Customer Reviews

At Day's Close: Night in Times Past

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first heard about this book from Fritz Lanham's marvelous review of it in the Houston Chronicle some weeks back. As usual, Lanham makes you curious and excited about the books he likes and, though he had some reservations about Ekirch's prose style and sometimes cumbrous way of writing, he still made the book sound great. I have to agree, AT DAY'S CLOSE is one of those books which, once finished, you can't stop thinking about and which you want to tell all your friends about. For anyone who has thought much about the world before the modern era, it has a particularly magical touch, for it asks us to re-imagine what life was like before the electric and gas light came to be, when once the sun fell people were plunged into mostly inpenetrable darkness. No wonder they made such a cult of the moon! It must have been a blessing to them. "Ill met by moonlight" indeed.

Ekirch reports that the ordinary householder spent more on his bed than on anything else in the house. People must have been confined pretty much to bed. It made me think of the way Shakespeare's will leaves his "second best bed" to his wife, a bequest biographers sometimes take to mean that they didn't have a very good marriage, but now that Ekirch's reportage is in, I think of it in a different way. In A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM, which takes place almost entirely during the night, the audience is allowed to "see" things it could never have seen even in moonlight and thus this must have contributed to the "magical" factor of the play for contemporary audience, a feeling we have long lost.

For us moderns, day and night are pretty much the same. Perhaps that's why our belief in elves, fairies, trolls, etc., has diminished. Thanks to Freud even our dreams have become more understandable. Imagine living back then and feeling that the dreams were part of a larger, evil force that took control once the sun was down and that dreams were forced on you!

The book has something startling on every page. How many other books can make that claim? Besides that, it brings the past to us in a nearly visceral way. I found myself looking at the sun, a-feared as I watched it near the earth.

This book has done more to improve my understanding of pre-Enlightenment Western civilization, than, quite possibly, any one other work I can think of. The influence of the church on daily life, giving both fears (demons, Satan) and saviors - both of which were imminently more pressing when the only remedy for darkness was a candle whose poor light you could ill afford. (By the way, "burning the midnight oil" doesn't quite mean what you think it does.) The spread of disease, which was thought to be a result of the "bad night air", yet fear of it caused people to sleep, often all in one room, with the windows closed - thus practically ensuring that infection would spread to the whole family. One of the most surprising facts in the book is divided sleep, a phenomenon that the author maintains occurs in all primitive societies without electricity. People apparently become so well-rested that, going to bed near the fall of night, they have their "first sleep", awaken about midnight, lie awake (or find something to do) for 2-3 hours, then sleep some more. Ekrich points out that the body's hormones had completely adapted to this pattern. Thus, the aberration is our modern 6-8 hours at a stretch, something humans have not been doing that long really. This book is full of ideas like that. They are the kind of every day things that people think every one knows, so they are not written down, and, therefore, a bit of a challenge for the historian to unearth. (We all have these sort of "everybody knows that!" assumptions; just try coordinating a wedding. You'll soon find out both families have certain, largely unspoken, ideas of what a wedding should be.) Ekrich has written an enlightening book about a topic that has, amazingly, escaped scholarly light until now. A wonderful study of the dark half of our past.

What a great book, absorbing, thought-provoking and totally unputdownable. I have been waiting for so long to read this book and when I finally picked it up I just couldn't put it down. It is amazing. Culturally, we still have a fear of night, of the dark, and of what might happen. It is what makes horror movies so successful. Yet previous centuries, without the benefit of electric lighting, had a far deeper cultural attitude to day and night, and this is ably explained by Ekirch.

He explains just how pervasive night and dark was. Of people lost off dangerous roads, of streets hidden from daylight and moon light at night - and of falling into ditches, (or the kennels as they were then called) and having to chose the risk of falling into coal cellars on one side, or slipping into the kennels on the other. Of footpaths so ill formed that they were dangers in themselves. Of the distrust of anyone abroad at night, women not carrying candles were thought to be prostitutes and generally treated as thus. thefts at night were deemed burglaries and therefore viewed much more seriously than daylight thefts - indeed they were punishable by death.

The cultural icons of night were the devil, witches, werewolves and other nasty images, and in Italy they had a saying that dusk was when you couldn't tell a hound from a wolf. Interesting imagery.

The book suffers in some ways from not following a time line, or indeed a country, so quotes from the 14th century might easilyl follow a roman anecdote or something from 18th century England.

thematically it works though. It follows the general concepts of how night affected human psyche, of fires that were lit, and how they threw light. Of the types of lighting available, of curfews to prevent people being abroad. Of gradual municipal responsibility.

I found this book so good I read it through again to pick up what I missed the first time through. Truly extraodinary work and very enjoyable. My highest recommendation.

At Day's Close is a wonder of a book. Every page is full of dozens of interesting facts covering every aspect of the night. From fear of monsters to fear of fire to the actions of the night watch, the author leaves no aspect of the night, ahem, in the dark. His methodology is unique in that this book is really a mosaic of sources. Ekirch isn't so much an author as a compiler as every paragraph is full of quotes or paraphrases of some historic source speaking on a particular topic. While this makes him unimpeachable, its also lacks authoritative cohesion. Its as if thousands of snap shots have been taken of the topic and organized and categorized to tell the history of people dealing with night. This makes for entertaining reading yet I'm left with a slightly vacant feeling: there should have been something more, something to tie everything together. The book still deserves 5 stars. Its highly readable and packed with information. I've never read anything like it. Highly recommended.

This is a truly wonderful book. This well-researched look at the past is structured around the lives of ordinary men and women. It's possible to imagine oneself living in the times described. Ever since reading in Smithsonian Magazine about Ekirch's research, I've anxiously awaited the publication of this book. At last, it's here.

I enjoy reading non-fiction books like this, a book I would put in the same category as "Cod" and "Salt" by Mark Kurlansky or "Wind" by Jan Deblieu. While there was lots of interesting stuff in "At Day's Close", I thought Ekirch didn't do a great job of tying it together. I thought Kurlansky did better along those lines with "Cod" and "Salt". Another thing that bothered me about "At Day's Close" was his focus on Europe and North America. I think it would have been more interesting if Ekirch had compared European attitudes with those of other cultures.

A. Roger Ekirch's book is a well-written, rich exploration of the experience of night through the ages. It's remarkable that not more has been done in this area, so it's to Mr. Ekirch's credit that he has created the "after hours" niche market. Unfortunately his exploration does not include much on the 20th century. True, he recognizes that we're in the 24/7 century, but the nightlife of that century has changed over-time, as illustrated in books like, "Steppin' Out," which surveys the evolution of night clubs and the like in early, 20th century urban America. Readers will have anticipated much of what Ekirch documents (which is not to diminish the significance of the documentation). Thus, we find that "night" was a time of increased opportunity for criminal activity and violence. The typical thieve in the night hated a the "full moon," known as "the tattler." But there are some real surprises. At least this I learned for the first time that: bedroom furniture was for a long time the single-most expensive asset in the home (it could be 1/3 of the total home's value), not unlike today's automobile in some instances; families, or large segments of them, slept on a single-bed and visitors to the typical home "climbed in" and shared the arrangement and; although criminal activity was highest during the evening hours, the official police force tended to "take the night off," leaving the job of protection to "hired hands" of varying quality. Finally, Ekirch discovered that a "full night's sleep" prior to the early part of the 19th century did not entail uninterrupted sleep. Rather, he found that many people experienced segmented sleep; that is, going to bed early and waking up in the early a.m. hours for some period of time (perhaps multiple hours) and then resume sleep. That interlude of awakeness is, regretably to Ekirch, a phenemona lost to the modern sleeper -- although alcohol prior to bed is a good way to re-experience our ancestor's segmented momentes.

Most creation myths open with light dispelling the dark. Night and day are the most fundamental divisions of time in human experience, and so reflected in many myths. The lack of light brings thoughts on the unknown, usually fearful ones. We don't understand what we can't see and impart threatening purposes to shadowy shapes and subtle sounds. Ekirch, in an outstanding compendium of the history of night in Western Europe, describes the feelings about after-sunset hours and how people reacted to night.

Night-time, Ekirch says, wasn't simply a reduction or hiatus in the sequence of daily activities. Night bred a distinct cultural milieu of its own. Many operated well in the dark hours, but not always for productive or socially acceptable purpose. Those who coped well with darkness, he suggests, did so because they needed to shun the light. As Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, a new social structure classified society in new ways. Attempting to cope with the changes, some found the night the best time for acitivities legal and otherwise. For the rising middle class, the onset of night was a threat and an opportunity. From their poverty-stricken ancestry, the new rich often turned to "bedfellows" to quell fears of burglars or arsonists. The poor still crowded beds for warmth, but the newer wealthy also turned to friends for common protection, conversation and security. When alone and not terrified, these new, educated aristocrats might use the night for thought, reflection and writing.

The threats, however, were real. The new commercial and pre-industrial society fostered a new class of displaced or disadvantaged humanity. Women were particularly imposed upon as the need for income in poor households led them to assume extra tasks. Spinning and weaving, clothing manufacture, husking corn or boiling syrup, took place in countless households in the dark hours. The women competed in a highly variable market and the income was minimal. In frustration, many men took out their resentments in burning houses and barns of the landlords and entrepreneurs. Some burnings were simple animosity, while others used the distraction of fire to rob houses or wharves. The "highwayman" rose supreme in this age in men who knew intimately the patches of country to strike at the right time and place, then escaping easily.

An interesting division in Ekirch's narrative is the distinction between religion and commerce in this period. The Roman Catholic church saw advantages in the night as the time for prayer and meditation in cloisters. Commerce, however, needed daylight for the proper transmission of goods and maintaining inventory security. In the early period of this era [17th and 18th Centuries], shops were usually banned from maintaining operations past "curfew". The shutting of city gates reduced trade opportunities. Threats to homes and shops after curfew led to the beginnings of city police forces. Ekirch's denies prostitution the primacy of longevity as "the world's oldest profession" to grant that status to the nightwatch [Pratchett fans take note!]. Although hardly effective, the nightwatch laid the foundation for today's constables. While some nations like France and Spain attempted to impart status to the nightwatch, the British resisted them as a "junior" form of autocracy. The rising middle class, especially, objected to the watchmen's mandate to sequester anyone on the streets considered "suspicious".

Graced with numerous excellent renditions of paintings and drawings of the night's environment and activities, Ekirch lifts this book above a purely academic study. His "Notes" concluding the book are a research jaunt for the reader. Thinking of what the author endured to bring this mass of material together and present it in a coherent volume is almost staggering. He manages the task skillfully, imparting a wealth of records, diaries, poetry and letters in an easily readable, if not light-hearted style. His theme is the change of views of the night at the beginning of the pre-industrial era. He concludes by stating that the rise of artificial lighting revised again our view of the night. Sleep patterns, often broken among all classes in that era, have now, at least in the West, settled into a new form of long hours of continuous sleep. Does that mean our view of the night has truly changed? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Ekirch has produced a unique piece of scholarship. Based upon extensive research over the course of many years, this book joins the small list of scholarly publications that have changed our perception of commonplace natural phenomena. If you like provocative, highly imaginative studies of history, this volume will enthrall you.

This is a good book for someone without a lot of background in pre-modern history, who may be completely unfamiliar with much of the material. The author is clearly trying hard (with mixed success, as other reviewers note) to write something that is both solidly based and yet readable and enjoyable. He makes heavy use of anecdotes and statistics from clearly marked sources, which I think is a Good Thing from a historian's point of view.

He also gives a good many of his own opinions and generalizations, sometimes footnoted, sometimes not. Some I would question, such as (to take a random example) "Pre-industrial folk, in facing the natural world, drew on a deep reservoir of rural culture, one fed by many wellsprings, including both pagan and Christian traditions." I wish he had given some examples of pagan and Christian practices used to navigate the nightscape (the subject of the chapter), but he doesn't. Many sections are loosely written like this, throwing out a lot of ideas without really following any of them up. (My question in this case is whether anything truly pagan, as opposed to merely traditional practices for "luck," existed this late in Western European history.)

Since I do have a background in history, I was actually disappointed in this book. Here's why: because it told me a good many things I already knew, but the one idea that was really news to me wasn't expanded on as much as I'd like: the idea that pre-industrial Europeans regarded sleeping in two sessions per night (routinely waking for awhile around midnight) as the norm. This insight was promoted as something new and different about this book (which it is) but in fact it gets less than ten pages in a 340-page text before veering off into a discussion of dreams. I would have liked to hear much more.

All in all, this looks to me like an author trying to cram too much material into one book. A lot of what's in there is interesting, but the material could have been pared down, tightened up, and then expanded in selected spots, to make a much better book that discussed fewer topics in more depth. There's enough in here that is NOT generally known to most people that a fascinating book could have been constructed.