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A review by savvylit
Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
I was only a third of the way through this e-ARC when I realized that I had to pre-order a physical copy of Saving Time. I had already found myself highlighting so many sentences and quietly saying "yes" under my breath. If How to Do Nothing was a meditation on the realms in which we focus our attention, then Saving Time is a deep dive into the myriad ways that we can and do experience literal time.
Odell begins Saving Time by diving into the history of the clock and the twenty-four-hour day. From there, she connects time standardization to a broad cultural obsession with work, productivity, and "making the most of our time." Odell dissects the idea that many of us have unknowingly absorbed: that productivity can be equated with morality. She then explores how that particular cultural norm and others all regarding time ultimately uphold colonial, puritanical, and capitalist structures that are harmful to vast swaths of humanity. Odell reminds us that our work is not our worth and that the phrase "time is money" is a damaging capitalist lie.
As a whole, Saving Time is a reminder to consider alternative ways of how we perceive our time here on earth. By exploring working-class burnout, the liminality of prison sentences, the creeping pace of geological shifts, indigenous experience, mortality, and so much more, Odell does more than merely ask us to reconsider how we view time. Rather, she shows us a wide variety of temporality and offers us a chance at new approaches to everyday life.
Saving Time is a hopeful and deeply empathetic read. This book gave me a much-needed push into experiencing a more ecological and global sense of time - and of living. I'm already looking forward to reading this book again.
Thank you to @netgalley & @randomhouse & @jennitaur for the advanced reader copy of Saving Time in exchange for my honest review! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Odell begins Saving Time by diving into the history of the clock and the twenty-four-hour day. From there, she connects time standardization to a broad cultural obsession with work, productivity, and "making the most of our time." Odell dissects the idea that many of us have unknowingly absorbed: that productivity can be equated with morality. She then explores how that particular cultural norm and others all regarding time ultimately uphold colonial, puritanical, and capitalist structures that are harmful to vast swaths of humanity. Odell reminds us that our work is not our worth and that the phrase "time is money" is a damaging capitalist lie.
As a whole, Saving Time is a reminder to consider alternative ways of how we perceive our time here on earth. By exploring working-class burnout, the liminality of prison sentences, the creeping pace of geological shifts, indigenous experience, mortality, and so much more, Odell does more than merely ask us to reconsider how we view time. Rather, she shows us a wide variety of temporality and offers us a chance at new approaches to everyday life.
Saving Time is a hopeful and deeply empathetic read. This book gave me a much-needed push into experiencing a more ecological and global sense of time - and of living. I'm already looking forward to reading this book again.
Thank you to @netgalley & @randomhouse & @jennitaur for the advanced reader copy of Saving Time in exchange for my honest review! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Racism, Grief, Colonisation, and Classism