Becca Rothfeld has faith in desire. All Things Are Too Small, the debut book from the Washington Post critic, takes on various forms of asceticism, minimalism and traditionalism, with their urges towards managing if not suppressing the pursuit of our desires.
It sounds like this book tendentiously tries to unite a bunch of disparate things the author doesn’t like under a fuzzy concept of “less” so she can criticize them under the equally vague banner of “more”. She’d be better off just writing separate critical essays on minimalist interior design and sexual conservatism rather than straining to find a thread linking the two. There isn’t one.
It sounds like this book tendentiously tries to unite a bunch of disparate things the author doesn’t like under a fuzzy concept of “less” so she can criticize them under the equally vague banner of “more”. She’d be better off just writing separate critical essays on minimalist interior design and sexual conservatism rather than straining to find a thread linking the two. There isn’t one.