On Waiting (Thinking in Action) [Paperback]

Harold Schweizer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2008 | Series: Thinking in Action (Book 7)

'This is a quite remarkable book, a pleasure to read. Not only is it clear and informative but also by turns witty, melancholic and insightful. The book is astonishingly erudite, but wears this learning so lightly and so charmingly that it is both easy and gripping to read.'  Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London

Penelope waits by her loom for Odysseus, Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot, all of us have to wait: for buses, phone calls and the kettle to boil. But do we know what the checking of one's watch and pacing back and forth is really all about? What is the relationship between waiting and time? Is there an ethics of waiting, or even an art of waiting? Do the internet, online shopping and text messaging mean that waiting has come to an end?

On Waiting explores such and similar questions in compelling fashion. Drawing on some fascinating examples, from the philosopher Henri Bergson's musings on a lump of sugar to Kate Croy waiting in Wings of the Dove to the writings of Rilke, Bishop, and Carver, On Waiting examines this ever-present yet overlooked phenomenon from diverse angles in fascinating style. On Waiting is the first book to present a philosophy of waiting.

Philosophy/Literature

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Being part of the purposively accessible Thinking in Action series, this is a relatively concise text. Yet Schweizer takes a series of challenging concepts and conveys them with extraordinary dexterity ... a wonderfully-written book that truly sparkles.' – David Bissell, Australian National University,  Time & Society Review of Books

'Harold Schweizer’s new volume, On Waiting, is a finely crafted, finely considered exploration. It addresses with both simplicity of expression and complexity of understanding one of the major facts of our lives—that much of it is spent waiting.' - Jacqueline Vaught Brogan, Journal of Modern Literature

‘This is a quite remarkable book, a pleasure to read.  Not only is it clear and informative but also by turns witty, melancholic and insightful.  The book is astonishingly erudite, but wears this learning so lightly and so charmingly that it is both easy and gripping to read.’ – Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

'Within these covers, Harold Schweizer has assembled a world of philosophical and literary musings on the time-tormented suspension of waiting. As we read his learned, lucid essay, an area of everyday experience swims into focus as if for the first time, the sentences on every page filled with an evocative, almost hypnotic charm. On Waiting is a deep plunge into the pleasure of thought.' – Wendy Steiner, University of Pennsylvania, USA

 

About the Author

Harold Schweizer is Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at Bucknell University. He teaches courses in modern poetry, literary theory, holocaust studies, representations of suffering, and the comparative humanities.  His publications include Suffering and the Remedy of Art (1997), The Bucknell Lectures in Literary Theory (ed. 1989-94), and others. His most recent publications, on the temporality of waiting, have appeared in Soundings, The University of Toronto Quarterly, and The Journal of Modern Literature. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (July 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415775078
• ISBN-13: 978-0415775076
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just a moment, please?, January 18, 2009

By 

Hande Z (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Waiting (Thinking in Action) (Paperback)

What do we do when we wait? What are we waiting for? Schweizer explored these questions which led him inexorably to the question of what waiting is. Waiting is an attendant of time, but this book is not a scientific or philosophic book about time. In focussing on waiting, the author reversed the principal importance of time and made it attendant to waiting; he used various stories and even a series of paintings (by Ferdinand Hodler, of his dying mistress Valentine) to express his view of waiting, and make us more accutely aware of what waiting is about. We can wait aimlessly for the arrival of an illusion as Vladimir and Estragon did in "Waiting for Godot", or we can wait purposefully, with equanimity, patience, and dignity as Penelope waited for Odysseus. Schweizer used Henri Bergson's dissolving lump of sugar to amplify the act of waiting. In Hodler's paintings we understand attention as an aspect of waiting even as each act of painting itself was a distraction; a thing we do while we wait. We no longer wait when we arrive or what we wait for has arrived. Ultimately, we all wait for death. What do we do while we wait? What distractions should we indulge ourselves in the interim? Whatever we do, we would, after reading Schweizer, be much more sensitive to what we do; and learn to appreciate the meaning of endurance, for, as Schweizer suggests, waiting is an act of endurance.