.
The book:
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping
The format: A month-by-month review of one couple’s year without purchasing anything more than necessities.
The review: A more accurate description might be a month-by-month foray into the life and mind of a writer totally taken in by anti-Bush, anti-capitalism, anti-republican, anti-war cultural popularisms.
Let’s not blame her. She is, after all, a writer living in New York City and New England. She has simply become what is accepted in her particular subculture. Honestly, when did you last hear of a pro-bush, New York City-based writer actually published?
I don’t critique her in order to defend Bush. Frankly, I’m not a great fan myself, but my aim here is not to dissect the politics of the thing but to review the part politics play in her book. I picked it up because I am interested in people trying to simplify, in a less consumer-oriented life, in the reality of trying to live a little differently than the culture around you.
Levine provides a statistically supported, well-researched critique of consumer culture and is fresh and honest about her place in it. Her personal struggles with buying and not buying, her changes in lifestyle, her experiences in the social sphere as a non-consumer: these are the essays that pique and tingle. She is honest about her less-than-ideal habits, her penchants for newness (to which we can all relate), her failures; she is humble and realistic about her success.
She loses me, however, when she attempts to define the failings of capitalism and the problems with rich (read: non-third-world) countries by applying cliches of the liberal leaning to problems of commerce, economics, and wealth distribution. Stereotypes just don’t do enough. The “bigger” issues, in this case, are not better for Levine.
Perhaps that’s because, on the political spectrum, I am far more Republican than I am Democrat. Maybe I can’t handle the criticism where it touches my party leanings.
Or maybe personal, real experience tells a story better than political musing. Where Levine remembers, and writes thus, the book is interesting no matter what your politics. When she doesn’t, however, which is a lot of the time, she inspires me to take the title advice in real application to the book itself.
More: Levine’s 2006 radio interview with Doug Henwood of Left Business Observor. (Downloadable or listen to streaming audio.)
Levine’s 2006 radio interview with Diane Rehm of the Diane Rehm show. (Listen to a segment or purchase the cd or transcript.)
An
interview (text) about Levine’s 2002 book
Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex
Levine’s blog, her other books, and an excerpt from Not Buying It.