How to Disappear
Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Publisher Description
It is time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, autonomy, and voice.
In our networked and image-saturated lives, the notion of disappearing has never been more alluring. Today, we are relentlessly encouraged, even conditioned, to reveal, share, and promote ourselves. The pressure to be public comes not just from our peers, but from vast and pervasive technology companies that want to profit from patterns in our behavior. A lifelong student and observer of the natural world, Busch sets out to explore her own uneasiness with this arrangement, and what she senses is a widespread desire for a less scrutinized way of life—for invisibility. Writing in rich painterly detail about her own life, her family, and some of the world’s most exotic and remote places, she savors the pleasures of being unseen. Discovering and dramatizing a wonderful range of ways of disappearing, from virtual reality goggles that trick the wearer into believing her body has disappeared to the way Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway finds a sense of affiliation with the world around her as she ages, Busch deliberates on subjects new and old with equal sensitivity and incisiveness.
How to Disappear is a unique and exhilarating accomplishment, overturning the dangerous modern assumption that somehow fame and visibility equate to success and happiness. Busch presents a field guide to invisibility, reacquainting us with the merits of remaining inconspicuous, and finding genuine alternatives to a life of perpetual exposure. Accessing timeless truths in order to speak to our most urgent contemporary problems, she inspires us to develop a deeper appreciation for personal privacy in a vast and intrusive world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Essayist Busch (The Incidental Steward) meditates on how the human need for privacy and anonymity has reasserted itself with new urgency amid the exhibitionism of the technology-imbued modern world. With many seeking an "alternative to a life of perpetual display," she offers a "field guide to invisibility," with examples from science, literature, and visual art. The book draws from J.K. Rowling and Hans Christian Andersen to explore how children yearn for the ethereal, and shows how "erasure books," like those of poet Mary Ruefle, create something new by obscuring the old. Astutely noting the significance of contemporary language like "ghosting" and "unseeing" things, Busch suggests absence can become a presence in its own right. Elsewhere, she visits Duke University's engineering department to experiment with a real-life "cloaking device" and goes scuba diving to "become a refugee of the visible world." Busch's exploration of her subject is free-associative, wide-ranging, and poetic in its own right. Her description of visiting New York City's Grand Central Terminal is particularly striking, as she is "swept along by the stream of humanity" amid the seemingly choreographed "gorgeous multitude." Busch offers a path to quiet dignity that is rich and enlightening.)
