Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit by Joseph Epstein

Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit Reviews

• 
  Alicia

  UUUUUGH! I don't know what I was expecting when I started this book. I think it started out ok: what gossip had done and meant through the ages. I guess I was hoping more of a history of how gossip changed the world. Instead, Epstein doesn't take his own advice when he says, "Gossip is only interesting to someone when they care about the gossip." And then he proceeds to tell stories about people that I have never heard about. And he knows this, (well, he doesn't know that *I* don't know them) but he seems to realize that he comes from a different time. And then he says that he doesn't know who all these people are that are being gossiped about, because he is more interested in learning gossip about people that died YEARS ago. And it wasn't funny gossip. It was mostly sexy (who is gay, who is banging who's wife). I think I could've put up with the mini bio of Barbara Walters if he hadn't referred to her sister as "retarded" TWICE. And if he had had some cool antidotes. But no luck. Don't read this book, even if your daughter puts it in your book bag because it is her favorite color.
• 
  Tom Stamper

  Somehow Joseph Epstein explains why gossip is vile and necessary while sharing lurid details that we are ashamed to know and yet happy to get. The truth is Epstein is the greatest essayist of his generation and a joy to read on any topic. If you can turn a phrase as he does you give up your day job and pound away at the keyboard until someone brings you cocktails or tickets to the big game.
• 
  Han Zaval

  75 pages in and had to stop reading
• 
  Lanre Dahunsi

  Former American Scholar editor and author, Joseph Epstein writes about gossip, that much-excoriated yet apparently unstoppable human activity that knows neither historical nor cultural bounds. Educated fleas may not do it, but all human beings seem to enjoy that conspiratorial atmosphere of intimacy in which two or three people talk about another person who isn’t in the room. Usually, they say things about this person that he would prefer not to have said. They might talk about his misbehavior in any number of realms (sexual, financial, domestic, hygienic, or any other that allows for moral disapprobation) or about his frailties (his hypocrisy, tastelessness, immodesty, neuroses, etc.). Or they might just wish to analyze his character, attempting to get at why has been a life of such extraordinary undeserved success or such unequivocally merited failure.
  
  “gossip, make no mistake, always implies a judgment.”
  
  Listening to gossip can be likened to receiving stolen goods; it puts you in immediate collusion with the person conveying the gossip to you. Sometimes the person who initiates the gossip asks the person to whom he is telling it to keep it to himself. Sometimes secrecy is implied, sometimes not. If the gossip has an element of real excitement to it, the request that the item go no further is unlikely to be honored. Some of the best gossip is intramural, taking place within a smallish group: an office, a school, a neighborhood, a village or small town.
  
  Gossip is hearing something you like about someone you don’t. – Earl Wilson
  
  Rumours vs Gossip
  
  All gossip starts out as people talking about other people. The distinction between gossip and rumors is that the latter are more often about incidents, events, supposed happenings, or things that are about to happen to people, and generally not about the current or past conduct of people; rumor tends to be unsubstantiated, events or incidents whose truth is still in the realm of speculation.
  
  Compared to gossip, rumors are also less specific, more general, more diffuse, less personal in content and in the manner in which they are disseminated. Rumors can lead to gossip, and gossip can reinforce rumors. But gossip is particular, told to a carefully chosen audience, and is specifically information about other people.
  
  Other People
  
  Other people is the world’s most fascinating subject. Apart from other people, there can only be shoptalk, or gab about sports, politics, clothes, food, books, music, or some similar general item. Talk is possible about the great issues and events and questions, both of the day and of eternity, about which most of us operate in the realm of mere opinion and often don’t have all that much—or anything all that interesting—to say. How long, really, does one wish to talk, at least with friends, about the conditions for peace in the Middle East, the probable direction of the economy, the existence of God? For most of us, truth to tell, not very long.
  
  Gossip is “bits of news about the personal affairs of others.“
  
  Not all gossip is engaged in for the purpose of hurting people. Gossip can be wildly entertaining. Sometimes analyzing the problems, flaws, and weaknesses of friends, even dear friends, sweeps one up and carries one away in sheer exuberance for the game.
  
  
  If people really knew what others said about them, there would not be two friends left in the world. – BLAISE PASCAL
  
  Private and Exclusive
  
  The best gossip also has a private, an exclusive, feeling about it. “You mustn’t tell anyone about this, but…” or “Just between us…” or “This must go no farther…” are phrases that, for people who enjoy gossip, carry the equivalent magic of the fairy-tale opening of “Once upon a time.” The most enticing gossip is that which is highly feasible, often uncheckable, and deeply damning of the person who is its subject.
  
  The most delicious gossip penetrates privacy; the assumption behind all gossip is that secret behavior is being uncovered. When it spreads in a way that gets out of control, gossip can result in the loss of income for the person gossiped about, the destruction of a marriage or an important friendship, public humiliation, jail, even suicide. Gossip can be dangerous.
  
  Assertion of Superiority
  
  Along with showing one is in the know, another motive for passing along gossip is the assertion of superiority it sometimes allows. If someone tells you about the alcoholism of another man, isn’t he also implying that he is himself without such a problem?
  
  Behind much gossip, in other words, is often to be found, implicit though it may be, the claim of the superior virtuousness of its propagator. To seem both in the know and morally superior, all through the agency of gossip.
  
  The Gossip Transaction
  
  A good joke, they say, requires three people: one person to tell it, another to appreciate it, and a third who doesn’t get it. Gossip, too, needs three people: one person to initiate it, another to hear it and (perhaps) pass it on, and a third who is its subject or victim. But gossip also needs a setting, a basic understanding among the gossipers, an agreement about what is of interest in the vast array of the world’s information.
  
  Discrimination
  
  One does not gossip with just anybody. A person purveying gossip has to show some discrimination in choosing an audience for his gossip. That person—or persons—must be someone who roughly shares one’s view of the importance or the amusement of the information being passed along to him. He must inhabit the same general realm of interest, of temperament, of taste.
  
  “The person conveying the gossip also has to be reasonably certain that the person he is telling it to is ready to receive it.”
  
  Curiosity and Gossip
  
  At any sophisticated level, curiosity operates under the assumption that appearances and reality are usually very different, and gossip, often with the aid of daring speculation, sets out to fill in the discrepancy between the two. Sometimes it does so accurately, sometimes mistakenly yet charmingly, and sometimes meanly and disastrously. But whatever its intention, whatever its subtlety or want of subtlety, whatever its effect, whether it issues out of envy or voyeurism, revenge or the desire to entertain friends, gossip will not be suppressed.
  
  Political Gossip
  
  Politicians are subject to gossip because they have power and, having power, are likely to abuse it by stealing, sexual excess, intemperance, or egregiously jolly hypocrisy. Much political gossip, like celebrity gossip, is about someone, because of his or her fortunate or favored position, going too far. Part of the pleasure in reading it—of seeing the miscreant nailed—is in viewing the mighty fallen. But part of the pleasure, too, is reading or hearing about people with more power than we possess using it to live in outrageous ways that the rest of us are for the most part restricted to dreaming about.
  
  Schadenfreude,
  
  A large part of the pleasure of contemporary gossip about celebrities has to do with that ugly little emotion that goes by the German word Schadenfreude, or pleasure in another’s fall. Nice to think, is it not, that people gifted with good looks or acting ability or musical talent, rewarded for them with vast quantities of money, also have many of the problems that the rest of us might have, and often a few extra thrown in: children who didn’t work out, struggles with diet, marital discord dragged out in public, bankruptcy, and so much more.
  
  Evening the Score
  
  If in some sense the cult of celebrity is about common people worshiping people luckier than themselves, owing to the good offices of gossip, a way has been found of evening the score, at least a little, by showing that in the end the very lucky often have it no better than we, and sometimes, thanks to the gods of fate and the merchants of gossip, it turns out that they have it even worse.
• 
  Tiffany Davis

  One wonders how a book on gossip can be so boring. One also wonders why one feels one must speak like this after one reads this book.
• 
  Vladimíra Čavojová

  Boring. I gave up after first few chapters.
• 
  Scull17

  Might as well read it if you are nosy and you know it.
• 
  Kate Woods Walker

  Joseph Epstein, in Gossip, argues that the telling of tales is not as bad as you think it is. He bolsters his case with a couple of historical chapters on the works of Saint-Simon and the life of Alexander the Great. He seasons his theories with chatter about the literary set, some of whom are so deeply burrowed into the nether folds of East Coast intelligentsia I'd truthfully never heard of them. But there's plenty of good dish about plenty of the better-known.
  
  Along the way he borrows heavily from other, previous, works, both highfalutin' and low-class; almost always, however, with proper credit. (I'll give him a pass on stealing the joke about "therapist" being a mere one space off from "the rapist." It is unlikely that someone with such a refined sensibility as Mr. Epstein was much in the habit of enjoying Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery making the same joke on SNL in the 1990s. At least I hope so.)
  
  Epstein uses a meat cleaver in spots, most notably against Barbara Walters and Tina Brown, and it becomes obvious that his motivation in writing such a book was perhaps not so much a scholarly meditation on the wagging of tongues, but an all-too-human desire to throw a bit of mud in what he considers the proper directions. There's also the almost-obligatory slam at Internet culture, and curious chapter-ending vignettes he labels "Diary," but which are less personal diary than they are Dadaist coda. Whatever. It was still an entertaining book.
• 
  Mike

  xiii thrum w/significance
  4 earl wilson...G is hearing something you like about someone you don't
  10 auden..a teacher is someone who talks in other people's sleep
  53..when G isn't motivated by revenge, it's motivated by egotism & status needs
  ---some G passed along out of sheer exuberance, the desire to entertain
  56..yenta, gabby woman, blabbermouth
  60.. x remarried in his 50's, & apparently had swum into safe harbor...later breakup..x might have looked fwd to spending his final yrs sailing calmer waters? Possible
  63..the low-swinging N Enquirer..our very own leading american gutter-press rag
  126.. I Berlin..life isn't worth living unless 1 can be indiscreet to intimate friends
  137..Wolfe's Radical Chic..Bernstein's self-abasement is nicely captured...his rep as a serious person never survived Wolfe's account of that evening. A damn fool, too rich & famous to know how the world really works
  142..Gore on capote...ruthlessly unoriginal
  abducted Isherwood's sally bowles for B @ Tiffanys
  165..internet..pics being drunk or naked or in other forms of moral DESHABILLE
  168..I-net...a vanity press for the demented...L. Nelson
  183..N Yorker, no descripts of sex till 1987, when Shawn retired.
  213..Liz Smith...i never repeat gossip, so listen carefully
• 
  Jennifer

  It's my own fault for expecting Epstein's Gossip to treat its topic more academically and less, well, conversationally than it does; despite his scholarly bonafides, the jacket copy emphasizes his pre-eminence as an "essayist," which should have tipped me off immediately. So instead of a historical survey, we get a bit of a coze, with some vague thoughts from the author on what gossip may or may not be used for socially, but with not one whit of psychological research to back his suppositions up. (To give credit, he does cite other books on scandal and gossip, but the lack of even a passing mention current scientific material seemed truly egregious.) The only thing that really enlivens this book is the nuggets of gossip that Epstein tucks into it, provided both from his life and from history. So if you're dying to hear about Kennedy's tryst with Dietrich, this book may be for you - though, honestly, you'll probably get more from your Facebook feed in an hour than from all Epstein's efforts.
• 
  Joan

  I don't think I gossip too much about other people, or at least not negatively. I'm sure some people have gossipped about me (probably both negatively and positively). I do like celebrity gossip and I don't know why, other than I like entertainment. I like to be informed about the art world because I like to think I am kind of an artist. Maybe I fantasize how I'd be gossipped about if I were a celebrity, although I'd probably be ignored. Maybe it's just nice to think of celebrities as just like you and me and so we gossip.
  I did find it interesting that people who gossip are considered normal. I think it's nice to be gossipped about because then you're not forgotten and it's far worse to be forgotten, at least I like to think it is.
  I also liked that novels are like gossip and I don't really care for novels so maybe this is why I don't take part in gossip as much as I imagine others do.
• 
  Evanston Public Library

  Joseph Epstein's lively exploration of the universal proclivity of humans to share the latest analyzes gossip's many forms, its potential to change opinions (especially of others), and why we find it so satisfying. Epstein, a prolific local author, has shared his wit and wisdom on various human pursuits in such earlier works as Friendship: An Exposé, Envy, Snobbery: The American Version, and Ambition, the Secret Passion. His pithy take on human nature--the good and the bad--tackles some serious questions of behavior, ethics, and good taste, all while sharing with his readers his own participation and pleasure in gossiping. Gossip, it seems, is fascinating to us whether it be local and personal (neighbors chatting over the fence) or global (tell-all Enquirer scoops on celebs ranging from the Royals to Hollywood stars). I must admit to especially enjoying the bits in Epstein's book that simply dished the dirt without excuses.
  
  (Barbara L., Reader's Services)
• 
  Literary Life Reads

  I loved the topic of this book. However, once I started reading it, I found myself constantly distracted, putting the book down, and having to force myself to continue reading. For the first few chapters, I didn't understand where he was heading or what he was trying to do with the subject. I don't know if I eventually adjusted to his writing style or the context became clearer, but it started to provide a little bit of entertainment. Sadly, though, this was only due to reading about the gossip Epstein shared, rather than really reflecting on the dynamics of gossip itself. It seemed like this more analytical focus, which is what I had really been looking forward to, was barely touched on and done so in the most superficial manner. I am, however, looking forward to discussing this book/subject in our upcoming book club, where I do believe I will be fully entertained.
• 
  TheSaint

  The review I read in Booklist led me to believe that this would be an examination of gossip through the lenses of history and sociology. I thought that it would be a fine addition to my collection of support materials for the students.
  Imagine my surprise to find out that Gossip is in fact gossip! And by page 18 I found out that Aristotle Onassis had an affair with Maria Callas because his wife (Jackie Kennedy O) refused to have, well, let's call it "banal socks" with him. Now that's dishy! And the subsequent pages were filled with other similar tidbits of information designed to appeal to our prurient natures.
  I loved it!
  But for my high school kids. Not so much.
  
• 
  Jennifer

  I expected a book that would explain how gossip has shaped & affected modern society. Maybe I picked this out because my work environment seems to thrive on it, and I wanted to read some scientific explanation as to why people are so enthralled by other people's business.
  
  It's just that; it's other people's business and not their own. No mystery, no secret formula. I guess I wanted more of an explanatory book and not one that contains actual gossip as a device to keep the reader moving from chapter to chapter.
• 
  Sam

  Gossip was a really interesting read on the evolution of gossip. Loved in the little gossipy bits at the end of each chapter. The chapter sizes were small so you didn't get overwhelmed. I loved the little profile chapters on a single person who epitomizes the gossip style of the time. However when Epstein got to the modern age, there seemed to be a disappointment about the lack of privacy that the internet age provides. I felt like it lingered in the rest of the book that I otherwise loved.
• 
  Catherine

  Entertaining book about the finer points of gossip and how it has evolved through time. Each chapter ends with a “diary” -- an example of the type of gossip from that chapter experienced personally by the author. Many of them took place years ago among the upper crust (and I'm clearly traveling in the wrong circles because I hadn't heard of a lot of them). But this lent it a highbrow feeling and thus I could feel virtuous about reading it.
• 
  Elizabeth

  I gave up after about 50 pages. I like Joseph Epstein's "familiar essays" very much. I remember enjoying "Snobbery" and "Friendship" and "Envy," but I just couldn't get interested in this subject. I agree with Jeff that an essay (or magazine article) would have been enough. I am not interested in the people (celebrities, historical figures) he is relating the gossip about. Seemed like much ado about almost nothing.
• 
  Mark

  As absorbing as its subject matter, the book argues convincingly that gossip is unavoidable, necessary and not always evil. As an added bonus, Epstein manages to deliver much gossip while offering it for study. Though some of his arguments seems a bit circular and the text can sometimes feel repetitive, you're driven to read on by what you might uncover. Deft, sly and thought-provoking.
• 
  Kirsti

  "A fascinating speculation will almost always trump a dull explanation."
  
  A confusing book. The author seesaws between condemning gossips and doing a great deal of gossiping himself. Also, the book was published in 2011, but he uses outdated terms like nymphomaniac and Friendster. I wish he'd done more of the Great Gossips of the Western World essays and less harrumphing.
• 
  Donald

  The word 'fame' comes from the Latin word for 'rumor'. Curiously, Epstein doesn't mention that in this wonderful book, but he mentions just about everything else there is to mention about gossip, with lots of scandalous celebrity and political gossip thrown in for good measure
  
  This is my first time reading Epstein, and I enjoyed it immensely.
• 
  Leslie

  Eh...I've also been reading Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip by Jeannette Walls (2000) and he seems to have read this book as well and covered much of the same terrain but with his added commentary/snarkiness.
• 
  Heather Downs

  Epstein discusses the role of gossip in literature well. His diary entries about gossip are interesting to read and insightful on the role of gossip in contemporary life. If you are looking for more of a sociological analysis on gossip, then this is not the right book. I enjoyed reading it though.
• 
  Barb

  Looking forward to reading this. On a list of borrowers at the library!
• 
  Kristenyque

  I was pretty disappointed, I had hoped for a more scientific analysis of gossip. This is such an interesting topic,in this format it's just not my type of read.