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No Limits
Aimlessness
Our culture values striving, purpose, achievement, and accumulation. This book asks us to get sidetracked along the way. It praises aimlessness as a source of creativity and an alternative to the demand for linear, efficient, instrumentalist thinking and productivity.
Aimlessness collects ideas and stories from around the world that value indirection, wandering, getting lost, waiting, meandering, lingering, sitting, laying about, daydreaming, and other ways to be open to possibility, chaos, and multiplicity. Tom Lutz considers aimlessness as a fundamental human proclivity and method, one that has been vilified by modern industrial societies but celebrated by many religious traditions, philosophers, writers, and artists. He roams a circular path that snakes and forks down sideroads, traipsing through modernist art, nomadic life, slacker comedies, drugs, travel, nirvana, and oblivion. The book is structured as a recursive, disjunctive spiral of short sections, a collage of narrative, anecdotal, analytic, and lyrical passages―intended to be read aimlessly, to wind up someplace unexpected.
Aimlessness collects ideas and stories from around the world that value indirection, wandering, getting lost, waiting, meandering, lingering, sitting, laying about, daydreaming, and other ways to be open to possibility, chaos, and multiplicity. Tom Lutz considers aimlessness as a fundamental human proclivity and method, one that has been vilified by modern industrial societies but celebrated by many religious traditions, philosophers, writers, and artists. He roams a circular path that snakes and forks down sideroads, traipsing through modernist art, nomadic life, slacker comedies, drugs, travel, nirvana, and oblivion. The book is structured as a recursive, disjunctive spiral of short sections, a collage of narrative, anecdotal, analytic, and lyrical passages―intended to be read aimlessly, to wind up someplace unexpected.
- GenresNonfiction
184 pages, Hardcover
Published January 26, 2021
11 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
About the author
Tom Lutz
60 books76 followersI have just published the third volume of my travel writing, THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS ()October 2021). A volume of photographic portraits of people I've met on the road is coming out in February 2022, PORTRAITS: MOMENTS OF INTIMACY ON THE ROAD.
A book of philosophical and literary critical reflections, AIMLESSNESS, was published in January 2021 by Columbia University Press.
My first novel, BORN SLIPPY: A NOVEL was published in January, 2020 (Repeater/PRH).
I've just sent a sequel, STILL SLIPPY, to my agent.
I am the author of two earlier books of travel narrative — And The Monkey Learned Nothing and Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World — the cultural histories Doing Nothing and Crying; literary histories Cosmopolitan Vistas and American Nervousness, 1903; pieces for New York Times, LA Times, ZYZZYVA, Exquisite Corpse, New Republic, Salon, Black Clock, Iowa Review, and other places.
I’m a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the UC Riverside, the founding editor in chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, founder of The LARB Radio Hour, The LARB Quarterly Journal, The LARB/USC Publishing Workshop, and LARB Books. I am a part-time musician, an amateur photographer, and a full-time dilettante. I live in Los Angeles.
A book of philosophical and literary critical reflections, AIMLESSNESS, was published in January 2021 by Columbia University Press.
My first novel, BORN SLIPPY: A NOVEL was published in January, 2020 (Repeater/PRH).
I've just sent a sequel, STILL SLIPPY, to my agent.
I am the author of two earlier books of travel narrative — And The Monkey Learned Nothing and Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World — the cultural histories Doing Nothing and Crying; literary histories Cosmopolitan Vistas and American Nervousness, 1903; pieces for New York Times, LA Times, ZYZZYVA, Exquisite Corpse, New Republic, Salon, Black Clock, Iowa Review, and other places.
I’m a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the UC Riverside, the founding editor in chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, founder of The LARB Radio Hour, The LARB Quarterly Journal, The LARB/USC Publishing Workshop, and LARB Books. I am a part-time musician, an amateur photographer, and a full-time dilettante. I live in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 13, 2021
Picked up this book on a whim after realizing I never really buy contemporary works or books in general without doing prior research. Went home and promptly read about half the book in one night and the other half over the course of the following few days. Loved the author’s casual way of jumping from subject to subject in the manner of one wandering. Intriguing thoughts on: nomadism, the paradox of aiming for aimlessness, “doing nothing,” Buddhist meditative practice, stream of consciousness, and collage, to name a few.
October 13, 2021
A wonderful meandering through different ideas and concepts. Inspiring to become more aimless.
April 8, 2021
This is one of my favorite reads this year and I cannot thank the publisher enough for giving me an advanced readers copy. Tom Lutz's writing was mesmerizing, as if I was hearing someone talk. His thoughts flowed so well together and I could see the individual points as well as the collage that he built in this work. Lutz's ideas are so distinct and yet form a brilliant picture together. His analysis of the concept of aimlessness, how it manifests in poetry, essays, novels, death, love and how everything builds a collage with so much room for interpretation... I'm blown away by these concepts and this outlook! All I want to do is to learn more.
A full review of the book and the thoughts I had as I read will be published in Armed with A Book on publication date.
A full review of the book and the thoughts I had as I read will be published in Armed with A Book on publication date.
July 27, 2022
I thought it was mid.
It did bring up a lot of perspectives that I hadn't thought about before regarding the subject. The format was clever in that each theme was separated into small chapters that elaborated as the book went on. But it wasn't a book I'd call enjoyable. While the format did align itself with the theme of the book: aimlessness, I think the author took too much liberty in it to where nothing felt cohesive and more a rambling stream of ideas. Perhaps that was intentional, but it wasn't something I finished and felt inspired by.
It did bring up a lot of perspectives that I hadn't thought about before regarding the subject. The format was clever in that each theme was separated into small chapters that elaborated as the book went on. But it wasn't a book I'd call enjoyable. While the format did align itself with the theme of the book: aimlessness, I think the author took too much liberty in it to where nothing felt cohesive and more a rambling stream of ideas. Perhaps that was intentional, but it wasn't something I finished and felt inspired by.
August 26, 2021
This warrants a re-read in the future for me, following the alternate table of contents the second time around. I enjoyed reading each chapter in the order the author intended, but the concepts and takeaways might make more sense to me following a more typical(?) chapter order... Which totally goes against the title of the book, I know.
January 21, 2025
There were parts of this book that challenged me and really changed a mindset in me… the other parts made it increasingly hard to finish. I found myself trudging through the stories of his travels, but enjoying the sentiments that came from it. Will definitely reread but by the alternative table of contents instead
September 30, 2020
Aimlessness by Tom Lutz far exceeded my expectations. This was both a fun read and a very thought-provoking read.
The book, in its structure and execution, illustrates much of what Lutz says about the idea itself. There is a type of organization, but a loose organization, within which there is a lot of wandering aimlessly. Don't read the word aimless here as a useless or pointless endeavor, it isn't, it is letting things, in this case ideas, lead us to where they may. It is the dynamic between idea, choice, free association, applying concepts to what we think or do then seeing where those may lead us. And, if necessary, retracing our steps and wandering in a different direction.
This isn't the capitalist negativity toward aimlessness as having no economic value. Or rather, it isn't simply about that limited and harmful oversimplification, it is about everything from being predominantly aimless in one's activities to incorporating some degree of aimlessness into one's activities. I would argue that more good, even what capitalists consider "productive" good, has come from aimlessness as from focused concentration and work. The best is a combination that allows the strengths of each to flourish without killing the other.
I was particularly fond of the parts that mentioned Gertrude Stein. A long time ago I had a love/hate relationship with her writing until I learned to appreciate both her aimlessness and what she requires of her readers. But every now and then I still get frustrated when I am reading her. Plus any book that can flow from Lyotard to Maynard G Krebs is worth reading.
I highly recommend this to readers who like to read works that might seem almost like a collage yet offers many wonderful ideas to consider and, in spite of (or because of) the aimlessness makes many connections and subtle arguments.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
The book, in its structure and execution, illustrates much of what Lutz says about the idea itself. There is a type of organization, but a loose organization, within which there is a lot of wandering aimlessly. Don't read the word aimless here as a useless or pointless endeavor, it isn't, it is letting things, in this case ideas, lead us to where they may. It is the dynamic between idea, choice, free association, applying concepts to what we think or do then seeing where those may lead us. And, if necessary, retracing our steps and wandering in a different direction.
This isn't the capitalist negativity toward aimlessness as having no economic value. Or rather, it isn't simply about that limited and harmful oversimplification, it is about everything from being predominantly aimless in one's activities to incorporating some degree of aimlessness into one's activities. I would argue that more good, even what capitalists consider "productive" good, has come from aimlessness as from focused concentration and work. The best is a combination that allows the strengths of each to flourish without killing the other.
I was particularly fond of the parts that mentioned Gertrude Stein. A long time ago I had a love/hate relationship with her writing until I learned to appreciate both her aimlessness and what she requires of her readers. But every now and then I still get frustrated when I am reading her. Plus any book that can flow from Lyotard to Maynard G Krebs is worth reading.
I highly recommend this to readers who like to read works that might seem almost like a collage yet offers many wonderful ideas to consider and, in spite of (or because of) the aimlessness makes many connections and subtle arguments.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews