Against Everything: On Dishonest Times

(Paperback)

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Against Everything is a thought-provoking study and essential guide to the vicissitudes of everyday life under twenty-first-century capitalism. Mark Greif is one of the most exciting writers of his generation. In this invigorating collection, he challenges us to rethink the ordinary world and take life seriously in short, to stay honest in dishonest times. In a series of coruscating set pieces he asks why we put ourselves through the pains of exercise, what our concerns about diet or sex does for our fundamental worth, what political identity the hipster might possess, and what happens to us when we listen to Radiohead or hip-hop. Counter-intuitive and revelatory in his insights, Greif revels in the contradictions arising between our desires and the excuses we make to console ourselves. His work demands we have the courage to be against everything, to change our vantage on everyday life, find it wanting and demand something better.

Reviews

Mark Greif writes a contrarian, skeptical prose that is at the same time never cynical: it opens out on to beauty and the possibility of change -- Zadie Smith
Matches brilliant critique with improbable optimism. His essays risk embarrassment to analyse the irritations of urban life hipsters, foodies, gym-goers so that we might see these characters in ourselves, and treat them with, if not more kindness, more interest. -- Spectator [Books of the Year]
It makes you think ... Greif thinks that a whole lot will have to change before real choice is possible. Until then, its not enough to be against the box-office and the real-estate section and the best-seller list. Until then, we have to be against ... everything. -- Loui Menand * New Yorker *
The best claim to be his generations finest essayist comes in the concluding essay on Thoreau, the Occupy movement and his own generation. Taken as a whole the book is a powerful injunction to look, listen and reflect, our surest means of defiance against the encroaching dimness. -- Richard Godwin * Evening Standard *
Mark Greifs essay on the Kafkaesque nature of the modern gym, Against Exercise, is already a classic; and his new book, Against Everything tells us its not just the gym, its also our music, our culture, our political life everything about us, in fact that is right out of Kafka. -- Aravind Adiga * Guardian [Books of the Year] *
Politically engaged, coolly stylish and often drily funny. * Guardian *
Embodies a return to the pleasures of critical discourse at its most cerebral and personable. Greif brings to mind a host of critics from William Hazlitt to Lionel Trillling, but most of all he suggests it is possible to write about culture with a reverence for language and a passion for what has come before. I would read anything he writes, anywhere. * New York Times Book Review *
[M]aybe youve missed cofounder Mark Greifs years of essayistic genius for [n+1]. This book is a one stop shop to fix that. In thoughtful, deeply informed, nuanced works of criticism, Greif makes the case Against Exercise, questions What Was the Hipster and delves into Octomom and the Market in Babies. . . . [F]ans of in-depth cultural criticism will have the perfect companion in this compendium. -- Claire Fallon * Huffington Post *
These smart and bracingly negative essays will break you out of your Facebook-induced stupor. * Esquire *

Author Bio

Mark Greif is a founder and Editor of the journal n+1. He lives and works in New York, where he is Associate Professor of Literary Studies at the New School. He is the highly acclaimed author of The Age of the Crisis of Man, and his criticism and journalism have appeared in publications including the London Review of Books, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and New Statesman.