Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time

New
Paperback
2000
$8.70

`A wonderful piece of polemic against everything that's wrong with the way we deal with time today.' Independent

WINNER OF THE BARNES AND NOBLE `DISCOVER AWARD FOR NON-FICTION' 2003

An infectiously enthusiastic and original piece of cultural analysis on the one subject that has ousted sex and money from the top of the obsessions league. In thrillingly ebullient style and with every paragraph fizzing over with smart ideas smartly expressed, livewire polemicist Jay Griffiths takes Time in her teeth and champs and chews at it until it's a far more palatable item - something to nourish us, not just to tempt and worry us.

Her fascinating exploration of the passage of time includes (among many other things): our obsession with speed, with overtaking; motorways and their link to fascism; war; Mercury and the mythology of time and speed; History and the heritage industry; the `meanness' of Greenwich Mean Time; the fast language we now have to go with fast food; Aboriginal Dreamtime; the difference between festivals and pageants; May Day; New Year; fin de siecles; the Millennium Dome; the time-consuming nature of housework; sex as anti-authority and anti-linear time; male concepts of time set against female; plastic surgery and the denial of aging; the evolution of the global calendar and clock; clock time versus wild time.

At once playful, political and passionate, she discusses Time's arrow/domain/passage/gender/ linearity/circularity/speed/sloth/etc with exceptional elan. It all makes for a hugely entertaining, exciting and even terrifying book which marks the beginning of a significant writing career.

Synopsis

`A wonderful piece of polemic against everything that's wrong with the way we deal with time today.' Independent

WINNER OF THE BARNES AND NOBLE `DISCOVER AWARD FOR NON-FICTION' 2003

An infectiously enthusiastic and original piece of cultural analysis on the one subject that has ousted sex and money from the top of the obsessions league. In thrillingly ebullient style and with every paragraph fizzing over with smart ideas smartly expressed, livewire polemicist Jay Griffiths takes Time in her teeth and champs and chews at it until it's a far more palatable item - something to nourish us, not just to tempt and worry us.

Her fascinating exploration of the passage of time includes (among many other things): our obsession with speed, with overtaking; motorways and their link to fascism; war; Mercury and the mythology of time and speed; History and the heritage industry; the `meanness' of Greenwich Mean Time; the fast language we now have to go with fast food; Aboriginal Dreamtime; the difference between festivals and pageants; May Day; New Year; fin de siecles; the Millennium Dome; the time-consuming nature of housework; sex as anti-authority and anti-linear time; male concepts of time set against female; plastic surgery and the denial of aging; the evolution of the global calendar and clock; clock time versus wild time.

At once playful, political and passionate, she discusses Time's arrow/domain/passage/gender/ linearity/circularity/speed/sloth/etc with exceptional elan. It all makes for a hugely entertaining, exciting and even terrifying book which marks the beginning of a significant writing career.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 330
Edition: UK ed.
Publisher: Flamingo
Published: 07 Aug 2000
ISBN 10: 0006551777
ISBN 13: 9780006551775

Media Reviews

A fascinating, highly original meditation on time... Jay Griffiths exposes the political nature of the linear, mechanical and global time of industrial culture and contrasts it with the myriad times embodied in nature's processes, known to indigenous cultures. Her writing style is rich and rhythmic, reflecting her main thesis. This is a book which needs to be read slowly. Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and Web of Life.

Ambitious... playful, feminine, spontaneous and hedonistic. - The Economist

Like the seminal socialist, feminist and ecological works, Pip Pip articulates what thousands have felt but no-one has been able to put into words. Suddenly, shapeless concerns are brought into focus. Outrage takes the place of confusion, fascination displaces complacency. Cheeky, intelligent, always gripping, Pip Pip re-introduces us to a dimension we've utterly neglected. It will be the opening salvo in a new battle over the human spirit. - George Monbiot, columnist, The Guardian

A wonderfully argued and very moving book - BBC Radio 4, Open Book

Author Bio

JAY GRIFFITHS read English at Oxford and has written extensively for (amongst others) the Guardian, the Observer, and the London Review of Books. This is her first book.