Audiobook9 hours
In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise
Written by George Prochnik
Narrated by Don Hagen
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
More than money, power, and even happiness, silence has become the most precious-and dwindling-commodity of our modern world.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. He shows us the benefits of decluttering our sonic world.
As Prochnik travels across the United States and overseas, we meet a rich host of characters: an idealistic architect who is pioneering a new kind of silent architecture in collaboration with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University; a special operations soldier in Afghanistan (and former guitarist with Nirvana) who places silence at the heart of survival in war; a sound designer for shopping malls who ensures that the stores we visit never stop their auditory seductions; and a group of commuters who successfully revolted against piped-in music in Grand Central Station.
A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them, In Pursuit of Silence is an important book that will appeal to fans of Michael Pollan and Daniel Gilbert.
Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. He shows us the benefits of decluttering our sonic world.
As Prochnik travels across the United States and overseas, we meet a rich host of characters: an idealistic architect who is pioneering a new kind of silent architecture in collaboration with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University; a special operations soldier in Afghanistan (and former guitarist with Nirvana) who places silence at the heart of survival in war; a sound designer for shopping malls who ensures that the stores we visit never stop their auditory seductions; and a group of commuters who successfully revolted against piped-in music in Grand Central Station.
A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them, In Pursuit of Silence is an important book that will appeal to fans of Michael Pollan and Daniel Gilbert.
Related to In Pursuit of Silence
Related audiobooks
Rediscovering Silence: Finding Your Life's Music in a World of Noise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Book of Silence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This One Wild and Precious Life: The Path Back to Connection in a Fractured World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Kindness: The Life-Changing Power of Giving and Receiving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of Solitude Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Belong: A Call for Connection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deep Kindness: A Revolutionary Guide for the Way We Think, Talk, and Act in Kindness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Praise of Wasting Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Book About Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learning from the Heart: Lessons on Living, Loving, and Listening Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What's Right in Front of You Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Compassionate Connection: The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elegant Simplicity: The Art of Living Well Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life on Purpose: How Living for What Matters Most Changes Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Courage, Conversation and Changing the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Personal Growth For You
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Starts with Self-Compassion: A Practical Road Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paris: The Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Highly Sensitive Person Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing The Uncommon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bad Mormon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Banish Your Inner Critic: Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt to Unleash Your Creativity and Do Your Best Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/58 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for In Pursuit of Silence
Rating: 3.5595239047619045 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
42 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Silence is better. Stretched to the point of fiction. Listen better to silence. I also challenge some points like a Vipassana retreat that asks one to stay off campus: does not exist.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating study of the role of silence in our lives and the lack of it nowadays.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Prochnik does an ok job of balancing science, narrative, and journalism. i like, too, the fact that he seamlessly blends the human psyche's desire for calming, life-affirming, deeply meaningful experiences that can be obtained through silence without referring to them in New Agey woo terminology or even overtly calling them "mystical" or "religious." the science behind how silence and noise affect human behavior inside and out is the topic here and it does include valid discussion of what happens when we unplug ourselves from the everyday cacophony that is the reality for most modern humans.
only one part of the book did i skip: that about "boom cars." they are vehicles that have been transformed by their owners into rolling subwoofers that can generate up to 180dB of sound. this part of the book seemed to drag on and on because he wanted to tell stories and give dialogue to every character he met when he was researching this. he did make some good points about perception of noise pollution and that not every boom car owner was disrespectful with their use of extreme volume. it also allowed him to discuss the legislative aspect of noise control: how far do we go in curbing other people's sound habits?
i appreciated the book because of what he said about there being a reason that monks and ascetics of all kinds throughout history have trudged off into the desert -for the quiet: they "come for a radical confrontation with ourselves. Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."
the book is obviously a work of journalism but Prochnik does provide source citations and some notes in the back but he does not, however, provide number notation directly to those end notes. there's also an index which is one of the marks of a decently crafted piece of scholarship.
well worth the read and even if, like me, you've done lots of research into this kind of thing, the breadth of Prochnik's research reveals quite a bit of insight into aspects of sound and silence not usually thought of. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The author sets out to look for silence in a world that is getting increasingly noisier. The premise is interesting, and the idea of silence is appealing, but the book really doesn't satisfy. It is a mix of science, evolutionary just-so-stories with no evidence, new age thought, personal anecdotes, and historical research. Such a mish-mash is bound to have some weak spots. I find his exploration of noise more interesting (in spite of how disheartening it was for one who values quiet) than his exploration of science, which seemed to focus on monasteries, zen gardens, and sound proofing companies, which seems to be a somewhat narrow focus. The exploration of the history of anti-noise groups also had some moments of interest, and I would have like to see a bit more detailed examination of these groups. Overall, not a bad read, but not really all that good either.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5George Prochnik’s exquisite book "In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise" finds the author writing eloquently about his own quest for silence in a world he finds overwhelmingly noisy. That journey leads us with him through visits with Trappist monks in the New Melleray Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa; students who, "when they wanted quiet," found it by "closing themselves inside their rooms and playing a computer game or turning on the television" (p. 286); an architect's client who wanted the perfectly silent home but found there was no way to achieve the levels of silence he craved; people involved with Deaf Architecture at Gallaudet University; Tommy, the King of Bass, and his boom cars with sound systems producing sounds loud enough to turn the author’s brain to Jell-O; and many other memorable characters. "Our aural diet is miserable," Prochnik tells us toward the end of the book. "It's full of over-rich, non-nutritious sounds served in inflated portions--and we don't consume nearly enough silence. A poor diet kills; but it kills as much because of what it does not contain as from what it includes" (p. 283). The book, on the other hand, offers the most nourishing of diets, and leaves us quietly and reflectively wishing for more.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Listening for Meaning in a World of NoiseOne recent beautiful day, I was curled up with a book outside, enjoying the change in the light and air of fall, with a fat orange cat on my lap. The baby was asleep, work was done, and it was finally a chance to relax. It was bliss. All was quiet. Quiet, until an extremely loud dirt bike, without a muffler, began doing circuits of the road below my house. I went from peaceful and content to plotting murder in mere seconds…just the whine of the engine made my teeth ache. The fact I was reading this book made the noise all the more relevant.George Prochnik takes a subject that is universally annoying and studies it in ways that are both fascinating and frightening. He examines the sounds, both in volume and type, that trigger aggression (see dirt bike above). In one chapter he discusses scientists who study the cries of infants that makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse (and what can be done for prevention). He takes the research further and shows how some sounds are actually used in torture (see dirt bike above). For example, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are sometimes forced to listen to the cries of screaming infants overlaid with a track of repeating Meow Mix commercials. He also investigates where sound is used for manipulation in a retail setting. He meets with the sound designers behind Abercrombie & Fitch, who intentionally design the retail space to flood the ears with rapid, pulsating music to mimic a rave or nightclub. The lights are intentionally dim, so that a customer feels more like they are at a party than a store, and they’ll likely pay less attention to the price tag and more attention to the atmosphere. Geared towards college age students that have left home for the first time, A & F manipulates their senses for profit while at the same time creating and branding their identity of ‘cool’. Prochnik also examines the science behind music played at grocery stores, restaurants, and bars. If it’s too fast, customers will eat faster and leave before they run up a tab. If it’s the right pace and overly loud, researchers have found they will actually drink more alcohol, since gesturing for another drink is easier than conversation. Some anecdotal findings throughout are fascinating, as he travels from a monastery where silence is required, and out into the streets, where boom boxes, car stereos, train whistles, and sirens bombard the area with noise. In no way is he a cranky old Mr. Wilson, yelling at the kids to shut up. Rather, he’s fascinated by the science of it all. For example, scientists in Japan devised a “Mosquito Teen Deterrent” that is a sonic repellent-it makes a noise only audible to those under 20 years of age. This was used in areas where the police and storekeepers wanted to prevent teenage loitering, but its use is now up for debate in terms of ear damage. The invention was shown in one of the most memorable episodes of 30Rock. Clever teenagers managed to turn the tables on adults by using the same technology to create a cell phone ringer that could be used in class-the teacher couldn’t hear it ring! Is sound really a matter of personal preference? Can laws really be enforced to control sound output from cars or homes? Prochnik investigates the influence of loud noise on health, and one especially interesting finding was that excessively loud noise, such as at a rave, actually makes the drug Ecstasy more toxic to users. Beyond the noise itself, he also researches and explains new developments in sound proofing and the new industry that has been built up around the desire for peace and quiet. New materials and inventive uses of old technology can create homes that actually resist external noise. This book covers a great deal of material, and at times it’s too much to absorb at once. But the chapters can stand alone and can be returned to without losing the conceptual thread. In all, it's a fascinating book made especially interesting by the quick writing and large amount of cited evidence and details.