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Living Rooms
'Today the ideal home remains a site of illusory ease, a space that can be wiped clean of the residues of living...'
In this radical and elegiac essay, Sam Johnson-Schlee invites readers to consider the dreams and fantasies we have about our homes, and their underlying reality.
Living Rooms blends history, theory, and memoir as it moves between the colonial trade in house plants, Proustian reminiscence, and razor-sharp critique of rentier capitalism. Johnson-Schlee suggests that, by looking closely at the places where we live, we can confront political realities that extend out into the world.
In the way we furnish our homes, might we be unconsciously imagining a different kind of life? In the way we arrange our sofas, picture frames, and our pot plants, are we dreaming of a better world? And what would it mean to reject the notion that a house should be a commodity, and to embrace the idea of a truly living room?
About the author
Sam Johnson-Schlee is an academic and writer living by the sea in North Essex. He writes non-fiction and memoir about the politics and culture of everyday life. He is interested in how paying attention to familiar objects and practices can open up new perspectives on the world we live in. Living Rooms is his first book.
In this radical and elegiac essay, Sam Johnson-Schlee invites readers to consider the dreams and fantasies we have about our homes, and their underlying reality.
Living Rooms blends history, theory, and memoir as it moves between the colonial trade in house plants, Proustian reminiscence, and razor-sharp critique of rentier capitalism. Johnson-Schlee suggests that, by looking closely at the places where we live, we can confront political realities that extend out into the world.
In the way we furnish our homes, might we be unconsciously imagining a different kind of life? In the way we arrange our sofas, picture frames, and our pot plants, are we dreaming of a better world? And what would it mean to reject the notion that a house should be a commodity, and to embrace the idea of a truly living room?
About the author
Sam Johnson-Schlee is an academic and writer living by the sea in North Essex. He writes non-fiction and memoir about the politics and culture of everyday life. He is interested in how paying attention to familiar objects and practices can open up new perspectives on the world we live in. Living Rooms is his first book.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 12, 2023
4,5
Wonderfully freewheeling and associative essays about the meaning of interiors, the hidden life of house plants, the politics of quilts, the revolutionary potential of wallpaper, the symbolism of the sofa, etc etc. Johnson-Schlee argues that the home is the place where we try to escape the capitalist rat race, while at the same time trapping us and binding us to that rat race (having to pay our mortgages). It is a place that creates an illusion of self-sufficiency, but also, a place where the threads become visible with which we are connected to other people, this vast "web of interdependency".
Wonderfully freewheeling and associative essays about the meaning of interiors, the hidden life of house plants, the politics of quilts, the revolutionary potential of wallpaper, the symbolism of the sofa, etc etc. Johnson-Schlee argues that the home is the place where we try to escape the capitalist rat race, while at the same time trapping us and binding us to that rat race (having to pay our mortgages). It is a place that creates an illusion of self-sufficiency, but also, a place where the threads become visible with which we are connected to other people, this vast "web of interdependency".
January 2, 2023
delayed review but i recommended this to seven different people i hadnt met before and one that i had over christmas new year as a natural result of our conversation & therefore i assess it as really good and brings people together 🫡
January 19, 2023
Certainly some things I've never thought about before, although I felt some of the points were rather forced.
January 4, 2024
Cheap marxism and psychoanalysis that seems only to be used to explain man child behaviour
October 27, 2023
I enjoyed parts of this, other parts felt like a little bit of a stretch I thought. I liked most of his associations and connections though, I thought they were pretty well done.
July 9, 2023
Lil forced
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews