All Thing Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess Author : Becca Rothfeld ISBN-13 : 9781250849915 Publisher : Virago Guideline Price : £15 Towards the end of All Things Are Too Small, Becca’s Rothfeld’s defence of maximalism, she reproduces a quotation that she has “so thoroughly digested and metabolised” that it is now an essential fixture of her “mental repertoire”. “I love a demystified thing inordinately.” Yes, I thought, that’s it.
That’s the problem with this book: Rothfeld’s tendency towards such relentless demystification of her subjects that they’re pallid and lifeless by the time she’s through. This is not true of all the essays in the collection. It opens promisingly and with astounding energy and vigour.
Initially, one forgives Rothfeld’s immediately evident habit of making grand, inaccurate statements, such as: “Desire is as good a guide to truth as anything else.” If anything, her verbosity and inexactitude seem charming – she’s wrong because she’s passionate. Reading, I felt myself at a dinner table surrounded by voices stridently debating all manner of interesting things: literature, meaning, mindfulness, feminism, sex, sex and more sex (to give an idea of the topics of these essays).
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