportunity.
Honestly, sometimes it’s enough to even read the title of a book, all of it condensed into a line. I saw it a while back and agreed. I feel inspired and wish my life to follow the same trajectory if it’s not too late to escape the ‘small town.’
quotes:
‘I was lucky. I understood pretension as permission for the imagination.’
‘Both Mum and Dad had seen the world, they knew that out there was where you had to be, however you got there. All you first had to do was transform the familiar.
Without the possibility of transformation, Mum would never have left the farm in Wales, and Dad would still be a priest following what the church would call his "true" vocation…’
‘At Oxford, another student once put me down by saying, "It must be nice doing your hobby as a degree." The idea that fine art could be a serious course of study wound him up, presumably because he could not understand how the amore of the amateur could translate into a serious life pursuit. And yet in some sense he would prove to be right: I have no qualification for what I do. I never studied art history or journalism, and I learned to write and to edit on the job. I became a professional art critic by doing it, by feeling my way through. In that sense my career as a "professional" magazine editor and art critic has been along the same ama-teurist spectrum as any number of other pursuits I've fol-lowed, making music or art.’
‘When I eventually began listening to the Bowie records in Mark's collection, I'd hear the line "I've lived all over the world, I've left every place" and it made an intuitive kind of sense. At that time it didn't much matter that my here and now was the names of Cotswold villages, that I'd barely been an hour down the motorway to London, let alone Tokyo or Berlin. Wheatley, Staten Island, Great Milton, Massif Central, Cuddesdon, São Paolo. Those were the conditions of life under pop.’
‘If you were romantic enough and half-closed your eyes, run-down 1970s Manchester could have been 1970s Berlin-the kind of city where existential crises could be had, where daily life was experienced on a battlefield for global ideologies. Saville's appropriation of European avant-garde imagery was, in his words, about "changing the here and now instead of going somewhere else." That was something I could relate to, a way of pushing the intensely local up against something too big to grasp.’
‘Wheatley, Oxford, Lontion and an eye for detail. big in small towns, sweeping sentiment and an eye for detail, it all sounds pleasingly, simplistically, romantic. But doesn't all that daydreaming imply a snobbery of geography that equates the small town with the small mind and the big city with promises of success and creative self-realization? Even if you get down the motorway from Wheatley to London there's always that moment when you have to acknowledge that you're not somewhere even more exciting-Mexico City, say, or Los Angeles-you're stuck in a bedsit in Rotherhithe.
Unless displaced somewhere by war, money, or famine, we like to think of ourselves as having an authentic right to a place. It is other people who are "immigrants," not us, not our forebears. It's those people down the street who are gentrifying the neighborhood: we, after all, are sensitive to cultural context and would never dream of eroding what attracted us here in the first place, would we? Surely we're not pretentious gentrifiers, we just came here because we dreamt of leaving our small town for a life of the mind in the big city, right?’
‘Truth is, more often than not pretension is simply someone trying to make the world more interesting, responding to it the way they think is appropriate. It's more likely that what you think is one person's pretension is anoth ex's good faith.’
‘Pretension is about overreaching what you're capable of, taking the risk that you might fall flat on your face.
Without people stretching themselves and—self-consciously or otherwise-risking failure, most of the major works of art, music, literature, cinema, dance, philosophy, science, clothing, design, architecture, engineering, horticulture, and cuisine that we cherish would simply not exist. New discoveries would not be made, or-like many great innovations-accidentally stumbled across. It is the engine oil of culture; every creative motor needs it in order to keep running and not seize up and corrode with complacency.’
‘Circle back, for a moment, to the figures of the amateur and the professional. All but the most cynical artists are amateurs-amateurs in the original French sense of the word, a "lover of" what they do. Professional artists are those who operate inside established networks and systems geared toward supporting their work—a professional community with a shared language. The meaning of the art they make can be hard to parse, yet millions of people make things just as strange and difficult.’
‘The enduring popularity of these story archetypes says something about a collective fascination with role-playing, fears about identity, age-old debates about nature versus nurture, and the superstition that life's trials are simply the gods screwing with us. They tap into the existential suspicion that identities might be mutable— like the time-traveling, gender-swapping protagonist of Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography. Dissemblance is enjoyable when it's kept safe inside the local multiplex or the pages of a novel, but once you put down the book or leave the cinema, the rule is you don't take the pretense with you.’
‘"In modern political performances," writes Richard Sennett in The Culture of the New Capitalism, "the marketing of personality further and frequently eschews a narrative of the politician's history and record in office; it's too bor-ing. He or she embodies intentions, desires, values, beliefs, tastes—an emphasis which has again the effect of divorcing power from responsibility." The consummate politician is a screen onto which are projected the nebulous desires of the electorate, media and business.’
‘A discomfort with pretense is also a discomfort with power, or with the fear that nobody is in control, only acting as if they are.’
‘After all, isn't everyone himself already? How can he help being himself? Who or what else could he be? To pursue authenticity as an ideal, as something that must be achieved, is to be self-consciously paradoxical. But those who seek authenticity insist that this paradox is built into the structure of the world they live in. This world, they say, represses, alienates, divides, denies, destroys, the self. To be oneself in a world is not a tautology but a problem.’ (Quote from Berman)
‘"Thus by a significant reversal, actors' practice was enshrined in the principles of rhetoric, which then, histori-cally, became a prescriptive set of rules for the actor."’
‘The mimesis of theater, thought Plato, could only lead to self-corruption; if you played a slave you might end up servile off-stage too. He argued that imitation was mere rheto-ric, incapable of expressing the truth like philosophy could.
Indeed, European acting history became bound up with the rules of classical rhetoric used by lawyers, theologians, and diplomats. Stage acting came straight from the legal and political toolboxes of persuasion. The history of pretense is tied up with the history of power.’
‘We tell those with unrealistic expectations to "get real," "face reality," or "wake up and smell the coffee," as if the rest of their activities were a dream.
Yet we value dreams. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," wrote Shakespeare.’
‘Play, according to psychologist D. W. Winnicott, allows children to see, risk-free, what happens when their internal world engages with the external one. Yet by the time you reach an age at which you can legally drink, vote, drive, consent to sex, or get married, it's presumed you know where to draw the line between fact and fantasy, where innocent play congeals into pretension.’
Read
November 27, 2024I agree with the sentiment: calling people/their interests/art pretentious is often an accusation that betrays one’s own lack of intellectual curiosity. This essay mainly focuses on if people weren’t ‘pretentious’ then we wouldn’t have x, y, z cool things, which, sure. But I do think those are two different things. Fox’s discussion on class and elitism also felt a bit disingenuous. How a person is marginalized by society has to be taken into account in a meaningful way when it comes to understanding their interactions with culture, and how their knowledge and opinions of said culture forms.
It would be more interesting to further the conversation on anti-intellectualism, the marketplace, and how much of mass market entertainment not only appeals to the lowest common denominator, but also has dangerous implications, e.g. Marvel and their military propaganda.
I’m also thinking of this Fran Lebowitz interview where she says:
I believe in this one, or maybe another interview, Lebowitz also talks about the cultural devastation the AIDs epidemic had in that it killed a lot of tastemakers, artists, critics, et cetera, and this has in part led to a lot of bad art being made. The importance of a discerning audience cannot be understated enough, and I do think people have to be okay with certain things being called bad art, and admitting they solely exist as capitalistic pursuits (I liked the line at the end, “Literature is not the same as publishing”).
It would be more interesting to further the conversation on anti-intellectualism, the marketplace, and how much of mass market entertainment not only appeals to the lowest common denominator, but also has dangerous implications, e.g. Marvel and their military propaganda.
I’m also thinking of this Fran Lebowitz interview where she says:
Yes, society should be fair, yes, society should give everyone a chance, it should be more equal, but it’s not true of the culture. The culture is not the society. We have way too much democracy in the culture and way too little in the society. But in order to make these judgments, you have to agree or believe that some things are better than others.
I believe in this one, or maybe another interview, Lebowitz also talks about the cultural devastation the AIDs epidemic had in that it killed a lot of tastemakers, artists, critics, et cetera, and this has in part led to a lot of bad art being made. The importance of a discerning audience cannot be understated enough, and I do think people have to be okay with certain things being called bad art, and admitting they solely exist as capitalistic pursuits (I liked the line at the end, “Literature is not the same as publishing”).
March 30, 2024
This book was okay! It made me think about how I perceive other people's comments and attitudes and also made me reflect on my opinions and observations about other people! I liked the examples the book gave and the point that everyone is always acting, whether at work pretending to be doing something meaningful or talking to a crush and pretending to be nonchalant about life.
I think there are definitely some ways where people try new things, and from the outside, people might think they're trying to be something they're not (which is true...), but at the same time, they're not doing it to impress anyone. It's because they genuinely want to learn or be better or be a specific way; there's less emphasis on being this "someone" TO others and more on who YOU want to be, regardless of what others think.
However, at that point, I wouldn't say that correcting your behavior is enabling or defending pretentiousness. Maybe I interpreted the book wrong, but I don't really see that as pretentious. I interpreted it as the author claiming that's an example of pretentiousness, but it leaves out the intent if that makes sense.
Oh, I think I'm just confusing myself!!! This book has made me realize what "true" pretension is and what it isn't.
I think there are definitely some ways where people try new things, and from the outside, people might think they're trying to be something they're not (which is true...), but at the same time, they're not doing it to impress anyone. It's because they genuinely want to learn or be better or be a specific way; there's less emphasis on being this "someone" TO others and more on who YOU want to be, regardless of what others think.
However, at that point, I wouldn't say that correcting your behavior is enabling or defending pretentiousness. Maybe I interpreted the book wrong, but I don't really see that as pretentious. I interpreted it as the author claiming that's an example of pretentiousness, but it leaves out the intent if that makes sense.
Oh, I think I'm just confusing myself!!! This book has made me realize what "true" pretension is and what it isn't.
June 30, 2024
Writing an essay on the importance of being pretentious is definitely a funny and original idea. The author gave an interesting insight of the origins of the word through Ancient Greek philosophy and drama which allowed to understand more about the definition of the word and its implications. However, I felt that the essay’s strength went downhill instead of going up. What I usually love with essays is the progression of ideas that unveil progressively more complex ideas. In this essay, the ideas are very fascinating at first but become more and more simple as the book reaches its ending. I felt like the last few chapters were painfully obvious and too descriptive of behaviors that already feel quite explicit.
November 12, 2024
Picked up because of my interest in identity politics - author himself seemed to fall into the trappings of ‘aspiring-down’ to working class authenticity.
When talking about the pretentiousness of Art Rock bands he mentions that Bryan Ferry’s dad is a coal miner and Brian Eno’s was a post man. He picked an interesting time to mention this, choosing to contrast their working class background with their taste in high art.
Faking a working class background is agreed to be in bad taste, but what about this obsession with those who “came from nothing”? (A phrase my parents hate because it conflates money with everything). Why is the working class both aspired to and ridiculed for its ignorance?
When talking about the pretentiousness of Art Rock bands he mentions that Bryan Ferry’s dad is a coal miner and Brian Eno’s was a post man. He picked an interesting time to mention this, choosing to contrast their working class background with their taste in high art.
Faking a working class background is agreed to be in bad taste, but what about this obsession with those who “came from nothing”? (A phrase my parents hate because it conflates money with everything). Why is the working class both aspired to and ridiculed for its ignorance?
August 19, 2025
I don’t normally write reviews on goodreads, but I will open an exception for this remarkable book. It’s about how pretentiousness is important to develop art and in many senses society itself, how putting down any piece of art and labelling it pretentiousness is more about our own aesthetic biases and not quite about the merits of said piece. And even if it does attempt to be something that it quite isn’t it has it’s own merit, the merit of attempting because as much as scientific progress only happens through failed experiments art works in the same way and in many ways so does society.
If this discussion by itself was not important already it also dabs into the inherently classist and political aspect of downplaying something because of it’s pretentiousness and the dangers of anti-intellectualism, I won’t discuss this further not so much because I’m afraid of spoiling the debate but rather because I’m afraid I might project my own opinions and I’m sure the author doesn’t deserve that 😂
It’s an exceptional book, straight to the point, easy to read and filled with insightful reflections on art and society, and oddly enough (or maybe not) very unpretentious. A must read for art aficionados and curious minds alike and no it won’t make you pretentious for reading it but by the end you might wonder if you should be.
If this discussion by itself was not important already it also dabs into the inherently classist and political aspect of downplaying something because of it’s pretentiousness and the dangers of anti-intellectualism, I won’t discuss this further not so much because I’m afraid of spoiling the debate but rather because I’m afraid I might project my own opinions and I’m sure the author doesn’t deserve that 😂
It’s an exceptional book, straight to the point, easy to read and filled with insightful reflections on art and society, and oddly enough (or maybe not) very unpretentious. A must read for art aficionados and curious minds alike and no it won’t make you pretentious for reading it but by the end you might wonder if you should be.
March 31, 2017
Dense, thought-provoking essay on pretentiousness, its connotations and its value as a reflection of society and culture. Starts with an investigation of the etymology of the word and how its meaning has been misconstrued over time. Then goes into the role of pretentiousness in culture, music and the arts and its value as a tool of creative exploration contrary to its popular conception as a negative value.
October 20, 2019
My favorite part of this book was the autobiographical chapter at the end. It was completely unique, the personal history growing up in England in the 1980s and 90s that led Fox to become a critic. I think the bulk of the book suffers a bit from being too abstract and full of quotations, not grounded enough in the fascinating individual viewpoint of the author.
December 16, 2024
I adored this book and devoured it quickly. A testament to pretension, its value, and a rumination on the peculiar aversion that society has towards it. I particularly enjoyed the passage about inverted-snobbery regarding pretension and the anti-intellectual slant it has.
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