Reviews

The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl

mcchampion's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

4.0

The author was recently widowed when writing the book, as was I reading it.  I particularly liked the part at the end reflecting on a poem that ends "I have wasted my life".  I feel like that at some level, but loved author's reflections integrating the different interpretations of the poem to the "lean into daydreaming" theme of the book.  

This book also led me to my next non-fiction read "How to Live" by Sarah Bakewell

heidihaverkamp's review against another edition

3.0

I wanted to love this book because I love the title, but I wrestled with it a bit. I was a bit bored by "the ladies," the two famous spinsters of 18th century Wales who lived a life of study and leisure with whom Hampl opens her pilgrimage and book. I wasn't sure her background conversation with her deceased husband worked (although I know too well the power of grief and how it takes over your life). I liked her musings on learning piano, Gregor Mendel, monastic life, Montaigne, and her Roman Catholic upbringing a familiar foundation beneath it all, but I wasn't sure I was seeing how she was fitting it all together. Maybe I didn't want to hear so much about the details of her travels - the hostels, the meals, the rainy days - so much as her thoughts. Or it didn't help me piece things together. Hmm.

mawalker1962's review against another edition

4.0

The book jacket described this book at “a spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and daydream.” Having been an accomplished daydreamer when I was growing up and longing to learn how to allow myself more time for daydreaming and the reflection and contemplation that accompany it, I was eager to read this book. It was not quite what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it. It was partly a meditation on the nature of solitude, leisure, language, and engagement with the world. Partly it was an oblique chronicle of grief—Hampl’s husband died suddenly of heart-failure as she was writing the book. And mostly I think it was an interrogation of what constitutes a good life. Hampl doesn’t provide any sure answers—just reflections and possibilities.

annevoi's review against another edition

5.0

I loved this book. It's like a lazy wander around the world with a good friend. Hampl gave me so much to think about.

lokroma's review

3.0

With references to Montaigne throughout, the author examines the essay form as a tool of reflection, of imagination, of daydreaming--processes that demand patience and a letting go of agendas and to-do lists. She visits the Lake District in England, Czechoslovakia, and France in search of friends and historical figures who have mastered the art of living reflective yet fulfilled lives. People simply love living, being alive. I'm reminded of Dickinson: "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

jennahazzard's review

3.0

I really enjoyed this book, but at times it felt a bit directionless, which I guess is the point. I listened to it on audiobook, so it could have been that I wasn't listening closely enough. The author touches on lots of different historical figures and spends time talking about monks that lived a contemplative life, all tied loosely together with the thread of grief for her husband. The author had some good things to say about writing and the bits about grief were so well done. The author's voice was very enjoyable. Might revisit this in print to get more out of it.

dogtrax's review

4.0

I’m not sure I’ll find a book with a better title this year. And while I too often felt as she were overwriting — and how strange to overwrite on this particular topic — the moments of beauty and contemplation in her sentences kept me hooked, leading me to the final moments of quiet morning, or is it mourning?

alymac42's review against another edition

informative lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

5.0

dmturner's review

4.0

A lovely, rambling (in space, time, and topic) elegy to leisure, writing, solitude, and passing time. I enjoyed reading the book, and found many passages intensely quotable. Whenever she speaks to "you," she is talking to her husband, who has died, and I often envied her the intimacy she seemed to share with him (and I am married 43 years myself), but those moments are scattered throughout long narratives of historical characters like the Ladies of Llangollen, Gregor Mendel, and Michel de Montaigne, and visits to their neighborhoods. It ends with a boat trip she took down the river with her partner.

I was ultimately unsatisfied by the book, which at times took digression to improbable heights and asserted equivalences I could not follow, whether because they were too densely rich or because they partook of some correspondence visible only within the author's universe.

melanie_reads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

There are amazing ideas found in this book, especially as it relates to how we spend our time chasing endless to-do lists when one day our spouses and other loves will be gone. However, I thought the connection between the big ideas and Hampl's pilgrimages to various historical sites were somewhat weak. They were interesting but they came off as somewhat vague. What was the purpose? Or maybe that was the purpose and I missed it.

From a craft perspective, how she addresses her late husband throughout the narrative was sheer brilliance.