The reader of this exquisite
hardback volume will find her/himself struck by just over a hundred pages of
pure, relentless wit. 

As Elda Rotor writes in her
prefatory word, Sloth is part of a lecture and book series on the Seven
Deadly Sins, which were cosponsored by the New York Public Library and Oxford
University Press during the years 2002-2003.  The underlying intention of
the series is not different from what ultimately drives most human artistic,
philosophical and scientific endeavours.  In this regard, the Editor most
appropriately states the matter thus:

‘Our contemporary fascination with
these age-old sins, our struggle against or celebration of them, reveals as
much about our continued desire to define human nature as it does about our
divine aspirations.  I hope that this book and its companions invite the
reader to indulge on a similar reflection on vice, virtue, the spiritual, and
the human.’ (xii).

This particular volume is authored
by the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Wendy
Wasserstein.   By resorting to a fictionalised account of how she
turned herself into a thoroughly dedicated sloth-guru, Wasserstein offers a
most enjoyable, cleverly put parody of self-help books.  Perfectly steeped
into a sort of hermaphroditic guru-persona, she/he sets out to offer the
mission statement of the ‘fastest growing life-style movement in the world, the
sloth movement.  In Sloth: And how to Get It (Revised Edition)
she/he pitilessly cajoles and entices as much as bullying and subduing the
reader, as only the most successful exemplars of the genre splendidly do, into
a slothful, better still, super-slothful, life-style.  She/he does not
spare the readers her (pseudo-) biographical details, shares with all of us the
sloth-mantra, and candidly reveals everything all of us have always wanted to
know about lethargiosis, that is, the ‘process of eliminating energy and
drive’, which is crucial in the achievement of a true state of sloth.  But
in all of this, the reader is advised not to lose sight of the informative
‘concise history’ of the seven deadly sins in general and of sloth in
particular, which can be found in chapter three.  The last chapter on the
Ãœbersloth offers an ingenious twist, which is also warmly recommended to the
readers’ attention: do not be fooled by twenty-first century busy, hectic and
celebrity craving life-style; far from pointing to purposeful and
self-fulfilling activity, this is the very apotheosis of sloth.  The
sloth-guru in her/his sloth-induced wisdom rightly alerts us to the following
insight:

‘True creativity requires some
amount of not just initiative but the courage to fall out of line.  The
new übersloths are always in step.  They are eager not to shake the
foundations of their position in society: their wealth, their power, and the
privilege of their lives.  The übersloth can spend an hour on a stationary
bicycle in a spin class racing at 70 mph to nowhere.  It is a metaphor for
their lives, which are full of sound and fury, but like the best of sloths,
signify nothing.’ (105-6).

To this Hamlet-sounding tone, only
one last word is here added: in order fully to enjoy, and especially
appreciate, this book, do not ever forget to think, but be prepared to
be ostracized for life by the sloth-guru as a consequence: you would have
committed the deadliest of sins in the ever more populated community of übersloths. 

 © 2005 Maria
Antonietta Perna.

Maria
Antonietta Perna, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, University College London;
Part-time Lecturer in Political Thought, Richmond University, London

Categories: Philosophical