I wouldn't normally write about a book until i'd finished it but this is an exception, as it is so utterly delicious i have to talk about it. How to be Idle is a book i've been meaning to read for a while and it might just be life changing.
I've always thought that my daytime wanderings on my own round London were a bit weird, especially when i'd meet up with friends in the evening and they would ask me how i'd spent my day. These wanderings have no real purpose, I stop off here or there for a coffee and bite to eat, people watch, window shop in a bit of a daze, occasionally chat to shop owners or waiters. I'm usually a bit hungover, which probably helps with the daze. But i'm perfectly content on my own. In fact, it's not the same when i'm with someone. It's a completely different day out. If you're with someone it gives the day a purpose. The solitude is what makes the wander a wonder.
However, it turns out i'm not weird after all. Apparently "in the pedestrian, the wanderer, the rambler...can be found the soul of the idler...he walks for pleasure, he observes but does not interfere, he is not in a hurry, he is happy in the company of his own mind, he wanders detached, wise and merry, godlike. He is free."
Wow. That is truly brilliant. The french have a name for someone who wanders in this fashion, or at least they did in the nineteenth century. He was known as a "flaneur". Apparently the word "flaneur" came to describe "an elegant kind of gentlemanly moocher who ambled purposelessly through the Parisian arcades, watching, waiting, hanging around".
I love this book.
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