Book Review : Brian Alan Ellis - Hobbies You Enjoy (2024)
Today you swiped up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, b, a, start on your co-worker’s Tinder when he wasn't looking.
Every author has an unspoken (or outspoken) desire to make people cry. Because tears are considered hard evidence of a meaningful emotional connection and it's really difficult to pull off with written words. But those who achieve such a connection all share a similar trait: extreme, boundless authenticity. They’re pathologically themselves and let their work resonate with whoever might feel compelled. Not everyone will see the beauty in Brian Alan Ellis metaironic shitposting, but I sure do and I will always advocate it.
His new novel/journal/whatever-it-is Hobbies You Enjoy is upon is and he’s refined the art of being so unapologetically himself again.
So, Hobbies You Enjoy is a a 365 days journal where the narrator (it might be Brian Alan Ellis himself, I was never sure) describes what he did to entertain himself. All the entries begin with the words "Today you…" and last no more than four or five lines each. They range from interactions with mundane pop culture to invocation of nostalgic memories, by the way of weekly psychological breakdowns. In trademark Brian Alan Ellis fashion, it’s both absurdly easy to read and low-key complex and emotionally charged.
Distraction is Depression
Hobbies You Enjoy is obviously mocking the idea of gratitude journaling, a self-help practice meant to rewire your brain to appreciate what you have instead of longing for what you lost. But instead of firing on all-cylinders and being obvious as shit, Ellis take the smart route. He traces a portrait of how hollow the cultural devices you're supposed to fill your life with really are. Whether it's social media, dating apps, television, alcohol, music, the journal entries explore how they don’t have the power to change you.
Today someone, after noticing you contemplating their Grateful Dead t-shirt asked you if you were Deadhead, and you said no, that you<re more of a "grateful to be dead" type, and the person said, "Oh, so like a goth?"
When the narrator is actually interacting with someone, popular culture (as exemplified above) serves as a way to separate people, not unify them like it's been championed to. Everyone is trapped in their own, algorithmically made journey of meaning and solitude. No one has the same tastes, so no one has the same experiences. So, the narrator turns to old artifacts of monoculture like ALF or old school wrestling in order to sense a connection, only to realize no one remembers this at all, but him.
Hobbies You Enjoy is obviously a tweak on an established formula for Brian Alan Ellis, but it's his most vibrant yet and, to my knowledge, his book that acknowledges aging from the perspective of someone who spent a life distracting himself from deeply rooted issues that he neither had the money or support to challenge on his own terms. It's as witty and tongue-in-cheek as anything Ellis has ever done, but it comes form a much more personal and wounded place than the depression memes you can find online.
The Art of Keeping Invisible Wounds Invisible
What I find so moving about Brian Alan Ellis' work is that they're an everyday (literally in Hobbies You Enjoy) manifestation of unspoken, invisible wounds that even the wounded person feeling them might not fully understand. Ellis' work is self-aware by nature, but there's an inherent suffering to his brand of nostalgia that charges it with an emotional added value if you're old enough to understand what the fuck he's actually talking about. He does not long for the past, he's trying to numb this goddamned self-awareness.
Today you reminisced about a lost Polaroid from 1989, where eight-years old you is posing with the saddest guy in a Batman costume you'd ever seen while at a comic book store in an outlet mall on Long Island.
The tragedy of Ellis' writing is that this self-awareness chases him everywhere and taints what little of an innocence he once had. His present is poisoning the little bliss he's had as a kid, but that bliss is also alleviating the effect of the poisonous lifestyle he's living now. If that isn't relatable to you, you’re either extremely privileged or extremely oppressed. The idea of ordinary suffering and invisible wounds is either alien to you or you haven't come to terms with your own bullshit and honestly, you're missing out.
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If you're familiar with Brian Alan Ellis' writing, Hobbies You Enjoy is not going to blow you out the water. It's basically a sharper, more emotionally attuned version of what he's always done. But Ellis is original and reliable, like a death metal band that understands its audience. He's also unapologetically brave and vulnerable even he's being ironic. That's what makes him so relatable to me. Reading about a guy facing his demons in such a blunt and graceful way inspires me to be more courageous against my own.
