Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I began this book shortly after my son, Cody, at the age of eighteen, moved from his mother's house into mine..." (more)
Key Phrases: slacker subcultures, slacker characters, tramp laws, New York, United States, Poor Richard (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Lutz eases readers into this sparkling cultural history of stylish American torpor with an anecdote about his 18-year-old son, Cody, moving into his house and bivouacking on the couch—perhaps indefinitely. Lutz himself spent a decade before college "wandering here and abroad," so his intense anger at Cody surprised him—and inspired him to write this book about the crashing fault lines between Anglo-America's vaunted Calvinist work ethic and its skulking, shrugging love of idling. An English professor who admits to being personally caught between these warring impulses, Lutz (Crying) has a gimlet eye for the ironies of modern loafing: that the "flaming youth" of the 1920s were intensely industrious; that our most celebrated slackers (Jack Kerouac, Richard Linklater) have been closet workaholics; that our most outspoken Puritans (Benjamin Franklin, George W. Bush) have been notorious layabouts. Lutz's diligent research on a range of lazy and slovenly subjects, from French flâneurs to New York bohos, ultimately leads him to side with the bums. Flying in the face of yuppie values and critics of the welfare state, his "slacker ethic" emerges over the course of this history as both a necessary corrective to—and an inevitable outgrowth of—the 80-hour work week. (May)
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From Booklist

Samuel Johnson identified literary loafers in his periodicalIdler (1758-60), and here Lutz lays sharp-eyed analysis on society's reaction toward those who repudiate regular work. Productively informing his appraisals of the Thoreaus and Kerouacs with his own youthful experiment in communal^B living, Lutz weaves no grand theory of the slacker because he finds that wastrels have been different in every generation. In the late 1700s, a disinclination to work was an aristocratic affectation. In reaction to industrialism, the back-to-nature primitivist appeared, embodied by Thoreau, while cultural vulgarity made the Gilded Age vulnerable to the effete cynicism of an Oscar Wilde. In Wilde and others, Lutz nails, with concise sophistication, the mix of anger and amusement such nonconformists provoked. Though a serious study of spongers, this wry book is fun to read. With layabouts such as Theodore Dreiser, the Beats, and our epoch's own Anna Nicole Simpson on offer, cultural-history mavens won't be able to pass Lutz up. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (May 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865476500
• ISBN-13: 978-0865476509
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #47,527 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, an entertaining read, May 26, 2006

By	Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I got this book largely because I was curious as to how anyone could write a history of people who did nothing. Afterall, people who do nothing wouldn't do enough to leave a history behind (that follows, doesn't it?)

Well, Lutz surprised me. People who do nothing, or at the least strive to not work, are quite an interesting crew. I ran into a lot of famous people I had never thought of as loafers before: such as Ben Franklin and Samuel Johnson. Of course the usual suspects were also there: like Kerouac and Ginsberg (and the beats in general.)

The author seems to suggest that he is something of a slacker himself. But I found that hard to believe as clearly a great deal of work went into this book. The amount of digested reading, research, review of culutral materials such as films, etc., was impressive. The writing was also quite good. Either Lutz is a very good writer or he has an excellent editor. I say that because he wove a large amount of disparate material into a fascinating narrative about people and segments of society committed to doing nothing. The pace was never boring; while the amount of information presented was always informative and stimulating. And as I read, sprawled out on the couch, I found myself reflecting more deeply on just where I fit into the argument of, to work or not to work.... I guess I'd have to say that Doing Nothing proved to be an edifying read.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true pleasure to read cover to cover, especially while the reader is allegedly at work, September 1, 2006

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Doing Nothing: A History Of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, And Bums In America by Tom Lutz is the true story of the American anti-work ethic from Benjamin Franklin's "air baths" to Jack Kerouac's dharma bums to the notorious slackers of Generation X to doctors declaring the medical problems of overwork and much more. The history, philosophy, and justification of goofing off, supplemented with careful research and statistics, makes for engaging reading whether for expert sociologists researching the cultural phenomenon's of shirking or lay readers making the most of their own relaxation time. A true pleasure to read cover to cover, especially while the reader is allegedly at work.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sound of a different drummer , September 4, 2006

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

My father, of blessed memory, Reuben Kelly Freedman used to say ,"Be a worker, not a shirker". And all my life I have been driven by the idea that I must be working , doing something useful at each and every moment. Now the paradox in my case is that I chose a way of work which to many people is not work at all ( writing) and which in terms of earning power certainly fits more in the 'shirking ' category than the working one.
Tom Lutz takes on the theme of ' working- shirking' in a broad- ranging experiential exploration starting with Ben Franklin and Samuel Johnson and working up to our Internet days. He hits upon the paradox of the master measurer of his own useful time Franklin's spending much time in idle conversation with the belles of the City of Light- while the composer of 'The Idler' Johnson was doing the drudgery of compiling his dictionary.
Lutz who is an English university teacher, one that is who works in a job which most people would envy for its short- hours, a job which in fact has longer hours than most tells many an interesting anecdote in tracing the history of those who Bartlebylike preferred to say 'no' when asked to do their work. He highlights the fact that it is often the 'slackers'( A term coined in World War I days for those who did not want to serve in the Army or work) who get a different more important job done. Thoreau after all did not march to the tune of an industrializing New England, but rather heard the sound of a different drummer.
Lutz himself seems to be a champion of the 'more time you have for yourself the freer and better off you are' school though of course for some such a recipe is one for disaster.
I would only point out that one of the conclusions of the new 'Happiness School of Psychology ' people is that one of life's greatest happinesses is when we are involved wholly in doing our work, especially if that is a kind of creative work in which we know our own individual effort matters.