The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone Kindle Edition

I am a lover of descriptive language. When I first read the sample pages of this book online, I was excited to dig into the rest. The author seemed at the beginning to grasp the idea of loneliness in a way so relatable, and was able to put it into words beautifully. As the pages went by thought, a term came to mind -- purple prose. Dressing up one's writing so much so that the message is lost behind pretty words and elaborate descriptions. The book quickly reads pretentious and it grows distracting and tiresome. Added to this is the strange idolization of some troubled people that seems to have long since passed the stage of fascination in an attempt to understand the burden of loneliness. Along the way, it ceased being relatable. Opposite of what some of the other reviewers have said, I found the more interesting parts of this book to be when the author reminisces on her own experiences, recounting her feelings when faced with solitude, only for her to then veer off in the direction of other artists, often times so quickly I forgot who was being discussed. Just as often, it veered into more political content, completely off topic from the promise of what this book would be. Overall, it wasn't a terrible read, but it was a chore to get through this book. It may be best read in small doses, and understanding that it is more a study of several artists from New York, than a feeling of loneliness while surrounded by people.

I am an artist and a loner, even when surrounded by people, so the concept of this book was appealing to me. The author relates her journey of being alone in NYC after a nasty break-up, and researches the lives of artists and other loners to explore how they expressed loneliness. While the subject sounds depressing, anyone who has had moments (or lifetimes) of feeling left out and ignored will connect to some of the people in this book. She focuses primarily on four artists, the most well known being Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper. The other two are David Wojnarowicz, a photographer in New York during the late 70's who would become a vocal AIDS activist, and Henry Darger, a janitor in Chicago who created a complex fantasy world of art and writing in his cramped apartment, hidden from everyone until after his death. The section on Hopper feels like the outlier here, as he seems more of a miserable curmudgeon that someone longing for connection. There are so few interviews from him that the author is challenged to flesh out the chapter; I found myself skipping paragraphs in the this section of the book due to the lack of solid information and too much speculation on what Hopper was really feeling when he created his imagery. The writing gets so much better after this, however, as the author finds connections through the material. There is much more information available on Andy Warhol, and I gained a better understanding of his creative process and personal anguish. The chapter on Henry Darger is fascinating and a bit creepy. Was he a child-like innocent or a perverted pedophile? He never acted on his ideas, so we don't know. The story of David Wojnarowicz is the most harrowing. Unwanted, abused, and turning tricks on the streets as a young teen he lived by his wits and managed to hash out a substantial career with his photography of the tattered New York of the 70's and 80's. The author ties David's story to the gay scene in New York at that time, the AIDS epidemic and subsequent fear-mongering that tore through that community, and Warhol's last years befriending the wild and destructive artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Laing's final observations are poignant and original. Highly recommended.

This book will be in my collection til the day I die. There is so much truth and depth in the writing. As someone who has not delved into the world of art history, or criticism, I found my self completely intrigued by the artists spoken about and amazed how unaware I was of most of it. I'm impressed with the author's thinking and perspective on the brutality of loneliness. It's so darkly refreshing to know how many great minds suffer in this complexly cruel world, and somehow use that pain to make works of art. I too live in NY and am saddened and appalled by the changes in this once really interesting, artistic city that has become a playground for the very wealthy and lost so much in the process. A compelling read and quite educational. I also can't stop watching Klaus Nomi sing "Lightning Strikes" on youtube.

The parts about the author’s personal situation and the biographical information of the artists she profiles were both very interesting aspects of this. The intermingling of the two and interpretation she did was overdone and contrived in my view. I found myself skipping over pages but then getting interested again when she would talk about those aspects. We also don’t learn about whether she came out of her personal loneliness situation or if she did in fact come out of it, and I would’ve been very interested in hearing a lot more about that.

I took a long time to get through this terrific book, but learned alot about some artists I was ignorant of, and more about artists I knew about. She shows poignantly how tenderly art can help us when times are especially hard. I liked that she didn't idealize New York City.

Olivia Laing has a talent in weaving her personal experience with art, culture and politics. She talks about loneliness--one of the most common ironies of our modern life--through the works and lives of American artists--Hopper, Warhol, Wojnarowicz, Darger, Nomi, Garbo, Solanas, Holliday. I was not familiar with many of the artists she covers in this book, and it was a worthy effort to check them out in the surrounding political and cultural context of their loneliness and to learn how each one dealt with it through art and activism. The book ends with profound understanding of the nature of modern loneliness, as personal, political and collective space in the individuals and society and of the symbolisms of stitches and glues against "gentrification of emotions."

This book is not at all what I expected. The book says 'adventures in the art of being alone' so I was expecting anecdotes/words of wisdom from the artist. Instead it is the artist making wild assumptions about different artists' experiences.If you are someone with a background in health sciences or healthcare, you may find this book a struggle. She makes a lot of unfounded claims that she is by no means qualified to make. For example she says that loneliness is perhaps more damaging that anxiety or depression, which is a dangerous claim to make.On top of that it is very boring. Do not recommend at all.

An interesting exploration of loneliness through the lives of artists from 20th Century, however, lacking depth to the author's personal experience of loneliness. Laing has a talent for drawing together cultural references across art, film and music but this can be overwhelming with the text flipping from one thing to another. It felt like a survey almost and as such I only gained superficially from it.I enjoyed the sections on Warhol the most.I was annoyed by Laing glossing over and pretty much dismissing the rumours of paedophilia surrounding Henry Darger.Sorely lacking illustrations.

This book affected me in a way few books ever had, made me aware of vulnerabilities inside myself in an almost biblical way. The blurb on the back made me think of the author having a 'champion of solitude' affair with being alone, and that her experiences would result in a tougher, less needier individual. In a way though, this is exactly what happens, but what surprised and moved me, was that feeling vulnerable, weak, despondent and Lonely are not things to be ashamed of, and are things that can be worn on the sleeve as 'badges of honour' even.The chapters on the outbreak of AIDS and the advent of the technological age are pretty mind blowing and make the essential point that intimacy is hard, not only between strangers but between those who are already connected, that loneliness can strike between lovers and friends, as much as one's relationship with the outside world.Finally I would like to thank the author for introducing me to the works of David Wojnarowicz, Henry Darger, Zoe Leonard, and for the expanding my very limited knowledge of Andy Warhol and Valerie Solanas.

First of all, this book reads really well - it flows. The author skips from one story to another, and you do not even notice. Secondly, it provides fascinating insights into the lives of people who I thought I knew quite a lot about, such as Andy Warhol and Valerie Solanas, but did not. The backdrop of what had happened as described in this book was new to me. The book also provides insights into lives of other people, some famous, some not, and what formed them - what made them who they were, what isolated them and what connected them to the society. And thirdly, the book offers a poignant and new insight into the post modern life. I could not put the book down.

Less about the metaphysical nature of the city than one middle class woman projecting after she gets dumped