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In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise
More than money, power, and even happiness, silence has become the most precious—and dwindling—commodity of our modern world.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. He shows us the benefits of decluttering our sonic world.
As Prochnik travels across the United States and overseas, we meet a rich host of an idealistic architect who is pioneering a new kind of silent architecture in collaboration with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University; a special operations soldier in Afghanistan (and former guitarist with Nirvana) who places silence at the heart of survival in war; a sound designer for shopping malls who ensures that the stores we visit never stop their auditory seductions; and a group of commuters who successfully revolted against piped-in music in Grand Central Station.
A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them, In Pursuit of Silence is an important book that will appeal to fans of Michael Pollan and Daniel Gilbert.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. He shows us the benefits of decluttering our sonic world.
As Prochnik travels across the United States and overseas, we meet a rich host of an idealistic architect who is pioneering a new kind of silent architecture in collaboration with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University; a special operations soldier in Afghanistan (and former guitarist with Nirvana) who places silence at the heart of survival in war; a sound designer for shopping malls who ensures that the stores we visit never stop their auditory seductions; and a group of commuters who successfully revolted against piped-in music in Grand Central Station.
A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them, In Pursuit of Silence is an important book that will appeal to fans of Michael Pollan and Daniel Gilbert.
342 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
68 people are currently reading
1322 people want to read
About the author
George Prochnik
14 books61 followersGeorge Prochnik’s essays, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous journals. He has taught English and American literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine, and is the author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise and Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose of American Psychology. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
May 11, 2010
Eh. Not, Eh!, the very friendly goodreader, but, Eh.
I saw this book and got excited. I like silence. I believe that there isn't enough of it. I think that there is a whole lot of useless bullshit being said and noises being made. I generally sit most of the time in my apartment with no background noise, well for example right now there is a garbage truck making a beeeeeepppp beeeeeeppppp noise, and now a plane, and some engine noise off in the distance and noises like that which are almost always there, but there is no sounds being made to entertain or distract me. No TV set on. No music playing, I'm not talking to myself. My cat is making an adorable little snoring / purring sound though, which I probably wouldn't be noticing if I had my TV on. Most of the time I'm home this is the case. I mentioned this to Karen a few months ago and she told me that this is what psychos do. Oh well.
Not that I put a huge premium on my silence. I do live in what I once read in a "Trifecta of Noise". At he end of my block is the elevated subway, the elevated LIRR which passes right below the subway, and I'm right directly under one of the incoming flight paths of LaGuardia, which is about a mile or so from my apartment, so planes fly in mighty low over my house. I don't notice most of those noises most of the time, which is good because they are all pretty fucking annoying to hear.
I don't know what I expected from this book.
I'm not exactly sure that this book needed to be written. Noise is something that needs to be thought of for various reasons, most of which this book gives some coverage too. When the book deals with straight reporting it is pretty interesting, although it doesn't feel anymore in depth than say an article in Harpers. But then there are pretty silly philosophical ramblings that sort of sound like the thoughts of a stoned undergrad; or the rambling musings by a car stereo enthusiast that doesn't sound all that different from some embarrassing things I wrote in high school notebooks that the author elevates to the level of metaphysical truths.
This book is entertaining and it made me think.
It also made me think about why I generally do not like most non-fiction books. They feel like magazine pieces that just won't end.
They feel like boilerplate books that can be churned out at will with this formula.
1. Find a grumpy New Yorker who doesn't like something.
2. Send him (or her, but him for the rest of this review since the author of this book is a male) out to the big world to discover things.
3. Have him uncover a few quirky subcultures that most New Yorkers know nothing about, but which are part of the 'problem'. In this case people who blow all their money on having loud cars.
4. Show how these quirky people are just like you and I. How they are smarter than you think.
5. Go find some quirky out of the way places most people never heard of, and visit them too.
6. Write it up in about 100,000 words, or 300 pages.
I don't know, this isn't the greatest book, it's not the greatest review either. This could have been a very interesting 30 page magazine piece, sort of a DFW style essay, but as a book it felt to me like there just wasn't enough here, maybe if there had been more I would have liked it, but I think this really was a magazine article that didn't know it's own limitations.
I saw this book and got excited. I like silence. I believe that there isn't enough of it. I think that there is a whole lot of useless bullshit being said and noises being made. I generally sit most of the time in my apartment with no background noise, well for example right now there is a garbage truck making a beeeeeepppp beeeeeeppppp noise, and now a plane, and some engine noise off in the distance and noises like that which are almost always there, but there is no sounds being made to entertain or distract me. No TV set on. No music playing, I'm not talking to myself. My cat is making an adorable little snoring / purring sound though, which I probably wouldn't be noticing if I had my TV on. Most of the time I'm home this is the case. I mentioned this to Karen a few months ago and she told me that this is what psychos do. Oh well.
Not that I put a huge premium on my silence. I do live in what I once read in a "Trifecta of Noise". At he end of my block is the elevated subway, the elevated LIRR which passes right below the subway, and I'm right directly under one of the incoming flight paths of LaGuardia, which is about a mile or so from my apartment, so planes fly in mighty low over my house. I don't notice most of those noises most of the time, which is good because they are all pretty fucking annoying to hear.
I don't know what I expected from this book.
I'm not exactly sure that this book needed to be written. Noise is something that needs to be thought of for various reasons, most of which this book gives some coverage too. When the book deals with straight reporting it is pretty interesting, although it doesn't feel anymore in depth than say an article in Harpers. But then there are pretty silly philosophical ramblings that sort of sound like the thoughts of a stoned undergrad; or the rambling musings by a car stereo enthusiast that doesn't sound all that different from some embarrassing things I wrote in high school notebooks that the author elevates to the level of metaphysical truths.
This book is entertaining and it made me think.
It also made me think about why I generally do not like most non-fiction books. They feel like magazine pieces that just won't end.
They feel like boilerplate books that can be churned out at will with this formula.
1. Find a grumpy New Yorker who doesn't like something.
2. Send him (or her, but him for the rest of this review since the author of this book is a male) out to the big world to discover things.
3. Have him uncover a few quirky subcultures that most New Yorkers know nothing about, but which are part of the 'problem'. In this case people who blow all their money on having loud cars.
4. Show how these quirky people are just like you and I. How they are smarter than you think.
5. Go find some quirky out of the way places most people never heard of, and visit them too.
6. Write it up in about 100,000 words, or 300 pages.
I don't know, this isn't the greatest book, it's not the greatest review either. This could have been a very interesting 30 page magazine piece, sort of a DFW style essay, but as a book it felt to me like there just wasn't enough here, maybe if there had been more I would have liked it, but I think this really was a magazine article that didn't know it's own limitations.
October 22, 2024
George Prochnik was on the path to becoming an anti-noise crank. It is to his credit that he realized this, and found a way to turn his next book into something more than a noisy anti-noise screed. There is little more tedious than hearing someone shout at everybody to be quiet.
Some of the people Prochnik talks to are the ones you might expect: monks, experts on noise abatement, hearing researchers. However, he also decides to talk to people who make it their business to pump up the volume of noise. One, a consultant to businesses on what precise level and kind of "too noisy" to put in their store, meets Prochnik in Austin's Barton Creek Square mall. He also goes to Florida, to find out what people who make their car stereos as loud as possible (until it shatters the car windows) are like. It turns out, you learn as much about silence from talking to people in the business of noise, as you do from people in the business of silence, if you're willing to listen to what they have to say.
The recurring point in Prochnik's journey through the topic of silence, is that it is very rarely literal silence that we need, it is for things to be quiet enough that we can pay attention to the sounds that are still there. He spends some time in pocket parks, which is a term for a tiny plot of land that gets made into a park as an afterthought, because it is a small triangle or rectangle of land left over after all the big plots around it have been developed. Some of them, with judicious placement of walls and vegetation, can be surprisingly quiet, even in the city. He also spends some time with an architect who is at work in a college for the deaf. Not all deaf people experience their lack of hearing as silence, of course; some experience it as constant noise. But regardless, you can notice what there is to see and feel around you better, if you are not distracted by non-stop thunderous sound.
Which is probably the reason for our current epidemic of too loud. It reminds one of the problems of cities in the desert like Phoenix, where the fact that every house has an air conditioner running at full blast, spewing heat out for their neighbors' air conditioners to fight against, which means they in turn also spew out more heat. We make noise to block out the unwanted noise of everybody else, not least among them the car stereos and televisions and smartphones and all the many other devices which are used in part to block out other people's noise.
One particularly touching point was when he went with a teacher of an early grade school class, who has been trying to get them to stay quiet (all in a group, which is hard for kids) for a full minute. When he asks them to share an experience from their lives when things were quiet, they remember mostly arguments between their parents that ended with long periods of silence, or being at funerals.
It is then that Prochnik has his epiphany, which is that it is not a reduction to noise he is looking for, but an increase in silence. The difference is that the former is mostly about making the loudest things less loud, but what is most needed is for an increase in the amount of time we spend with quiet. As we spend more and more time in urban settings, often with electronic devices to make noise for us at all times, we have less and less experience with spending time in a quiet environment, and thus less ability to appreciate it. Prochnik ends with an appeal for silence as a positive presence, not by carping at noise, but by finding (and protecting) places and times to enjoy quiet, so that it isn't just one more loss of our freedom (because someone has passed a noise abatement regulation), but giving us an option we didn't have before. Silence as a positive quality to be sought out, rather than a negative quality to bemoan the loss of.
Which sounds nice, but probably requires more than anything that people go to places where other people aren't. It's no accident that our lives have gotten noisier as we have clustered together in urban environments. My daughter spends one day a week in a state park, no doubt running and laughing with other kids a lot of the time, but with occasional quiet periods as part of their day. I can hope that she will not grow up uncomfortable with silence. She is the exception here, though, as a smaller percentage of our populace spends any significant amount of time in the wilderness, or even on a farm.
Who knows, though, what the next generation may come to treasure. We may be coming to a dead end, in our pursuit of ever more aggressive noise, and the rise of electric vehicles, earbuds, and the replacement of urban factories with offices, may make it easier to walk through a city in relative silence than at any time in the last several centuries. In the meantime, if you stumble upon a pocket park or a quiet corner of your workplace or home, Prochnik wants you to hang out and see what your brain tells you when you're not drowning its voice out with other noise. The best thing about quiet is what it allows you to hear, that you might not have otherwise.
Some of the people Prochnik talks to are the ones you might expect: monks, experts on noise abatement, hearing researchers. However, he also decides to talk to people who make it their business to pump up the volume of noise. One, a consultant to businesses on what precise level and kind of "too noisy" to put in their store, meets Prochnik in Austin's Barton Creek Square mall. He also goes to Florida, to find out what people who make their car stereos as loud as possible (until it shatters the car windows) are like. It turns out, you learn as much about silence from talking to people in the business of noise, as you do from people in the business of silence, if you're willing to listen to what they have to say.
The recurring point in Prochnik's journey through the topic of silence, is that it is very rarely literal silence that we need, it is for things to be quiet enough that we can pay attention to the sounds that are still there. He spends some time in pocket parks, which is a term for a tiny plot of land that gets made into a park as an afterthought, because it is a small triangle or rectangle of land left over after all the big plots around it have been developed. Some of them, with judicious placement of walls and vegetation, can be surprisingly quiet, even in the city. He also spends some time with an architect who is at work in a college for the deaf. Not all deaf people experience their lack of hearing as silence, of course; some experience it as constant noise. But regardless, you can notice what there is to see and feel around you better, if you are not distracted by non-stop thunderous sound.
Which is probably the reason for our current epidemic of too loud. It reminds one of the problems of cities in the desert like Phoenix, where the fact that every house has an air conditioner running at full blast, spewing heat out for their neighbors' air conditioners to fight against, which means they in turn also spew out more heat. We make noise to block out the unwanted noise of everybody else, not least among them the car stereos and televisions and smartphones and all the many other devices which are used in part to block out other people's noise.
One particularly touching point was when he went with a teacher of an early grade school class, who has been trying to get them to stay quiet (all in a group, which is hard for kids) for a full minute. When he asks them to share an experience from their lives when things were quiet, they remember mostly arguments between their parents that ended with long periods of silence, or being at funerals.
It is then that Prochnik has his epiphany, which is that it is not a reduction to noise he is looking for, but an increase in silence. The difference is that the former is mostly about making the loudest things less loud, but what is most needed is for an increase in the amount of time we spend with quiet. As we spend more and more time in urban settings, often with electronic devices to make noise for us at all times, we have less and less experience with spending time in a quiet environment, and thus less ability to appreciate it. Prochnik ends with an appeal for silence as a positive presence, not by carping at noise, but by finding (and protecting) places and times to enjoy quiet, so that it isn't just one more loss of our freedom (because someone has passed a noise abatement regulation), but giving us an option we didn't have before. Silence as a positive quality to be sought out, rather than a negative quality to bemoan the loss of.
Which sounds nice, but probably requires more than anything that people go to places where other people aren't. It's no accident that our lives have gotten noisier as we have clustered together in urban environments. My daughter spends one day a week in a state park, no doubt running and laughing with other kids a lot of the time, but with occasional quiet periods as part of their day. I can hope that she will not grow up uncomfortable with silence. She is the exception here, though, as a smaller percentage of our populace spends any significant amount of time in the wilderness, or even on a farm.
Who knows, though, what the next generation may come to treasure. We may be coming to a dead end, in our pursuit of ever more aggressive noise, and the rise of electric vehicles, earbuds, and the replacement of urban factories with offices, may make it easier to walk through a city in relative silence than at any time in the last several centuries. In the meantime, if you stumble upon a pocket park or a quiet corner of your workplace or home, Prochnik wants you to hang out and see what your brain tells you when you're not drowning its voice out with other noise. The best thing about quiet is what it allows you to hear, that you might not have otherwise.
July 4, 2010
I am incredibly sensitive to noise. I have, on more than one occasion, walked out of a grocery store mid-trip, a half-filled cart left in an aisle (never with refrigerated items, of course), because the blaring music and announcements were too much and I Had To Leave Right Away Before I Killed Someone. My expectations for this book, then, were quite high: I wanted a diagnosis and actionable solutions for the Problem Of Noise. It was a little light on these.
In Pursuit of Silence is a style of book I very much enjoy reading, part investigative journalism that involves the author seeking out people whom s/he otherwise would not have met in the interest of a particular topic. Here, this includes Trappist monks in an Iowa monastery; boom car creators and contestants in Florida; several scientists; an astronaut; a noise-proofing convention, and others. This alone makes for a worthwhile read.
Stylistically, I felt the exploration meandered for too long. Like any complex issue, social or otherwise, there is no single answer, but the exploratory style left me yearning for the One True Way by the end, some sort of holy grail of a solution to noise pollution. I am keenly aware of how unrealistic an expectation this is to place on the author, but I yearned for some sort of conclusion that never really came.
The author's recommendations on ways to address noise pollution (designated silent areas) are reasonable and realistic, but felt small and light after sections of the book that describe the severity of the issue. The history of attempted (and mostly failed) past solutions to noise pollution did, however, convince me that reasonable measures are probably the best to hope for... so it'll be the cabin in the woods for me!
In Pursuit of Silence is a style of book I very much enjoy reading, part investigative journalism that involves the author seeking out people whom s/he otherwise would not have met in the interest of a particular topic. Here, this includes Trappist monks in an Iowa monastery; boom car creators and contestants in Florida; several scientists; an astronaut; a noise-proofing convention, and others. This alone makes for a worthwhile read.
Stylistically, I felt the exploration meandered for too long. Like any complex issue, social or otherwise, there is no single answer, but the exploratory style left me yearning for the One True Way by the end, some sort of holy grail of a solution to noise pollution. I am keenly aware of how unrealistic an expectation this is to place on the author, but I yearned for some sort of conclusion that never really came.
The author's recommendations on ways to address noise pollution (designated silent areas) are reasonable and realistic, but felt small and light after sections of the book that describe the severity of the issue. The history of attempted (and mostly failed) past solutions to noise pollution did, however, convince me that reasonable measures are probably the best to hope for... so it'll be the cabin in the woods for me!
January 28, 2012
I read this book a second time for the Noe Valley Library Book Club. I actually read it last year and nominated it and the other members decided to give it a go. I like that Mr. Prochnik starts out with a simple story and then it continually evolves and changes to be such a difficult and confusing belief system that silence is good. It really is something that I need and yet it is truly not able to achieved.
I really enjoyed the chapter on architecture designed by deaf people and Deaf Space with Gallaudet University. I also appreciated that the idea of being "sound proof" brings along its own problems in that if something is truly sound proof your own heart, breath, movement will sound incredibly loud and then make the sound proofing almost unbearable. There is a point of too much noise, though, and I agree with that. I've started not watching nearly as much tv or listening to music or anything while walking or relaxing and notice a huge difference in my own anxiety and emotions. I would definitely recommend this book if you are interested in how silence, and the lack of it, can affect your world and the world around you.
A must read so that anyone can understand what silence is and what it is not.
I really enjoyed the chapter on architecture designed by deaf people and Deaf Space with Gallaudet University. I also appreciated that the idea of being "sound proof" brings along its own problems in that if something is truly sound proof your own heart, breath, movement will sound incredibly loud and then make the sound proofing almost unbearable. There is a point of too much noise, though, and I agree with that. I've started not watching nearly as much tv or listening to music or anything while walking or relaxing and notice a huge difference in my own anxiety and emotions. I would definitely recommend this book if you are interested in how silence, and the lack of it, can affect your world and the world around you.
A must read so that anyone can understand what silence is and what it is not.
November 1, 2010
Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise
One recent beautiful day, I was curled up with a book outside, enjoying the change in the light and air of fall, with a fat orange cat on my lap. The baby was asleep, work was done, and it was finally a chance to relax. It was bliss. All was quiet. Quiet, until an extremely loud dirt bike, without a muffler, began doing circuits of the road below my house. I went from peaceful and content to plotting murder in mere seconds…just the whine of the engine made my teeth ache. The fact I was reading this book made the noise all the more relevant.
George Prochnik takes a subject that is universally annoying and studies it in ways that are both fascinating and frightening. He examines the sounds, both in volume and type, that trigger aggression (see dirt bike above). In one chapter he discusses scientists who study the cries of infants that makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse (and what can be done for prevention). He takes the research further and shows how some sounds are actually used in torture (see dirt bike above). For example, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are sometimes forced to listen to the cries of screaming infants overlaid with a track of repeating Meow Mix commercials.
He also investigates where sound is used for manipulation in a retail setting. He meets with the sound designers behind Abercrombie & Fitch, who intentionally design the retail space to flood the ears with rapid, pulsating music to mimic a rave or nightclub. The lights are intentionally dim, so that a customer feels more like they are at a party than a store, and they’ll likely pay less attention to the price tag and more attention to the atmosphere. Geared towards college age students that have left home for the first time, A & F manipulates their senses for profit while at the same time creating and branding their identity of ‘cool’. Prochnik also examines the science behind music played at grocery stores, restaurants, and bars. If it’s too fast, customers will eat faster and leave before they run up a tab. If it’s the right pace and overly loud, researchers have found they will actually drink more alcohol, since gesturing for another drink is easier than conversation.
Some anecdotal findings throughout are fascinating, as he travels from a monastery where silence is required, and out into the streets, where boom boxes, car stereos, train whistles, and sirens bombard the area with noise. In no way is he a cranky old Mr. Wilson, yelling at the kids to shut up. Rather, he’s fascinated by the science of it all. For example, scientists in Japan devised a “Mosquito Teen Deterrent” that is a sonic repellent-it makes a noise only audible to those under 20 years of age. This was used in areas where the police and storekeepers wanted to prevent teenage loitering, but its use is now up for debate in terms of ear damage. The invention was shown in one of the most memorable episodes of 30Rock. Clever teenagers managed to turn the tables on adults by using the same technology to create a cell phone ringer that could be used in class-the teacher couldn’t hear it ring!
Is sound really a matter of personal preference? Can laws really be enforced to control sound output from cars or homes? Prochnik investigates the influence of loud noise on health, and one especially interesting finding was that excessively loud noise, such as at a rave, actually makes the drug Ecstasy more toxic to users.
Beyond the noise itself, he also researches and explains new developments in sound proofing and the new industry that has been built up around the desire for peace and quiet. New materials and inventive uses of old technology can create homes that actually resist external noise. This book covers a great deal of material, and at times it’s too much to absorb at once. But the chapters can stand alone and can be returned to without losing the conceptual thread. In all, it's a fascinating book made especially interesting by the quick writing and large amount of cited evidence and details.
One recent beautiful day, I was curled up with a book outside, enjoying the change in the light and air of fall, with a fat orange cat on my lap. The baby was asleep, work was done, and it was finally a chance to relax. It was bliss. All was quiet. Quiet, until an extremely loud dirt bike, without a muffler, began doing circuits of the road below my house. I went from peaceful and content to plotting murder in mere seconds…just the whine of the engine made my teeth ache. The fact I was reading this book made the noise all the more relevant.
George Prochnik takes a subject that is universally annoying and studies it in ways that are both fascinating and frightening. He examines the sounds, both in volume and type, that trigger aggression (see dirt bike above). In one chapter he discusses scientists who study the cries of infants that makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse (and what can be done for prevention). He takes the research further and shows how some sounds are actually used in torture (see dirt bike above). For example, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are sometimes forced to listen to the cries of screaming infants overlaid with a track of repeating Meow Mix commercials.
He also investigates where sound is used for manipulation in a retail setting. He meets with the sound designers behind Abercrombie & Fitch, who intentionally design the retail space to flood the ears with rapid, pulsating music to mimic a rave or nightclub. The lights are intentionally dim, so that a customer feels more like they are at a party than a store, and they’ll likely pay less attention to the price tag and more attention to the atmosphere. Geared towards college age students that have left home for the first time, A & F manipulates their senses for profit while at the same time creating and branding their identity of ‘cool’. Prochnik also examines the science behind music played at grocery stores, restaurants, and bars. If it’s too fast, customers will eat faster and leave before they run up a tab. If it’s the right pace and overly loud, researchers have found they will actually drink more alcohol, since gesturing for another drink is easier than conversation.
Some anecdotal findings throughout are fascinating, as he travels from a monastery where silence is required, and out into the streets, where boom boxes, car stereos, train whistles, and sirens bombard the area with noise. In no way is he a cranky old Mr. Wilson, yelling at the kids to shut up. Rather, he’s fascinated by the science of it all. For example, scientists in Japan devised a “Mosquito Teen Deterrent” that is a sonic repellent-it makes a noise only audible to those under 20 years of age. This was used in areas where the police and storekeepers wanted to prevent teenage loitering, but its use is now up for debate in terms of ear damage. The invention was shown in one of the most memorable episodes of 30Rock. Clever teenagers managed to turn the tables on adults by using the same technology to create a cell phone ringer that could be used in class-the teacher couldn’t hear it ring!
Is sound really a matter of personal preference? Can laws really be enforced to control sound output from cars or homes? Prochnik investigates the influence of loud noise on health, and one especially interesting finding was that excessively loud noise, such as at a rave, actually makes the drug Ecstasy more toxic to users.
Beyond the noise itself, he also researches and explains new developments in sound proofing and the new industry that has been built up around the desire for peace and quiet. New materials and inventive uses of old technology can create homes that actually resist external noise. This book covers a great deal of material, and at times it’s too much to absorb at once. But the chapters can stand alone and can be returned to without losing the conceptual thread. In all, it's a fascinating book made especially interesting by the quick writing and large amount of cited evidence and details.
April 11, 2011
One man's quirky adventure into the cultures of noise and silence. As a city dweller, I understand his neediness for the unintrusive, the still, the quiet; as a suburban and rural dweller, I remember craving the frenetic, the indistinguishable mass of sound. Clearly we can't listen without both sound and silence, can't perceive without the dance between presence and absence, but in the city, the balance is tipped to the point of manic.
The book is a survey of interesting ideas about silence, some of which are mentioned and abandoned before I felt sated, such as the silence practiced by the Apaches in transitory social contexts when relationships are most ambiguous (courtships, periods after long separations), "pocket parks" providing mini oases in large urban areas, Kohler's nonsense words "maluma" (evoking soft and curved forms) and "takete" (indicating sharp, staccato forms) used to create "Deaf architecture" with a preference for the maluma, and spontaneous group meditation.
Here are some quotes for our ears to chew on:
"Part of what makes snowfall in a city magical is the way that muted sound and the sight of buildings and cars draped in whiteness go together" (12-13).
"Recent studies using fMRI technology have shown that the brains of people who practice silent meditation appear to work more efficiently than the brains of people who do not. This may have something to do with ways in which silence enhances our powers of attention, subtracting auditory distractions that dissipate our mental energy. Neuroscientists at Stanford University have demonstrated that when we listen to music it is the silent intervals in what we hear that trigger the most intense, positive brain activity. In part, this reflects the way our brains are always searching for closure. When we confront silence, the mind reaches outward" (14).
"Dr. Frazer, an American anthropologist, went off to study the so-called Silent Widows of a tribe of Australian Aborigines. It was the custom of these women to enter a period of silence lasting as long as two years after the death of a spouse to elude and repel the spirit of the dead husband. Because the rule of silence extended to mothers, sisters, daughters, and mothers-in-law of the departed spouse, it happened that the majority of women in the tribe were prohibited from speaking during the period of mourning. To the outsider, this suggested an awfully limited existence. Yet Frazer noted the "odd circumstance" that many of the women, when the time of mourning was complete, chose to remain silent, communicating only by signs" (38).
"A famous Japanese poem about the islands of Matsushima consists only of the words, "Oh Matsushima!" The poet is so overwhelmed by the place's beauty that he can only speak its name before he falls into silence" (45).
"Menon [a neuroscientist] discovered that the peak of positive brain activity actually occurs in the silent pauses between sounds, when the brain is striving to anticipate what the next note will be" (49).
"The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes in his last book that perception is differentiation, while forgetting is nondifferentiation" (293).
"...noise is sound that makes us, for the time it's there, cease to distinguish between the beings and objects outside us. Noise enables us to forget the larger world" (293).
And now some white space:
"Quiet is distinguished because it enables differentiation, and the more we observe the distinction between things, the less mental space we have for our isolate selves....silence as a state of expenctancy, a species of attention..." (293-4).
The book is a survey of interesting ideas about silence, some of which are mentioned and abandoned before I felt sated, such as the silence practiced by the Apaches in transitory social contexts when relationships are most ambiguous (courtships, periods after long separations), "pocket parks" providing mini oases in large urban areas, Kohler's nonsense words "maluma" (evoking soft and curved forms) and "takete" (indicating sharp, staccato forms) used to create "Deaf architecture" with a preference for the maluma, and spontaneous group meditation.
Here are some quotes for our ears to chew on:
"Part of what makes snowfall in a city magical is the way that muted sound and the sight of buildings and cars draped in whiteness go together" (12-13).
"Recent studies using fMRI technology have shown that the brains of people who practice silent meditation appear to work more efficiently than the brains of people who do not. This may have something to do with ways in which silence enhances our powers of attention, subtracting auditory distractions that dissipate our mental energy. Neuroscientists at Stanford University have demonstrated that when we listen to music it is the silent intervals in what we hear that trigger the most intense, positive brain activity. In part, this reflects the way our brains are always searching for closure. When we confront silence, the mind reaches outward" (14).
"Dr. Frazer, an American anthropologist, went off to study the so-called Silent Widows of a tribe of Australian Aborigines. It was the custom of these women to enter a period of silence lasting as long as two years after the death of a spouse to elude and repel the spirit of the dead husband. Because the rule of silence extended to mothers, sisters, daughters, and mothers-in-law of the departed spouse, it happened that the majority of women in the tribe were prohibited from speaking during the period of mourning. To the outsider, this suggested an awfully limited existence. Yet Frazer noted the "odd circumstance" that many of the women, when the time of mourning was complete, chose to remain silent, communicating only by signs" (38).
"A famous Japanese poem about the islands of Matsushima consists only of the words, "Oh Matsushima!" The poet is so overwhelmed by the place's beauty that he can only speak its name before he falls into silence" (45).
"Menon [a neuroscientist] discovered that the peak of positive brain activity actually occurs in the silent pauses between sounds, when the brain is striving to anticipate what the next note will be" (49).
"The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes in his last book that perception is differentiation, while forgetting is nondifferentiation" (293).
"...noise is sound that makes us, for the time it's there, cease to distinguish between the beings and objects outside us. Noise enables us to forget the larger world" (293).
And now some white space:
"Quiet is distinguished because it enables differentiation, and the more we observe the distinction between things, the less mental space we have for our isolate selves....silence as a state of expenctancy, a species of attention..." (293-4).
Read
September 9, 2020Even before I started researching the five senses, I loved reading books about silence. This is a fascinating book about noise pollution of all kinds.
November 19, 2012
Of course, I read every page of this book with the rumbling hum of an aircraft in my ears.
This book blends sound science, sound anecdotes, and sound philosophy in a consistently interesting mix. The writing is a hair too precious here and there, but what can I say. Some of the stuff genuinely surprised me - for instance, did you know that people eat faster, drink faster, even just chew faster, when eating with fast music in the background compared to slow music? It's not 2% faster either, it's like a third faster.
Given that Prochnik is a carless progressive Brooklynite, he couldn't help but frequently cite Traffic as the uber-boogeyman in the whole de-silencing of our world. (Uh, I think he is carless). He also yearns for public policy to save the day. Eventually he pretty much throws in the towel as far as the baseline noise of our world but hopes for more oases of silence, again aided by policy ("We need more Zen gardens".)
Prochnik also quotes a scientist who wants to pin the alleged increase in Autism on a lack of silent time in the early years of a child's life. Has anyone written a book about the human endeavour in the last ten years who doesn't throw in a cause for Autism? Publishers must demand this.
I don't consider myself a silence fan as much as an enemy of loudness. I've slept with talk shows playing on the radio since I was eight years old (now I sometimes use white noise software instead), and I often have two or even three radios around the house running various talk stations. What I can't stand is loud sports stadiums, loud bars, loud anything.
Given that I'm a fan of white noise, I was hoping for a bit more discussion of white noise. Prochnik does touch on it here and there (calling white noise the "kin" of silence) but not much.
This quote from a monk early in the book probably explains my lifelong use of background radio:
"Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."
This book blends sound science, sound anecdotes, and sound philosophy in a consistently interesting mix. The writing is a hair too precious here and there, but what can I say. Some of the stuff genuinely surprised me - for instance, did you know that people eat faster, drink faster, even just chew faster, when eating with fast music in the background compared to slow music? It's not 2% faster either, it's like a third faster.
Given that Prochnik is a carless progressive Brooklynite, he couldn't help but frequently cite Traffic as the uber-boogeyman in the whole de-silencing of our world. (Uh, I think he is carless). He also yearns for public policy to save the day. Eventually he pretty much throws in the towel as far as the baseline noise of our world but hopes for more oases of silence, again aided by policy ("We need more Zen gardens".)
Prochnik also quotes a scientist who wants to pin the alleged increase in Autism on a lack of silent time in the early years of a child's life. Has anyone written a book about the human endeavour in the last ten years who doesn't throw in a cause for Autism? Publishers must demand this.
I don't consider myself a silence fan as much as an enemy of loudness. I've slept with talk shows playing on the radio since I was eight years old (now I sometimes use white noise software instead), and I often have two or even three radios around the house running various talk stations. What I can't stand is loud sports stadiums, loud bars, loud anything.
Given that I'm a fan of white noise, I was hoping for a bit more discussion of white noise. Prochnik does touch on it here and there (calling white noise the "kin" of silence) but not much.
This quote from a monk early in the book probably explains my lifelong use of background radio:
"Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."
July 10, 2013
George Prochnik’s exquisite book "In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise" finds the author writing eloquently about his own quest for silence in a world he finds overwhelmingly noisy. That journey leads us with him through visits with Trappist monks in the New Melleray Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa; students who, "when they wanted quiet," found it by "closing themselves inside their rooms and playing a computer game or turning on the television" (p. 286); an architect's client who wanted the perfectly silent home but found there was no way to achieve the levels of silence he craved; people involved with Deaf Architecture at Gallaudet University; Tommy, the King of Bass, and his boom cars with sound systems producing sounds loud enough to turn the author’s brain to Jell-O; and many other memorable characters. "Our aural diet is miserable," Prochnik tells us toward the end of the book. "It's full of over-rich, non-nutritious sounds served in inflated portions--and we don't consume nearly enough silence. A poor diet kills; but it kills as much because of what it does not contain as from what it includes" (p. 283). The book, on the other hand, offers the most nourishing of diets, and leaves us quietly and reflectively wishing for more.
July 19, 2017
Do I need 300 pages to A) understand that loud sounds causes health problems? B) that we need to reduce noise and increase silence in this world? Probably 100 pages would have been enough to capture all info. As with the Sleep book of Arianna, looks like that there is a trend of taking every single Verb from the dictionary and making a book. Clever boys! but keep it to 100 pages max.
Read
June 26, 2024Original review from August 2011.
The introduction to George Prochnik's In Pursuit of Silence sets the author up as a cranky old killjoy, despite his protestations. A self-confessed quiet freak, Prochnik is more obsessive than most in his quest for quiet:
Yet the key to this book's success is to be found in the second sentence above - Prochnik is less opposed to noise itself than in praise of silence and the diversity of (moderate) sound, and is both realistic and adaptable, again as the sentence above demonstrates, in how best to make sense amid the noise of contemporary urban life.
Prochnik's journey then is personal, and it's this modest approach, combined with his self-deprecating personality and an awareness of the futility of his mission, that makes his book such an understated joy. We follow his travels among the freaks obsessed with both noise ('boom car' enthusiasts, audio marketing execs and sonic weapon manufacturers) and silence (monks, quakers and agoraphobes) and realise how similar they are - both sensitive to sound in one way or another. Having not read Steve 'Kode 9' Goodman's Sonic Warfare I wonder how much overlap there is in the sections on the military and deterrent use of sound. He notes that the first use of Muzak in the workplace was soon stopped by unions who viewed it, rightly, as an incentive to speed up the pace of workers. Prochnik also notes the effects loud music has on shopping, eating and drinking and how this has had a major impact on the retail and restaurant industries, but his assessment as 'worrisome' the way that 'acoustic stimulation heightens the effect of MDMA' is naive and misguided.
Interesting too is the currently-defunct-but-bound-to-return phenomenon of 'Audiac', audio analgesia. Once used widely and successfully by dentists and in birthing clinics, Audiac therapy involves the use of high level sound by subjects experiencing mild pain. Apparently contemporary firm Sound Pain Relief is looking into reviving this practice, which would seem to work as a sensory distraction much like a sonic form of the vibrating Tens Machines used during labour.
Where I found myself warming most to Prochnik and his mission is where he describes his love of the richness of sound to be found in quiet places. He repeatedly echoes John Cage - and quotes him - in emphasising that true silence doesn't exist, and his time spent in the Japanese gardens in Portland, Oregon made me recall the incredible sonic experiences I'd had in gardens in Japan.
After visits to an expo on soundproofing, through the bureaucratic malaise of European 'Noise Maps' and on architectural soundwalks with the deaf, Prochnik's final plea is for governments to recognise the value of silence and to lobby for the creation of more silent spaces: parks, pocket parks, and church-like places of 'silence-worship'. This is the most easily achievable outcome one could envision in the war against noise, and certainly the most positive, if somewhat resigned: an understanding of the necessity of noise within contemporary capitalist society and the futility in opposing the true creators of noise: marketing and the military.
The introduction to George Prochnik's In Pursuit of Silence sets the author up as a cranky old killjoy, despite his protestations. A self-confessed quiet freak, Prochnik is more obsessive than most in his quest for quiet:
I've snitched on contractors who started work early. I've battled neighbours who hold large parties - and befriended them to get into their parties as a way of trying to befriend the noise itself. I've worn so many earplugs that if they were laid end to end they would probably extend all the way around a New York City block.
Yet the key to this book's success is to be found in the second sentence above - Prochnik is less opposed to noise itself than in praise of silence and the diversity of (moderate) sound, and is both realistic and adaptable, again as the sentence above demonstrates, in how best to make sense amid the noise of contemporary urban life.
Prochnik's journey then is personal, and it's this modest approach, combined with his self-deprecating personality and an awareness of the futility of his mission, that makes his book such an understated joy. We follow his travels among the freaks obsessed with both noise ('boom car' enthusiasts, audio marketing execs and sonic weapon manufacturers) and silence (monks, quakers and agoraphobes) and realise how similar they are - both sensitive to sound in one way or another. Having not read Steve 'Kode 9' Goodman's Sonic Warfare I wonder how much overlap there is in the sections on the military and deterrent use of sound. He notes that the first use of Muzak in the workplace was soon stopped by unions who viewed it, rightly, as an incentive to speed up the pace of workers. Prochnik also notes the effects loud music has on shopping, eating and drinking and how this has had a major impact on the retail and restaurant industries, but his assessment as 'worrisome' the way that 'acoustic stimulation heightens the effect of MDMA' is naive and misguided.
Interesting too is the currently-defunct-but-bound-to-return phenomenon of 'Audiac', audio analgesia. Once used widely and successfully by dentists and in birthing clinics, Audiac therapy involves the use of high level sound by subjects experiencing mild pain. Apparently contemporary firm Sound Pain Relief is looking into reviving this practice, which would seem to work as a sensory distraction much like a sonic form of the vibrating Tens Machines used during labour.
Where I found myself warming most to Prochnik and his mission is where he describes his love of the richness of sound to be found in quiet places. He repeatedly echoes John Cage - and quotes him - in emphasising that true silence doesn't exist, and his time spent in the Japanese gardens in Portland, Oregon made me recall the incredible sonic experiences I'd had in gardens in Japan.
Unlike in Western landscape design where a single structure serves as a focal point, a Japanese garden will present myriad centres of attention: stepping stones, pines, a lantern. All the elements are presented: the movement of branches, the sound of wind in the branches, our own movement.
After visits to an expo on soundproofing, through the bureaucratic malaise of European 'Noise Maps' and on architectural soundwalks with the deaf, Prochnik's final plea is for governments to recognise the value of silence and to lobby for the creation of more silent spaces: parks, pocket parks, and church-like places of 'silence-worship'. This is the most easily achievable outcome one could envision in the war against noise, and certainly the most positive, if somewhat resigned: an understanding of the necessity of noise within contemporary capitalist society and the futility in opposing the true creators of noise: marketing and the military.
August 12, 2016
Sound, like food, water, oil, is a natural resource. It doesn't grow on trees, fall from skies or sit silently underground waiting to be discovered. But sound - like any natural resource - can starve or spoil a city.
In Pursuit of Silence awakens our consciousness of the noise around us that both invigorates and destroys a setting, as Prochnik delves into the sciences of audio, psychology, geography and even engineering. Like a research paper on crack, this book tells a story that reminds us of the piece of ourselves that we sacrifice for sound around us, and challenges us to see our society as a box of chaos and ask, "Are we locked in, or are peace and quiet locked out?"
I personally enjoyed the book very much; I found the unconventional topic to be very intriguing and was impressed by how closely the author related psychology to spirituality, without however, actually touching on spirituality at all.
This is a book for anyone with an interest in social- or neuro-studies, as well as meditation and self-help. It will hold your interest as a novel would, while maintaining its status as an informative documentary of the effects of a loud society. I think In Pursuit of Silence would be especially enlightening to someone with an interest in cultural differences between the eastern and western hemispheres; while noise is universal, you'd be surprised to learn that its results aren't always as consistent.
In Pursuit of Silence awakens our consciousness of the noise around us that both invigorates and destroys a setting, as Prochnik delves into the sciences of audio, psychology, geography and even engineering. Like a research paper on crack, this book tells a story that reminds us of the piece of ourselves that we sacrifice for sound around us, and challenges us to see our society as a box of chaos and ask, "Are we locked in, or are peace and quiet locked out?"
I personally enjoyed the book very much; I found the unconventional topic to be very intriguing and was impressed by how closely the author related psychology to spirituality, without however, actually touching on spirituality at all.
This is a book for anyone with an interest in social- or neuro-studies, as well as meditation and self-help. It will hold your interest as a novel would, while maintaining its status as an informative documentary of the effects of a loud society. I think In Pursuit of Silence would be especially enlightening to someone with an interest in cultural differences between the eastern and western hemispheres; while noise is universal, you'd be surprised to learn that its results aren't always as consistent.
January 14, 2014
I read this book in connection with the exhibitions honoring John Cage, specifically at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley Art Museum, and a chapter at a time, like a meditation about its subtitle, "Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise"...Noise pollution as an environmental catastrophe brought upon human beings by themselves, with myriad examples that the author has researched, including visiting monks who practice Silence. The monks that Georgia O Keefe visited on the "long road"(painting in the Chicago Art Museum) were from the sect, Jesus Christ of the Desert, and practiced silence. Prochnik examines, as it says on his cover, "what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. I sought it in a mountain arts colony retreat in a lone cottage but after "getting my wish", it was blasted by rifle shooting range "shooters" in the valley...I have it in my retreat so far in the Berkeley hills near Wild Cat Canyon. The New Yorker calls the read "an adventure of profound listening"...and I would concur. His site is: www.inpursuitof silence.com The author lives in Brooklyn, New York. Sometimes my ipod which saves my ears on public transport, also contributes, through its playing music deep into my ear and head...A fascinating and scientific approach to the subject. The author has written on psychology.
January 24, 2016
The world is full of noise and the noise has a devastating effect on the mental and physical health of the world's citizens. Therefore, silence is to be treasured. Where have you truly heard absolute silence except perhaps when camping at night in the middle of the forest?
This book is more a collection of anecdotes and date rather than a coherent collection of problems and solutions. Some of the data is interesting - how ambient noise in an Abercrombie and Fitch is meant to drive us into a higher energy state and then into purchasing - and some of it obvious or irrelevant - yes, IPods are designed to shut the world of noise out by creating another halo of noise and was it really necessary to have a 30 page exploration of personal car stereos? Good for anecdotal evidence and for a read of the subject to pass the time. Not an all time study of the subject.
This book is more a collection of anecdotes and date rather than a coherent collection of problems and solutions. Some of the data is interesting - how ambient noise in an Abercrombie and Fitch is meant to drive us into a higher energy state and then into purchasing - and some of it obvious or irrelevant - yes, IPods are designed to shut the world of noise out by creating another halo of noise and was it really necessary to have a 30 page exploration of personal car stereos? Good for anecdotal evidence and for a read of the subject to pass the time. Not an all time study of the subject.
February 19, 2012
While this book has its moments, I found it disappointing overall. The author spends a lot of time talking about noise rather than silence, and advances in the sound-proofing industry are given far too much geography. The book begins and ends strongly, those sections where the author really discusses his pursuit of silence. What gets left out from the promising title, however, is "meaning." The meaning and importance of silence is just not central enough to the narrative to justify the title. Favorite passage: "Rather than conceiving of the noise surrounding most of us as a pollution issue, we might think of it as a dietary problem. Our aural diet is miserable. It's full of over-rich, non-nutritious sounds served in inflated portions--and we don't consume nearly enough silence."
February 4, 2018
First of all: listening to a book about pursuing silence as an audiobook in my noisy car contradicts the purpose of a book about silence. Apart from that, I don't think the author reached his explicit purpose of finding a "meaning in a world of noise". There were interesting excursions to different areas of noise/sound/silence, and a somewhat surprising chapter about the deaf world, which wasn't made relevant - I find it hard to imagine that a seeing person would write about darkness and lack of sunlight and interview a blind person about the subject. Maybe that's just me being weird, but silence as lack of noise and silence as a result of being deaf seem to be very different things and not sides of the same coin.
July 20, 2011
I am often irked by excessive noise, so this book naturally appealed to me. I enjoyed the style, as well as the wide range of topics covered. The chapter on "boom cars" and the competitions was hilarious. The book also dipped into the subject of architectural acoustics, which is interesting to me. I also appreciate the author's conclusions, near the end of the book. The author found that trying to reduce overall noise in an environment is often a losing battle. So, instead of reducing noise, a better approach might be to increase small zones of silence. This can be done even in the hearts of cities, to some extent.
May 20, 2010
This book is well-written and well organized. I read books about silence, but I'm not sure how many other people do! I think this would be a good introduction to people unfamiliar with the topic. The different parts of the book each have their own charm. Thought provoking.
August 22, 2010
Tread carefully. Reading this book will make it impossible not to hear the noise in the everyday world.
December 9, 2011
This books starts with an interesting premise, but it does not go into the spiritual and social implications of noise in our modern world in as much depth as I had hoped.
November 3, 2020
Bits of this book were really interesting, the characterisation annoyed me.
October 29, 2022
On Page 273: "...with a sense that I'd again gone off into the world in pursuit of silence only to find another strain of noise..." just about sums up my thoughts about this book. While it was interesting and compelling, it wasn't really an exploration of silence so much as a study of noise. I expected a sense of hygge reading it, and instead got a lot more science and clamour than I expected. I did, however, like the book and learned things I hadn't known before, including the impact noise can have on our physical health, which is something I've sensed but never seen facts and stats about. My favourite quote from the book: "Where's the culture pulling everyone? Now turn around and walk the other way. Keep walking." That resonates with me.
January 27, 2012
If you regularly find yourself wishing you could erase the constant noise of traffic, cell phones, music, TVs, car alarms, sirens, construction work, and all those other distracting noises of our modern world, and just find a nice, quiet place to sit and think and decompress, then you’ll find Prochnik’s latest book of interest. The author lives in Brooklyn, so he knows a thing or two about the unwelcome sounds of big city life, and this book chronicles his journey to discover just what all this noise does to us, physically and psychologically, and what, if anything, we can do to combat it, or at least learn to better cope with it.
Scientists and doctors of many stripes, religious ascetics, and noise pollution activists weigh in on the dangers of modern noise levels, the latest soundproofing designs and sound measuring devices, and the overall advantages of quietness and silence. Did you know that, even after years of experiencing police sirens driving past several times a day, for instance, our eyes will still dilate and our blood pressure will go up, even if we sit quietly and the noise of the siren only barely registers? Did you realize that headphones are responsible for about 10% of all traffic accidents—because those wearing the headphones don’t hear oncoming traffic and drivers will slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them, creating the perfect opportunity to be rear-ended? Well, if you didn’t, there’s much, much more to learn about the dangers of noise, and Prochnik shares them all along the way.
On the other side of the coin, however, he also spends time with professional “boom car” drivers. Some of them compete to see whose speakers will register the highest dB levels for the longest amount of time. Prochnik rides along with them, interviews them, and their stories are interesting, even if they will probably fail to move anyone reading this book over to their lifestyle. There are also sound designers, who create “soundscapes” in shopping areas and restaurants that subconsciously encourage people to spend more or less time in a place and spend more money there as well. They cite studies that show, for example, that bars blaring music too loudly to talk over will make more money than quiet ones because people drink more, and drink more quickly, when they don’t waste all that time talking to one another. They also clear out sooner, paving the way for someone new to sit down and start drinking.
There are revelations to be found in each of his adventures, whether walking in the famed Japanese gardens of Portland, the school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., with the boom car enthusiasts of Tampa, the architects and sound proofers of Copenhagen, or the evolutionary neuroscientists who are discovering how our earless, early mammalian ancestors “heard” via vibrations that affected tiny bones in their jaws that would later migrate and become even more sensitive to vibration and eventually develop into modern ears. All of these tales are interesting and thought provoking, although, ultimately, they are frustrating.
As his research shows, there have always been concerns about noise levels in industrial cities, and many an anti-noise society has been formed and many a piece of legislation passed to endeavor to tamper the worst of the noise and create a quieter, more peaceful environment. But further studies show that noise levels continue to go up, despite these earnest efforts, and our hearing and overall health continue to decline as a result of it. In other words, noise pollution seems to be here to stay, and ultimately all we are left to glean from Prochnik’s work is that the best we can do for our own physical and mental health is to steal away as often as we can to a cathedral, quiet reading room, waterfall or park, as a temporary, but much needed and much valued, respite.
Scientists and doctors of many stripes, religious ascetics, and noise pollution activists weigh in on the dangers of modern noise levels, the latest soundproofing designs and sound measuring devices, and the overall advantages of quietness and silence. Did you know that, even after years of experiencing police sirens driving past several times a day, for instance, our eyes will still dilate and our blood pressure will go up, even if we sit quietly and the noise of the siren only barely registers? Did you realize that headphones are responsible for about 10% of all traffic accidents—because those wearing the headphones don’t hear oncoming traffic and drivers will slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them, creating the perfect opportunity to be rear-ended? Well, if you didn’t, there’s much, much more to learn about the dangers of noise, and Prochnik shares them all along the way.
On the other side of the coin, however, he also spends time with professional “boom car” drivers. Some of them compete to see whose speakers will register the highest dB levels for the longest amount of time. Prochnik rides along with them, interviews them, and their stories are interesting, even if they will probably fail to move anyone reading this book over to their lifestyle. There are also sound designers, who create “soundscapes” in shopping areas and restaurants that subconsciously encourage people to spend more or less time in a place and spend more money there as well. They cite studies that show, for example, that bars blaring music too loudly to talk over will make more money than quiet ones because people drink more, and drink more quickly, when they don’t waste all that time talking to one another. They also clear out sooner, paving the way for someone new to sit down and start drinking.
There are revelations to be found in each of his adventures, whether walking in the famed Japanese gardens of Portland, the school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., with the boom car enthusiasts of Tampa, the architects and sound proofers of Copenhagen, or the evolutionary neuroscientists who are discovering how our earless, early mammalian ancestors “heard” via vibrations that affected tiny bones in their jaws that would later migrate and become even more sensitive to vibration and eventually develop into modern ears. All of these tales are interesting and thought provoking, although, ultimately, they are frustrating.
As his research shows, there have always been concerns about noise levels in industrial cities, and many an anti-noise society has been formed and many a piece of legislation passed to endeavor to tamper the worst of the noise and create a quieter, more peaceful environment. But further studies show that noise levels continue to go up, despite these earnest efforts, and our hearing and overall health continue to decline as a result of it. In other words, noise pollution seems to be here to stay, and ultimately all we are left to glean from Prochnik’s work is that the best we can do for our own physical and mental health is to steal away as often as we can to a cathedral, quiet reading room, waterfall or park, as a temporary, but much needed and much valued, respite.
September 12, 2013
Prochnik does an ok job of balancing science, narrative, and journalism. i like, too, the fact that he seamlessly blends the human psyche's desire for calming, life-affirming, deeply meaningful experiences that can be obtained through silence without referring to them in New Agey woo terminology or even overtly calling them "mystical" or "religious." the science behind how silence and noise affect human behavior inside and out is the topic here and it does include valid discussion of what happens when we unplug ourselves from the everyday cacophony that is the reality for most modern humans.
only one part of the book did i skip: that about "boom cars." they are vehicles that have been transformed by their owners into rolling subwoofers that can generate up to 180dB of sound. this part of the book seemed to drag on and on because he wanted to tell stories and give dialogue to every character he met when he was researching this. he did make some good points about perception of noise pollution and that not every boom car owner was disrespectful with their use of extreme volume. it also allowed him to discuss the legislative aspect of noise control: how far do we go in curbing other people's sound habits?
i appreciated the book because of what he said about there being a reason that monks and ascetics of all kinds throughout history have trudged off into the desert -for the quiet: they "come for a radical confrontation with ourselves. Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."
the book is obviously a work of journalism but Prochnik does provide source citations and some notes in the back but he does not, however, provide number notation directly to those end notes. there's also an index which is one of the marks of a decently crafted piece of scholarship.
well worth the read and even if, like me, you've done lots of research into this kind of thing, the breadth of Prochnik's research reveals quite a bit of insight into aspects of sound and silence not usually thought of.
only one part of the book did i skip: that about "boom cars." they are vehicles that have been transformed by their owners into rolling subwoofers that can generate up to 180dB of sound. this part of the book seemed to drag on and on because he wanted to tell stories and give dialogue to every character he met when he was researching this. he did make some good points about perception of noise pollution and that not every boom car owner was disrespectful with their use of extreme volume. it also allowed him to discuss the legislative aspect of noise control: how far do we go in curbing other people's sound habits?
i appreciated the book because of what he said about there being a reason that monks and ascetics of all kinds throughout history have trudged off into the desert -for the quiet: they "come for a radical confrontation with ourselves. Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."
the book is obviously a work of journalism but Prochnik does provide source citations and some notes in the back but he does not, however, provide number notation directly to those end notes. there's also an index which is one of the marks of a decently crafted piece of scholarship.
well worth the read and even if, like me, you've done lots of research into this kind of thing, the breadth of Prochnik's research reveals quite a bit of insight into aspects of sound and silence not usually thought of.
May 21, 2010
Though rarely mentioned, the world is getting louder. Urban expansion, media explosion, piped in muzak and ubiquitous earbuds are all adding up to a society that has become immersed in noise pollution, and often unwittingly so. George Prochnik, a psychology-based writer (‘Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam and the Purpose of American Psychology’) has studied this in both its rudimentary and more advanced levels and published the results in his latest book, ‘In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise.’
Prochnik’s research covers a wide range of issues related to both sound and silence including everything from the acoustics and physics of sound, public noise policy, antinoise activism, the science of hearing, deafness and the biophysics of the ear itself. He also engages in a host of what is best termed ‘field research’ as he takes readers to environments ranging from the world of Noise-Cons and ‘boom cars’ to the obscure ‘pocket parks’ buried inside of Manhattan.
By exploring societal norms and environmental noise factors (for example, that bars and restaurants sell more consumable products – food and drink – when decibel levels are raised on their patrons), Prochnik is also able to elucidate the antidotes for avoiding the sound onslaught that sometimes seems to be an unavoidable inevitability of today’s complex world. By shedding light on techniques from state-of-the-art soundproofing to Zen meditation, Prochnik shows the reader a way out of the sonic noise spectrum, but he stresses, it is not without its cost.
In all, ‘In Pursuit of Silence’ is not a prosaic tome (as one might presume) as much as it is a neo-scientific study; not as clinical as a text on the subject, but still focused and specific. Whether you view that as a benefit or a criticism depends on what you are looking for. If a serious study of the current state of the noise-silence continuum in the modern urban world is what you seek, this may be a book for you. If not, you might find it a bit dry.
Prochnik’s research covers a wide range of issues related to both sound and silence including everything from the acoustics and physics of sound, public noise policy, antinoise activism, the science of hearing, deafness and the biophysics of the ear itself. He also engages in a host of what is best termed ‘field research’ as he takes readers to environments ranging from the world of Noise-Cons and ‘boom cars’ to the obscure ‘pocket parks’ buried inside of Manhattan.
By exploring societal norms and environmental noise factors (for example, that bars and restaurants sell more consumable products – food and drink – when decibel levels are raised on their patrons), Prochnik is also able to elucidate the antidotes for avoiding the sound onslaught that sometimes seems to be an unavoidable inevitability of today’s complex world. By shedding light on techniques from state-of-the-art soundproofing to Zen meditation, Prochnik shows the reader a way out of the sonic noise spectrum, but he stresses, it is not without its cost.
In all, ‘In Pursuit of Silence’ is not a prosaic tome (as one might presume) as much as it is a neo-scientific study; not as clinical as a text on the subject, but still focused and specific. Whether you view that as a benefit or a criticism depends on what you are looking for. If a serious study of the current state of the noise-silence continuum in the modern urban world is what you seek, this may be a book for you. If not, you might find it a bit dry.
February 11, 2017
I've read this book a dozen times. Ok, not this specific book but this book belongs to a genre I sort of call "Harpers & the Atlantic Spawn a Massive Love Child". It's not catchy but I'm still working on it.
Here's what it is: pick a topic that's broad but accessible. Quiet, slow food, disposable stuff, attention span, I dunno, whatever. Find a writer, probably a long-form journalist who's quirked by that topic. You know, the guy wearing huge hearing protectors in the office or the guy who will never go to Arby's with you or the guy who can't drink bottled water without cringing, or the guy who still refuses to get a cell phone, or the guy who brings his own stainless steel straw to the restaurant. You know who I mean. Then give them a bunch of money and tell them to dive in. They will return in a year with 300 pages which will include a section on lay level science about the topic, history of the topic, history of interest in the topic, modern groups of people who's lives intersect with the topic, groups opposed to the topic, groups for the topic, and a conclusion which elevates this quotidian topic in status, justifies his quirk and assures the long suffering reader that support of or opposition to the topic will only increase until the world is woke. Give or take a chapter.
The plus side on this particular book: the author is a genuinely good writer and he's interspersed all of that stuff with really charming vignettes of accessible silence. He writes the dialogue between the interviewee and himself well and gives the inhabitants of his subcultures dignity and respect. All the jokes are at his own expense, not theirs. His descriptions are vivid and appropriately brief.
If this was the first book of this kind I'd read I'd be kinder to it even though it did not in anyway deliver what I was looking for which is insight on how to actually pursue silence in my life. But even so it wasn't like, painful to read, only predictable and bland.
Here's what it is: pick a topic that's broad but accessible. Quiet, slow food, disposable stuff, attention span, I dunno, whatever. Find a writer, probably a long-form journalist who's quirked by that topic. You know, the guy wearing huge hearing protectors in the office or the guy who will never go to Arby's with you or the guy who can't drink bottled water without cringing, or the guy who still refuses to get a cell phone, or the guy who brings his own stainless steel straw to the restaurant. You know who I mean. Then give them a bunch of money and tell them to dive in. They will return in a year with 300 pages which will include a section on lay level science about the topic, history of the topic, history of interest in the topic, modern groups of people who's lives intersect with the topic, groups opposed to the topic, groups for the topic, and a conclusion which elevates this quotidian topic in status, justifies his quirk and assures the long suffering reader that support of or opposition to the topic will only increase until the world is woke. Give or take a chapter.
The plus side on this particular book: the author is a genuinely good writer and he's interspersed all of that stuff with really charming vignettes of accessible silence. He writes the dialogue between the interviewee and himself well and gives the inhabitants of his subcultures dignity and respect. All the jokes are at his own expense, not theirs. His descriptions are vivid and appropriately brief.
If this was the first book of this kind I'd read I'd be kinder to it even though it did not in anyway deliver what I was looking for which is insight on how to actually pursue silence in my life. But even so it wasn't like, painful to read, only predictable and bland.
August 8, 2013
A mostly well-researched book, Prochnik's survey of noise and silence in contemporary society includes a vast survey of anecdotes and history without managing to come to any solid conclusions about the subject matter beyond "there should be more silence in New York" -- since he writes mostly from the perspective of a New Yorker looking at other parts of the world as "not-New York," particularly while he talks of spending time with "urban boom car drivers" in Florida who he ultimately (and borderline condescendingly) finds are much more complex than they seemed on the surface.
While the book contains a deep collection of interesting and potentially useful historical tales related to noise and silence, there are some frustrating gaps; for example, in a section devoted to a discussion of the term "soundscape" that goes so far as to name terms like "soundmarks," there is no mention of the R. Murray Schafer, who coined these terms decades ago, nor of of the acoustic ecology movement that Schafer spearheaded that still operates on a large scale today. There are also some questionable assertions in need of fact checking, such as the student working on architectural spaces for the Deaf who tells Prochnik that there is no sign for "square" in sign language because the Deaf prefer rounded, rather than sharp, corners.
But for every questionable item in the book, there are still some wonderful moments, particularly in the introduction. Setting the thesis for the book seems to have come easy, but ultimately deriving meaning from the author's admirably thorough and wide-ranging quest is difficult to manage. There are few firm conclusions beyond a suggestion that more quiet spaces need to be built in cities (like New York). By the end of the book, readers definitely been convinced that this is a good idea -- but we don't really know exactly why.
While the book contains a deep collection of interesting and potentially useful historical tales related to noise and silence, there are some frustrating gaps; for example, in a section devoted to a discussion of the term "soundscape" that goes so far as to name terms like "soundmarks," there is no mention of the R. Murray Schafer, who coined these terms decades ago, nor of of the acoustic ecology movement that Schafer spearheaded that still operates on a large scale today. There are also some questionable assertions in need of fact checking, such as the student working on architectural spaces for the Deaf who tells Prochnik that there is no sign for "square" in sign language because the Deaf prefer rounded, rather than sharp, corners.
But for every questionable item in the book, there are still some wonderful moments, particularly in the introduction. Setting the thesis for the book seems to have come easy, but ultimately deriving meaning from the author's admirably thorough and wide-ranging quest is difficult to manage. There are few firm conclusions beyond a suggestion that more quiet spaces need to be built in cities (like New York). By the end of the book, readers definitely been convinced that this is a good idea -- but we don't really know exactly why.
March 15, 2013
I had really high hopes for this book and made it through the fairly interesting 20-page introduction ready to move on. I didn't get much further before finding myself annoyed at various writing weaknesses that hampered my appreciation.
At first, it was hard for me to pinpoint, but over several pages close together, I found three types of problems that added up to not wanting to finish the book. Ah, well. Here they are:
-On a walk in the dark: "The deep silence was instantly broken by the squitch, squatch of boot tread on snow. 'Feet, stop making so much noise,' I thought." Really? Way too self-focused, and I was jolted by hearing an echo of Stepin Fetchit's famous movie line, "Feet, don't fail me now." It utterly broke the mood for me.
-Weak reference: "The monks noted that God had created his people in the desert, and it was to the desert that he'd brought them after their sin in order, in the words of Hosea, to 'allure her, and speak to her tenderly.'" Her? I don't like to have to stop reading in order to figure out to whom a pronoun is referring--especially to find in the end that there's no one.
-"In the early twentieth century, Dr. Frazer, an American anthropologist, went off to study the so-called Silent Widows of a tribe of Australian Aborigines." Doesn't Dr. Frazer have a first name? If I want to know more, should I really have to try to find the author before I can even look up his/her work? Shoddy.
He seems rather worldly to me than and comes off as more of a whiner about a noise than a true seeker of silence.
At first, it was hard for me to pinpoint, but over several pages close together, I found three types of problems that added up to not wanting to finish the book. Ah, well. Here they are:
-On a walk in the dark: "The deep silence was instantly broken by the squitch, squatch of boot tread on snow. 'Feet, stop making so much noise,' I thought." Really? Way too self-focused, and I was jolted by hearing an echo of Stepin Fetchit's famous movie line, "Feet, don't fail me now." It utterly broke the mood for me.
-Weak reference: "The monks noted that God had created his people in the desert, and it was to the desert that he'd brought them after their sin in order, in the words of Hosea, to 'allure her, and speak to her tenderly.'" Her? I don't like to have to stop reading in order to figure out to whom a pronoun is referring--especially to find in the end that there's no one.
-"In the early twentieth century, Dr. Frazer, an American anthropologist, went off to study the so-called Silent Widows of a tribe of Australian Aborigines." Doesn't Dr. Frazer have a first name? If I want to know more, should I really have to try to find the author before I can even look up his/her work? Shoddy.
He seems rather worldly to me than and comes off as more of a whiner about a noise than a true seeker of silence.
February 22, 2018
Skimmed only.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. He shows us the benefits of decluttering our sonic world.
As Prochnik travels across the United States and overseas, we meet a rich host of characters: an idealistic architect who is pioneering a new kind of silent architecture in collaboration with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University; a special operations soldier in Afghanistan (and former guitarist with Nirvana) who places silence at the heart of survival in war; a sound designer for shopping malls who ensures that the stores we visit never stop their auditory seductions; and a group of commuters who successfully revolted against piped-in music in Grand Central Station.
A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them, In Pursuit of Silence is an important book that will appeal to fans of Michael Pollan and Daniel Gilbert.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. He shows us the benefits of decluttering our sonic world.
As Prochnik travels across the United States and overseas, we meet a rich host of characters: an idealistic architect who is pioneering a new kind of silent architecture in collaboration with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University; a special operations soldier in Afghanistan (and former guitarist with Nirvana) who places silence at the heart of survival in war; a sound designer for shopping malls who ensures that the stores we visit never stop their auditory seductions; and a group of commuters who successfully revolted against piped-in music in Grand Central Station.
A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them, In Pursuit of Silence is an important book that will appeal to fans of Michael Pollan and Daniel Gilbert.
July 9, 2010
Prochnik may not give us deep philosophy but does provide a multifaceted survey of current contemporary noise and silence issues. From the silences of the monastery to boom cars with stereos loud enough to break their own windshields to the ubiquitous earbuds he makes explicit many aspects of silence and noise we likely have not thought through: “the military and the monastery are each … dedicated to the watchful preparation for death—often in silence.” “… the centrality of silence to life in a biosystem of predation.”
There are also many things that I, at least, didn’t know about: the Mosquito Teen Deterrent which outputs a 90 decibel noise at too high a pitch for adults to hear, the intent being to discourage teen loitering. This, in turn, led to the Mosquito ring tone, so adults can’t hear when the teen’s cell phone ring. Or, that Paul Allen had Quest Field designed to reflect the maximum crowd sounds back onto the field.
He finds that ghetto kids we unable to appreciate a moment of silence in the classroom because in their regular lives silence was only associated with trauma—mother’s death, friend getting shot, etc.
People use iPods to provide a soundtrack for life itself, filtering out distractions. He concludes the “there is a kind of Stockholm Syndrome at work in much of the noise in our contemporary world.
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