“No one longs to be bored, but, if I am a useful example, as one grows older, one often finds oneself more patient with boredom. Pressureless, dull patches in life — bring them on. I recently read two very well-written but extremely boring novels by Barbara Pym — A Glassful of Blessings and A Few Green Leaves. She is a writer I much admire, and I found myself quietly amused by how little happens in these novels. A Few Green Leaves contains the following sentence: “’It is an art all too seldom met with,’ Adam declared, ‘the correct slicing of cucumber.’”
— And nowhere in Joseph Epstein’s excellent essay on boredom does he reveal the answer.
On Boredom
“No one longs to be bored, but, if I am a useful example, as one grows older, one often finds oneself more patient with boredom. Pressureless, dull patches in life — bring them on. I recently read two very well-written but extremely boring novels by Barbara Pym — A Glassful of Blessings and A Few Green Leaves. She is a writer I much admire, and I found myself quietly amused by how little happens in these novels. A Few Green Leaves contains the following sentence: “’It is an art all too seldom met with,’ Adam declared, ‘the correct slicing of cucumber.’”
— And nowhere in Joseph Epstein’s excellent essay on boredom does he reveal the answer.
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