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Object Lessons
Rust
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Rust: it's happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Jean-Michel Rabate's Rust takes on the multitudinous meanings that this oxidized substance can hold, and shows how technology can bleed into biology and ecology. Rust blends eco-criticism with a post-Benjaminian allegorization of technology, ranging across art, autobiography, and science studies to explore the author's own fascination for peeling paints and rusty metal sheets as the interpenetration between the organic and the inorganic.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Rust: it's happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Jean-Michel Rabate's Rust takes on the multitudinous meanings that this oxidized substance can hold, and shows how technology can bleed into biology and ecology. Rust blends eco-criticism with a post-Benjaminian allegorization of technology, ranging across art, autobiography, and science studies to explore the author's own fascination for peeling paints and rusty metal sheets as the interpenetration between the organic and the inorganic.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
160 pages, Paperback
Published March 8, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 6, 2018
A very... odd little book.
I'm not sure why I decided to read this one, other than the fact that it looked mildly interesting. It wasn't.
Look, I'm not sure exactly who the target audience is for this story. It's sort of artsy, in an erudite, pretentious way. I like a good intellectual book of musings as much as the next girl, but most of the book felt like overblown filler. It had moments where it was interesting, but most of the stories failed to excite me.
*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*
I'm not sure why I decided to read this one, other than the fact that it looked mildly interesting. It wasn't.
Look, I'm not sure exactly who the target audience is for this story. It's sort of artsy, in an erudite, pretentious way. I like a good intellectual book of musings as much as the next girl, but most of the book felt like overblown filler. It had moments where it was interesting, but most of the stories failed to excite me.
*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*
January 1, 2018
Did this ever happen to you in school? You were assigned a report with a fixed number of pages. You quickly realized that you did not have enough material to complete the assignment. So you threw in anything even remotely related to the assigned topic to fill out the required page count.
That’s the feeling I got from reading Jean-Michele Rabate’s book, Rust. It’s the latest volume in Bloombury’s Object Lesson series, where writers opine on everyday objects and processes - in this case, the oxidation of iron.
Writing a compelling, popular book on rust is a challenge, but Rabate opens with some charming stories about boyhood encounters with rust in Bordeaux. He then goes on to tell the story of the Eiffel Tower and how its iron structure is under constant threat of corrosion.
Things take a sudden turn when our author begins a literary analysis of a novel called, A Fine Color of Rust by P. A. O’Reilly. Then there is a review of a nine-hour Chinese documentary film about abandoned factories. Then we have a review of a dystopian Si-Fi novel by the South African author, J. M. Coetzee.
Next, we have a length dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel’s long discredited theory on rust and blood. While there is iron in red blood cells, the process of blood oxygenation is not the same as the rusting of metallic iron. In any event, I advise my students, when they encounter 19th Century German philosophy, to run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible.
After immersing us in dialectics, Rabate treats us to a discussion of Victorian art critic, John Ruskin’s ideas about the role of rust in producing colors, which , somehow manages to become a critique of capitalism.
We then return to Rabate’s boyhood, and an account of how he was forced to drink raw horse’s blood in an ill-advised attempt to cure his anemia. This tale then segues into a lecture on the role of hemoglobin in the blood.
All of the previous was in the first half of the book. Later we get references to Franz Kafka, Japanese haiku, circumcision, Danish architecture and botanical “rusts” , which are actually fungal infections that have nothing to do with iron corrosion.
The entire time I was reading Rust, I couldn’t help but wonder who this book is targeted at , and what were the author's intentions were. Is is a surrealist ,tour de force , or a frantic attempt to fulfill a book contract. Read Rust, if you dare, and decide for yourself.
That’s the feeling I got from reading Jean-Michele Rabate’s book, Rust. It’s the latest volume in Bloombury’s Object Lesson series, where writers opine on everyday objects and processes - in this case, the oxidation of iron.
Writing a compelling, popular book on rust is a challenge, but Rabate opens with some charming stories about boyhood encounters with rust in Bordeaux. He then goes on to tell the story of the Eiffel Tower and how its iron structure is under constant threat of corrosion.
Things take a sudden turn when our author begins a literary analysis of a novel called, A Fine Color of Rust by P. A. O’Reilly. Then there is a review of a nine-hour Chinese documentary film about abandoned factories. Then we have a review of a dystopian Si-Fi novel by the South African author, J. M. Coetzee.
Next, we have a length dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel’s long discredited theory on rust and blood. While there is iron in red blood cells, the process of blood oxygenation is not the same as the rusting of metallic iron. In any event, I advise my students, when they encounter 19th Century German philosophy, to run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible.
After immersing us in dialectics, Rabate treats us to a discussion of Victorian art critic, John Ruskin’s ideas about the role of rust in producing colors, which , somehow manages to become a critique of capitalism.
We then return to Rabate’s boyhood, and an account of how he was forced to drink raw horse’s blood in an ill-advised attempt to cure his anemia. This tale then segues into a lecture on the role of hemoglobin in the blood.
All of the previous was in the first half of the book. Later we get references to Franz Kafka, Japanese haiku, circumcision, Danish architecture and botanical “rusts” , which are actually fungal infections that have nothing to do with iron corrosion.
The entire time I was reading Rust, I couldn’t help but wonder who this book is targeted at , and what were the author's intentions were. Is is a surrealist ,tour de force , or a frantic attempt to fulfill a book contract. Read Rust, if you dare, and decide for yourself.
August 16, 2018
If nothing else, this wide-ranging exploration of rust – what it is, how it manifests itself, its implications and significance – will make me more aware of it, but overall I found this book just a bit too discursive and the author’s attempts to overlay a natural process with a whole load of meanings just all felt a bit too pretentious for comfort. I’ve discovered since reading the book that Rabaté is a leading literary theorist and it shows. I so much more prefer the volumes in this Object Lessons series that keep to the facts rather than wander off into airy-fairy speculations. Not a bad read, though, and my horizons have been expanded. Which is the whole point, I suppose.
November 1, 2017
A very highbrow cultural study of some highbrow things that refer to rust. Again this series frustrates, as this is definitely not one for the average man on the stereotypical omnibus.
November 20, 2024
At the end of the essay, the author offers a recipe for rouille, presenting themselves as a culinary connoisseur. They pepper the description with useless details, yet omit crucial information like cooking times, temperatures, or precise measurements. What’s left feels incomplete—something that might pass as legitimate to someone who has never cooked anything more complex than a fried egg. For everyone else, it’s an empty gesture. The recipe might as well have included unicorn hair or manticore meat—the result would be the same. But the author wraps it up with a cheerful Bon appétit, as if that alone will leave the reader marveling at their refined taste.
The rest of the essay follows the same pattern. I’ve read several other pieces in the Object Lessons series, and each time they were written by someone who genuinely understood their subject—someone who loved it so deeply that they could effortlessly weave connections between it and countless aspects of life, crafting a narrative full of insight. These essays often revealed surprising parallels and used the chosen object as a lens to illuminate broader themes, all rooted in factual understanding. To me, that’s what makes a great essay.
Unfortunately, this piece is none of those things. The author spends 15 pages retelling Kafka’s Jackals and Arabs—a two-page story—and only vaguely acknowledges rust when they suddenly remember the rusty scissors mentioned in passing.
The essay is full of digressions that leave the reader wondering when the author will return to the actual topic. These tangents often culminate in a lackluster conclusion, such as, “Finally, if rust can eat industrial pollution, we can also eat rust.” Oh, well.
Most of the author’s parallels have less to do with rust itself and more with blood (115 mentions over 100 pages). For some inexplicable reason, the author insists that blood is somehow fundamentally connected to rust (it’s not, but fine) and then uses this shaky metaphor as the foundation for all their subsequent arguments.
When I read an essay, I want to learn something new, enjoy the elegance of its ideas, and come away with something to reflect on. This essay, however, gave me none of those things. Instead, it’s an overly verbose text, bogged down by the author’s self-importance and lacking in meaningful substance.
The rest of the essay follows the same pattern. I’ve read several other pieces in the Object Lessons series, and each time they were written by someone who genuinely understood their subject—someone who loved it so deeply that they could effortlessly weave connections between it and countless aspects of life, crafting a narrative full of insight. These essays often revealed surprising parallels and used the chosen object as a lens to illuminate broader themes, all rooted in factual understanding. To me, that’s what makes a great essay.
Unfortunately, this piece is none of those things. The author spends 15 pages retelling Kafka’s Jackals and Arabs—a two-page story—and only vaguely acknowledges rust when they suddenly remember the rusty scissors mentioned in passing.
The essay is full of digressions that leave the reader wondering when the author will return to the actual topic. These tangents often culminate in a lackluster conclusion, such as, “Finally, if rust can eat industrial pollution, we can also eat rust.” Oh, well.
Most of the author’s parallels have less to do with rust itself and more with blood (115 mentions over 100 pages). For some inexplicable reason, the author insists that blood is somehow fundamentally connected to rust (it’s not, but fine) and then uses this shaky metaphor as the foundation for all their subsequent arguments.
When I read an essay, I want to learn something new, enjoy the elegance of its ideas, and come away with something to reflect on. This essay, however, gave me none of those things. Instead, it’s an overly verbose text, bogged down by the author’s self-importance and lacking in meaningful substance.
October 8, 2020
Rust by Jean-Michel Rabaté is another addition to the growing Object Lesson series from Bloomsbury Academic. Rabaté is one of the world's foremost literary theorists. He is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Vartan Gregorian Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. Rabaté has authored or edited more than thirty books on modernism, psychoanalysis, contemporary art, philosophy, and writers like Beckett, Pound, and Joyce.
For anyone that lives in the former industrial north, rust is simply a fact of life. Car bodies rust through with the help of winter salting. Rust stains concrete and leaves it mark on steel structures. Rust is the oxidation of iron in specific but Rabaté takes it to a deeper level. The Eiffel Tower gets painted regularly to prevent rust. Rabaté sees more rust in America than in Europe and Japan, equally industrialized areas. Others go through the trouble to hide rust that Americans do not. Rust even caused the collapse of Mianus River Bridge in Connecticut in 1983.
Rust takes on other manifestations. It is a plant disease. Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, was once a coffee producing region until a rust killed off all the coffee trees. That change Ceylon from a coffee producing nation to a tea growing nation. I benefit I personally enjoy. Being a primarily a literature professor, and a professor of modernist literature he includes a book by J.M. Coetzee the Life and Times of Michael K. Here is where modernism describes rust and rustication. A very interesting and appreciated twist. He even includes a review of a Japanese Movie entitled Rust. Hegel and Kafka are even brought into the lesson.
This is perhaps the most free-ranging lesson in the series. It takes a bit of modernism and stream of consciousness to give the broad range explanation of the subject. It is not a straightforward chemical process but covers how deeply the word has entered of vocabulary and mindset. Rust is a disease. It is a color. Its color describes other objects. It is in the Bible and the Koran. Rabaté gives a comprehensive and cultural look at the idea of rust more than the chemical reactions.
For anyone that lives in the former industrial north, rust is simply a fact of life. Car bodies rust through with the help of winter salting. Rust stains concrete and leaves it mark on steel structures. Rust is the oxidation of iron in specific but Rabaté takes it to a deeper level. The Eiffel Tower gets painted regularly to prevent rust. Rabaté sees more rust in America than in Europe and Japan, equally industrialized areas. Others go through the trouble to hide rust that Americans do not. Rust even caused the collapse of Mianus River Bridge in Connecticut in 1983.
Rust takes on other manifestations. It is a plant disease. Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, was once a coffee producing region until a rust killed off all the coffee trees. That change Ceylon from a coffee producing nation to a tea growing nation. I benefit I personally enjoy. Being a primarily a literature professor, and a professor of modernist literature he includes a book by J.M. Coetzee the Life and Times of Michael K. Here is where modernism describes rust and rustication. A very interesting and appreciated twist. He even includes a review of a Japanese Movie entitled Rust. Hegel and Kafka are even brought into the lesson.
This is perhaps the most free-ranging lesson in the series. It takes a bit of modernism and stream of consciousness to give the broad range explanation of the subject. It is not a straightforward chemical process but covers how deeply the word has entered of vocabulary and mindset. Rust is a disease. It is a color. Its color describes other objects. It is in the Bible and the Koran. Rabaté gives a comprehensive and cultural look at the idea of rust more than the chemical reactions.
May 14, 2020
Well. I made the effort to get to the end, because the final chapters included aesthetics which should cover my interest in rust. After a discussion about arabs and jews I found the aesthetics bit rather thin from my point of view - rust can be beautiful!
Overall impression: lots of quotes from a great many sources, and here and there some discussion, but not much meat. Only to be expected in a little book, I suppose. I liked the cover.
Overall impression: lots of quotes from a great many sources, and here and there some discussion, but not much meat. Only to be expected in a little book, I suppose. I liked the cover.
April 5, 2019
Solid, buuuut, again, a bit more cultural studies and not quite OOO.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews