In Praise of Slowness

-- originally posted on 8 December 2006 --

Heard about Carl Honoré's《In Praise of Slow》many many times. A shame that I have not read it yet but sooner or later I surely will. Just the title itself is tempting enough to me, for I am also a somewhat "slow" person and always think that speed is not necessarily a solution to all problems while slowness itself is no sins. In many ways I celebrate slowness. Being slow is to put on brakes. Our modern life is too preoccupied with speed in many aspects – technology, work, food, sports and pathetically, relationships. The phenomenal "live fast, die young" school was once a heroic equivalent of "carpe diem". However, it now seems so ridiculously obsolete in the 21st century. The art of living slowly and gracefully is, in fact, full of wisdom.

Before I can share anything more about this book, I suddenly remember that ages ago I bumped into another book about the art of being "slow". In coincidence, I was asked to write something on it while taking an architecture course. Surprisingly, there is an intriguing relationship between writing and spatial manipulation.

Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera was born in 1929 in Czechoslovakia and since 1975 has been living in France. He is incontestably a brilliant and intriguing writer who stuns his reader from time to time by his miraculous metaphors and fresh perspectives. Ages ago I was utterly captivated by his most acclaimed piece 《The Unbearable Lightness of Being》. I know I am not alone here, for I once heard about how young readers spent weeks and weeks discussing the book with their intellectual friends. 《Slowness》 represents my third encounter with his magic realism.

Slowness

《Slowness》is about speed and place, or more broadly, about time and space, the dimensions of our existence. It delineates three episodes of different time, space, and people. The first one is the narrator's account of his travel, the second is about Vivant Denon's novella 《Point de Lendemain》, and the last one concerns Vincent's adventure at the entomologists conference. Each of them stands on its own but altogether they intertwine to illustrate contrast and parody. This is particularly so in terms of the last two episodes. They are both seductive and erotic in nature but they ultimately reach different canons of tastes and aesthetics. The episode in the novella is viewed as a construction of delicacy and sophistication, while the episode at the conference is exposed in much vulgarity. Kundera shows us those who can understand and master the art of speed are going to lead a better life in their contemporary world.

《Slowness》is nostalgic, as the refined quality in eighteenth century is glorified, while the flux induced by modernity is critiqued. One of the critiques of modernity is that people today tend to celebrate speed at the expense of wholeness. As Conrad says, modernity is about the acceleration of time, and also the dispersal of places (Modern Times, Modern Places : 1998). Slowness allows us to generate or prolong pleasure, as evident in Madame de T.'s memorable night with the Chevalier, or Pontevin's joke on the female typist. On the other hand, speed detaches us from time and space, and even from our own body and flesh into a state of ecstasy, as the example of speed driving has shown us. Continuity in time is forgone in exchange for ecstasy, which is also the major critique presented in 《Slowness》.

Novel as Architecture

If novel or story telling is similar to architecture in some ways, then the most prominent part will be their shared importance of continuity as achieved by smooth transition in the course of space penetration. Without a smooth transition at meaningful intervals, it is like a person being detached from his own time and place, body and flesh, thus falls into a labyrinth. This situation is analogous to the legacy that the industrial and technological revolutions have bequeathed upon modern people like us. It's shaken up our normal perception of space. We may henceforth enter from one space to another, without going through a physically or psychologically noticeable transition. That brings us a sense of loss in space and time plus a feeling of ecstasy.

As such, ecstasy is celebrated at the expense of pleasures, which, according to Epicurus, should be prudent and modest. Subsequently, people fail to appreciate the art of pleasure, but indulge themselves on ecstasy:

The man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from the continuity of time; he is outside time; he is in a state of ecstasy. (pp. 3)

Therefore, the art of novel is like the art of architecture, that is to say, both of them require a skilful designer to lead us all the way through with good transitional intervals. Certain parts need to be speeded up, while certain parts needed to be slowed down. Then one will remember that book or building because one's pleasure is derived from the experience of looking with the right pace at the right time. Abruptness may cause excitement or ecstasy, but no lasting memory. That's why Kundera drew up his formula in the following way:

In existential mathematics, that experience takes the form of two basic equations; the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting. (pp. 34-5)

While Madame de T. is a marvelous architect, so are Pontevin and Kundera himself. Their respective patrons, the Chevalier, both of Pontevin's visible and invisible audience, and Kundera's readers, are all going to marvel at those masterpieces and be moved by the remarkable space that they have been led through. Madame de T. knows when to slow down and how to construct meaningful intervals that logically and smoothly leads to another stage. As Kundera depicted, she shaped her night “like a triptych, a night as an excursion into three stages: first, they walk in the park; next, they make love in a pavilion; last they continue the lovemaking in a secret chamber of the château.” That requires substantial sophistication, for she maps out her "immediate" and "more distant" future with exquisite rhythm, thus makes the memory of her night with the Chevalier eternal, although the night is ephemeral per se. Prolongation, as opposed to acceleration, of time is celebrated there. Pontevin knows how to manipulate the speed of a speech, for a well-delivered speech will be impressive for his audience. The same joke told by Vincent bears a different outcome because of the inability to manipulate speed and intervals. In this scenario, Kundera shows us an interesting way to conceive conversation:

Conversation is not a pastime; on the contrary, conversation is what organizes time, governs it, and imposes its own laws, which must be respected. (pp. 28)

Writer as Architect

Similarly, a writer has to be able to create suspense at certain stages with successful intervals. Kundera in this case skilfully knits together two episodes, namely Madame de T.'s adventure and Vincent's, that shed light upon the whole question of the art of living. Those two episode are different in time and space, but they share the same important lesson nonetheless, namely one's ability to manipulate speed and to create smooth transition.

Therefore, those who understand the correlation between speed and life live a better life. As such, the book is very existential in nature, a fact that has already been exemplified by Kundera's two equations of existential mathematics. If, as Vincent has pointed out, we cannot prevent ourselves from being dancers in certain ways, so long as we live in our modern world, then perhaps a better way to live will be to dance beautifully. If we cannot avoid speed in an ever-changing world, then we have to manipulate speed, organize time, construct intervals and smooth down transitions so that there will still be room for us to slow down, take a breath, and seek pleasure in Epicurus's terms. Similar philosophy applies to architecture. If an architect cannot resist the flux due to technology, one should make use of it, keep the essence of the good old principles, and make innovations which are unattainable in the past, so as to open up new aesthetic possibilities in space.