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WORK TITLE: Silence
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1/15/1963
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Norwegian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Kagge * https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/23/the-power-of-silence-in-the-smartphone-age
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born January 15, 1963; children: three daughters.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Publisher, explorer, author, lawyer, Rolex model, politician, and entrepreneur.
AVOCATIONS:Art collecting, philosophy, exploration.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Erling Kagge has built a name for himself predominantly through his exploration efforts. He has accomplished the climbing of Mount Everest completely independently, as well as trekked through the South and North Poles. He has also fulfilled a myriad of other careers, including modeling work with Rolex, a political career, and several more positions and titles.
Silence: In the Age of Noise is one of Kagge’s writing projects, and focuses on a subject Kagge has developed a deep interest in over the years. In an article featured on the Guardian website, Kagge explains that his interest in the concept of silence grew out of his observations of the relationships most people have with their smart devices in this day and age. He began to feel as if silence has become a rarer phenomenon than it was in the past and, because of this, it has become all the more valuable and worth savoring. The book serves as a compilation of several writings Kagge has penned on the subject of silence, accompanied with artwork meant to further illustrate the concepts Kagge highlights. Through his writing, Kagge delves into unpacking the significance of silence, how readers can find and savor silence for themselves, and the definition of the concept in and of itself. Kagge speaks with several creators and thinkers as he unpacks these subjects, while also peppering his writing with anecdotes of his memories of and thoughts on silence and its meaning.
Booklist contributor Carol Haggas remarked: “Kagge’s treatise on this endangered commodity provides an intriguing meditation for mindful readers.” In an issue of Kirkus Reviews, one writer called Silence “an eloquent and persuasive argument for the significance of silence, in all of its forms, from an author who has explored the limits of the human experience.” A reviewer in Publishers Weekly stated: “Great pleasure lies in Kagge’s creative investigations.” Michael Magras, writing on the Star Tribune website, commented: “‘Silence‘ may not be groundbreaking, but it still offers thoughtful meditations on the importance of ‘pausing to breathe deeply, shut out the world and use the time to experience ourselves.'” On the Wall Street Journal website, Sara Wheeler said: “I too remember crunching over ice at the South Pole—though I had not walked there like the author—and thinking about the ethereal quality of silence that the owned world cannot give (no country owns the Antarctic).” She concluded: “Erling Kagge captures that wonder on the page.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 1, 2017, Carol Haggas, review of Silence: In the Age of Noise, p. 4.
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2017, review of Silence.
Publishers Weekly, June 12, 2017, review of Silence, p. 51.
ONLINE
52 Insights, https://www.52-insights.com/ (October 5, 2017), “Erling Kagge: ‘I have come close to death,'” author interview.
Financial Times Online, https://www.ft.com/ (January 19, 2018), Erling Kagge, “Polar explorer Erling Kagge on the value of silence.”
Guardian Online, https://www.theguardian.com/ (September 23, 2017), Erling Kagge, “The power of silence in the smartphone age.”
Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com/ (December 29, 2017), Michael Magras, review of Silence.
Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/ (December 21, 2017), Sara Wheeler, “Review: Erling Kagge, a Man in Search of ‘Silence,’” review of Silence.
The power of silence in the smartphone age
In our always-on digital era it’s all too easy to disconnect ourselves from peace and quiet, and the inner wealth it can bring
Erling Kagge
Sat 23 Sep 2017 01.00 EDT Last modified on Mon 25 Sep 2017 05.32 EDT
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Erling Kagge, author of Silence in the Age of Noise
‘My children wonder less and less; if they still wonder at anything, they pull out their smartphones to find the answer’ … Erling Kagge, author of Silence in the Age of Noise. Photograph: Simon Skreddernes
Whenever I am unable to walk, climb or sail away from the world, I have learned to shut it out.
Learning this took time. Only when I understood that I had a primal need for silence was I able to begin my search for it – and there, deep beneath a cacophony of traffic noise and thoughts, music and machinery, iPhones and snow ploughs, it lay in wait for me. Silence.
Not long ago, I tried convincing my three daughters that the world’s secrets are hidden inside silence. We were sitting around the kitchen table eating Sunday dinner. Nowadays, it is a rare occurrence for us to eat a meal together; so much is going on all the other days of the week. Sunday dinners have become the one time when we all remain seated and talk, face to face.
The girls looked at me sceptically. Surely silence is … nothing? Even before I was able to explain the way in which silence can be a friend, and a luxury more valuable than any of the Louis Vuitton bags they so covet, their minds had been made up: silence is fine to have on hand when you’re feeling sad. Beyond that, it’s useless.
Point of view: Tracy Chevalier on the power of silence
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Sitting there at the dinner table, I suddenly remembered their curiosity as children. How they would wonder about what might be hiding behind a door. Their amazement as they stared at a light switch and asked me to “open the light”.
Questions and answers, questions and answers.
Wonder is the very engine of life. But my children are 13, 16 and 19 and wonder less and less; if they still wonder at anything, they quickly pull out their smartphones to find the answer.
They are still curious, but their faces are not as childish, more adult, and their heads are now filled with more ambitions than questions. None of them had any interest in discussing the subject of silence, so, to invoke it, I told them about two friends of mine who had decided to climb Mount Everest.
Early one morning they left base camp to climb the south-west wall of the mountain. It was going well. Both reached the summit, but then came the storm. They soon realised they would not make it down alive. The first got hold of his pregnant wife via satellite phone. Together they decided on the name of the child that she was carrying. Then he quietly passed away just below the summit. My other friend was not able to contact anyone before he died. No one knows exactly what happened on the mountain in those hours. Thanks to the dry, cool climate 8km above sea level, they have both been freeze-dried.
‘What is silence? Why is it more important than ever?’ … Erling Kagge
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‘What is silence? Why is it more important than ever?’ … Erling Kagge. Photograph: Simon Skreddernes
They lie there in silence, looking no different, more or less, to the way they were the last time I saw them, 22 years ago.
For once there was silence around the table. One of our mobile phones pinged with an incoming message, but none of us thought to check our phones just then. Instead, we filled the silence with ourselves.
Not long after, I was invited to give a lecture at St Andrews University in Scotland. I was to choose the subject myself. I tended to talk about extreme journeys to the ends of the Earth, but this time my thoughts turned homewards, to that Sunday supper with my family. So I settled on the topic of silence.
I prepared myself well but was, as I often am, nervous beforehand. What if scattered thoughts about silence belonged only in the realm of Sunday dinners, and not in student forums? It was not that I expected to be booed for the 18 minutes of my lecture, but I wanted the students to be interested in the subject I held so close to my heart.
I began the lecture with a minute of silence. You could have heard a pin drop. It was stock-still. For the next 17 minutes, I spoke about the silence around us, but I also talked about something that is even more important to me: the silence within us.
The students remained quiet. Listening. It seemed as though they had been missing silence.
That same evening, I went to a pub with a few of them. Inside the draughty entrance, each of us with a pint of beer, it was all more or less exactly the same as my student days. Kind, curious people, a humming atmosphere, interesting conversations.
“What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more important now than ever?” were three questions they wanted answered.
That evening meant a lot to me, and not only for the good company. Thanks to the students, I realised how little I understood. Back home I couldn’t stop thinking about those three questions. They became an obsession.
What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more important now than ever?
Silence is about rediscovering, through pausing, the things that bring us joy.
My children hardly pause any more. They are always accessible, and almost always busy. “Everyone is the other, and no one is himself,” wrote the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The three of them tend to sit in front of a screen – whether alone or together with others. I do it too. Become engulfed in my smartphone, enslave myself to my own tablet – as a consumer and at times as a producer. I am constantly interrupted, interruptions engendered by other interruptions. I rummage around in a world that has little to do with me. Attempt to be effective until I realise I won’t get any further regardless of how effective I’ve become. It feels like trying to find your way through fog on a mountain, without a compass at hand, and ending up walking around in circles. The goal is to be busy and effective, nothing else.
It is easy to assume that the essence of technology is technology itself, but that is wrong. The essence is you and me. It’s about how we are altered by the technology we employ, what we hope to learn, our relationship with nature, those we love, the time we spend, the energy that is consumed, and how much freedom we relinquish to technology. Yes, it’s true what many say, that distances are eclipsed by technology, but that is a banal fact. The central issue is rather, as Heidegger pointed out, that: “nearness remains outstanding”. To achieve nearness, we must, according to Heidegger, relate to the truth, not to technology. Having tried my hand at internet dating, I am inclined to agree with Heidegger.
We are going to give up our own freedom in our eagerness to use new technology, Heidegger claimed
(Of course, Heidegger could not have predicted the possibilities offered by current technology. He was thinking about cars of 50 horsepower, film projectors and punch-card machines, which were all the rage. But he had an inkling of what might come.)
We are going to give up our own freedom in our eagerness to use new technology, Heidegger claimed. To shift from being free people to becoming resources. The thought is even more fitting now than when he first expressed it. We will not become a resource for one another, unfortunately, but for something less appealing. A resource for organisations such as Apple, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat and governments who are trying to map us all out, with our voluntary assistance, to use or sell the information. It smacks of exploitation.
The question that Humpty Dumpty poses to Alice remains: “Which is to be master – that’s all.” You, or someone you don’t know?
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Humans are social creatures. Being accessible can be a good thing. We are unable to function alone. Yet it’s important to be able to turn off your phone, sit down, not say anything, shut your eyes, breathe deeply a couple of times and attempt to think about something other than what you are normally thinking about.
The alternative is to not think anything at all. You may call this meditation, yoga, mindfulness or merely common sense. It can be good. I take pleasure in meditating and practising yoga. I’ve also taken up the cousin to this practice – hypnosis – and hypnotised myself for 20 minutes to disconnect. That also works well. I lie there hovering a couple of centimetres above my bed each afternoon.
I find myself thinking about how silence can be experienced without the use of techniques. The threshold for finding silence and balance can in fact be lowered. You don’t need a course in silence or relaxation to be able simply to pause. Silence can be anywhere, any time – it’s just in front of your nose. I create it for myself as I walk up the stairs, prepare food or merely focus on my breathing. Sure, we are all part of the same world, but the potential wealth of being an island for yourself is something you carry around with you all the time.
• Extracted from Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge (Viking, £9.99). To order a copy for £8.49, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.
Erling Kagge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Erling Kagge (born January 15, 1963) is a Norwegian explorer, lawyer, art collector, entrepreneur, politician,[1] Rolex model,[2] author and publisher.
Biography
In 1990, Erling Kagge and Børge Ousland became the first men ever to reach the North Pole unsupported. The expedition started from Ellesmere Island on March 8, 1990 and reached the North Pole 58 days later on May 4, 1990. They traveled approximately 800 kilometers on skis pulling their supplies on sledges.[3]
Less than three years later, in 1992–93, Kagge completed the first unsupported expedition to the South Pole, covering the 814-mile (1310 km) route in 50 days.[4] Kagge had no radio contact to the outside world for the duration of his expedition. This was featured on the cover of the international edition of TIME magazine on March 1, 1993.[5]
In 1994, Kagge summited Mount Everest, thus becoming the first person to complete the "Three Poles Challenge".[6] For two years during this period, Kagge worked as a lawyer for industrial giant Norsk Hydro.
After his record-breaking feat of reaching the "three poles", Kagge attended Cambridge University to study philosophy for three terms. In 1996, he founded Oslo-based publishing house, Kagge Forlag, which quickly grew to become one of Norway’s leading book publishing companies. In 2000 Kagge Forlag acquired one of Norway’s oldest publishing companies, J.M. Stenersens Forlag. Kagge and Stenersens are publishing around 100 new titles in 2016.
Kagge himself has written seven books on exploration, philosophy and art collecting, which have been translated to several languages. He sometimes writes articles for newspapers and contributes to different books as well.[7] Adventure and exploration remain intrinsic to his nature, and Kagge continues to do expeditions, although with a lower profile than in the nineties. In 2010 he and urban historian and photographer Steve Duncan descended into the sewers, subways and water tunnels of New York - walking for five days from the Bronx, via Manhattan to the Atlantic Ocean. In 2012 he walked the entire length of Los Angeles' Sunset Boulevard over three days with screenwriter Petter Skavlan and gallerist Peder Lund.[8]
In addition to running his publishing business and writing, Kagge is a leading collector of international contemporary art and Russian icons.[9] Astrup Fearnley Museum for Modern Art displayed art from his collection through the summer of 2015.[10] The New York Times has described Erling Kagge as "a fascinating man. He's a philosophical adventurer or perhaps an adventurous philosopher".[11]
Kagge has three daughters: Nor, Ingrid and Solveig.
Bibliography
Kagge, Erling (1990). Nordpolen: Det siste kappløpet. J.W. Cappelens forlag. ISBN 82-02-12406-9.
Kagge, Erling (1993). Alene til Sydpolen. Cappelen. ISBN 82-02-14087-0.
Kagge, Erling (1994). På eventyr. N. W. Damm & Son. ISBN 82-517-8081-0.
Kagge, Erling (1994). Pole to Pole & Beyond. N. W. Damm & Son. ISBN 82-517-8082-9.
Kagge, Erling (2007). Philosophy for Polar Explorers: What They Don't Teach You in School. Pushkin Press. ISBN 1-901285-69-3.
Kagge, Erling (2015). A Poor Collectiors Guide to Buying Great Art. Kagge Forlag
Kagge, Erling (2015). Manhattan Underground. World Editions.
Kagge, Erling (2017). Silence: In the Age of Noise.Pantheon. ISBN 15-247-3323-7
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Polar explorer Erling Kagge on the value of silence
From his Oslo office to the North and South Poles, the adventurer has discovered that the quieter he becomes, the more he hears
© Kjell Ove Storvik
JANUARY 19, 2018 16
Antarctica is the quietest place I’ve ever been. I walked alone to the South Pole, and in that vast monotone landscape there was no human noise apart from the sounds I made. Alone on the ice, far into that great white nothingness, I could both hear and feel the silence. (I had been forced by the company who owned the aeroplane that flew me to the northern edge of Antarctica to bring a radio. The last thing I did in the aeroplane was to leave the batteries in the garbage bin.)
Everything seemed completely flat and white, kilometre after kilometre all the way to the horizon, as I headed southward across the world’s coldest continent. Underneath lies 30m cubic kilometres of ice, pressing down on the Earth’s surface.
Eventually, in complete isolation, I began to notice that nothing was completely flat after all. The ice and snow formed small and large abstract shapes. The uniform whiteness was transformed into countless shades of white. A tinge of blue surfaced on the snow, somewhat reddish, greenish and slightly pink. The landscape was changing along the route, but I was wrong. My surroundings remained constant; I was the one who changed. On the 22nd day I wrote in my journal: “At home I only enjoy ‘big bites’. Down here I am learning to value minuscule joys. The nuanced hues of the snow. The wind abating. Formations of clouds. Silence.”
As a child I was fascinated by the snail that was able to carry its own house wherever it went. During my Antarctic expedition, my admiration for the snail increased. I pulled all the food, gear and fuel I needed for the trip on a sledge and never opened my mouth to speak. I shut up. I had no radio contact nor did I see a single living creature for 50 days. I did nothing but ski south each day. Even when I got angry, about a broken binding or because I nearly slipped into a crevasse, I did not curse. Lashing out brings you down and makes a bad mood worse. That’s why I never swear on expeditions.
At home there’s always a car passing, a phone ringing, pinging or buzzing, someone talking, whispering or yelling. There are so many noises we barely hear them all. Here it was different. Nature spoke to me in the guise of silence. The quieter I became, the more I heard.
Silence is there all the time, even when we are surrounded by constant noise. I work in the city of Oslo, and at times I have to shape my own silence there. Sometimes there is so much noise that I turn up the music I’m listening to, not to create more of a disturbance, but in order to shut out other sounds.
The most important thing, as an old Norwegian saying goes, is not how you are, but what you make of things. For me, silence in nature is of the highest value. That’s where I feel most at home.
Norwegian author and explorer Erling Kagge, photographed in Oslo by Kyrre Lien for the FT © Kyrre Lien
The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents: a stark contrast to the Antarctic, which is a continent surrounded by oceans. When you are heading north on the Arctic ice, you are surrounded by constant noise. The Arctic Ocean is 5,000 metres deep and covered by ice. The ice is moved by the wind and the ocean currents. The enormous white masses rumble as they push against the elements of nature. Where the ice is thin, maybe only an inch, it sways and crackles as you walk.
In 1990, when the explorer Børge Ousland and I reached the North Pole, an American spy plane happened to fly overhead the day after we arrived. The pilots were probably just as surprised as we were to find someone else at the North Pole. As a gesture of kindness toward two famished explorers, they circled back and dropped a box of food before continuing on. After 58 days in temperatures of about -70F, most of the fat and muscle mass had been burnt off our bodies. In order to reach the pole, we had increased our days from 24 to 30 hours, enabling us to walk for 17 hours at a stretch. The cold and hunger had made it almost impossible to sleep at times. We opened the box from the spy aeroplane. It was their lunch — sandwiches, juice, kippered herring — and we laid it all out and divided the food. I was about to devour my food when Børge suggested we shouldn’t begin eating at once but rather pause for a moment. In silence. We should slowly count to 10 internally and only then begin eating, he said. Show collective restraint. Remind each other that satisfaction is also a matter of sacrifice. Waiting felt strange. But I have never felt as rich as I did in that moment of silence.
I like the idea that experiences of silence are an end unto themselves. Their value cannot be weighed and measured like so many other things, yet silence can also be a tool.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” was the reaction of entrepreneur Elon Musk when I asked him about silence. But after reflecting for a while, he concluded that he is someone who dwells on his own inner silence, often shutting out the world in order to open up his thoughts. Musk has been doing this his whole life. While talking, he often takes long pauses before answering questions. He first tilts his head, looks up and enjoys a moment of silence before he responds.
When I talk to him about his yet-to-be realised ideas, it’s clear he doesn’t listen to consultants or other experts but rather to a quiet space inside himself. It’s not enough for him to revolutionise the automobile, energy and aerospace industries. New disciplines must be turned on their heads. This will cease only when he’s no longer able to shut himself in with himself, but instead starts drifting with the current.
Musk is particularly good at using what is called the first principle: instead of relying on sanctioned truths, he uncovers what is fundamentally true in order to reason from that basis. He disconnects from the world. He does this in opposition to the normal way of operating: listening to what others say is possible, and building from there.
Nasa scientists were invariably reconciled to the idea that space shuttles could only be used once, which was a tremendously expensive accepted truth that had lingered since Nasa’s early days. This continued all the way up until the moment when Musk informed them that there was no reason not to build a shuttle that could be launched multiple times into space, and eventually to Mars. Costs would decrease, safety would increase.
I often find it hard to shut the world out when our days are so full. When I asked Mark Juncosa, one of the minds behind Musk’s SpaceX programme, whether he ever has the chance to think out the ideas that could revolutionise the rocket industry, he replied: “A normal work day at best contains eight hours of meetings, a few hours to respond to emails. It all blurs together. The only time to shut out the world is when I exercise, surf, take a shower or sit on the toilet. That’s when new solutions surface.”
“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence,” is the last sentence of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It is an artful formulation. The book was first rejected by his publisher, maybe because Wittgenstein claimed that the manuscript had two parts, the part that was written and a part that had not yet been written, and that the last part was the most important. It was the chatter that Wittgenstein overheard in the decadent bourgeois salons of Vienna at the start of the 1900s that motivated him to draw such conclusions. Wittgenstein believed that the empty babble of his fellow countrymen threatened the very meaning of life. I tend to agree with him. It is frighteningly easy to dispose of time.
Tractatus was partly conceived in Skjolden, at the end of Lustrafjord, the innermost arm of the Norwegian Sognefjord water inlet. Nature, silence and a distance from others shaped Wittgenstein and his philosophy: “I cannot imagine that I could have worked in any other place as I have done here. It is the silence and, perhaps, the magnificent landscape; I mean its quiet gravity.”
The first time I heard his conclusions on staying quiet, I thought that Wittgenstein meant that we should relate passively to everything that we are unable to find words for. That seemed a bit clumsy. I found it difficult to understand that Wittgenstein could have reached such a conclusion from where he sat among the waterfalls, crags, and valleys facing the fjord as he wrote. Of course new horizons emerge beyond the unspoken. That is precisely where the fun begins. But I had misunderstood Wittgenstein. (Which perhaps wasn’t so strange, considering that just after buying Tractatus I had leafed through to the last page and read the final sentence.)
I have since read everything that came before. And this is where Wittgenstein emphasises that we can show what we are unable to find words for. “What can be shown, cannot be said.” Words create boundaries: “My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion, was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless.” By ethics, Wittgenstein means the very meaning of life. Not even science is able to find words for something like that. “Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of the life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science.” It must be shown, thought and felt.
In my late teens, I heard a story about the war hero Claus Hellberg, who later became a respected guide in Norway’s mountainous region. The story seems like a random but precise response to Wittgenstein’s idea about how, as long as you don’t attempt “to speak the unspeakable, nothing is lost”.
One morning, Hellberg led a group of hikers out from Finsehytta, a famed Norwegian mountain cabin. The summer light was returning, winter had released its hold, and new colours were everywhere. The conditions were fantastic, and instead of commenting on it he began the hike by handing out notes to each of the participants on which was written: “Yes, it is totally amazing.”
Wittgenstein only partly followed his own ban of speaking about that which is unspeakable. He was not silent on the subject of remaining silent, but often talked about it. Hellberg went further than Wittgenstein. He simply fell silent.
I’ve often thought of that story. After a long life on the mountain, and with an expansive understanding of occupying German forces, Hellberg understood the way words create boundaries for our experiences. He wanted to avoid a situation in which members of his group were continuously remarking to each other just how “amazing” everything was, instead of actually concentrating on it being amazing.
Words can destroy the atmosphere. They are unsatisfactory. Yes, it is incredible to share grand experiences with others, but talking about it may distance us from what is happening. At times I am struck that it is the simple pleasures — such as studying green moss on a stone — which are the most difficult to put into words. Hellberg wanted everyone to see, think and wonder at the mountains, the sky, and the moss and plants that had tentatively begun blooming for one more spring.
Silence can be a friend. A comfort and a source of deeper riches. Alone out on the ocean you can hear the water, in the forest a babbling brook or else branches swaying in the wind, on the mountain, tiny movements between stones and moss. These are times when silence is reassuring. I look for that within myself. From minute to minute. It might take place in the outdoors, but it could just as easily occur as I head to the office, when I take a moment to pause before a meeting, or pull back from a conversation.
Shutting out the world is not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is seeing the world a bit more clearly, staying a course and trying to love your life.
This is an edited extract from ‘Silence, In the Age of Noise’ by Erling Kagge, translated by Becky L Crook (Viking). Erling Kagge is at Hay Festival, Cartagena de Indias, January 25-28, hayfestival.org/cartagena
EXPLORER • 5TH/OCT/2017 • • •
Erling Kagge
'I have come close to death'
Adventure and excitement is something that a lot of us search for. Some find it parachuting from a plane, others running a marathon. People like famed Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge are a little different, striving a little further for that worldliness.
52 INSIGHTSErling Kagge 'I have come close to death' • 5th/Oct/2017
Not content with mere everyday experiences, Erling’s CV reads more like a wishful thinking list. He is most well known for accomplishing what no other human in history has done. In the 1990s he ventured to both the North and South Poles, as well as scaling the heights of Mount Everest, all on foot, unaided and without radio contact. What he found in these remote parts of our world was not a sense of accomplishment nor a fulfilment of his own ego, but silence. A deep and profound appreciation for that one thing very few of us achieve in a world drowned out by technology and the noise of modern life. Since then he has kept up his addiction to extraordinary experiences, whether it be walking across LA on foot, sailing across the Atlantic alone twice, exploring the sewers of New York, you name it. He is what some would call a cultural polymath, listing himself as a politician/philosopher/lawyer/art collector and even a Rolex ambassador, but underneath it all Erling is just a man who found that coveted inner silence in the white expanse of the Arctic, which has haunted him ever since. His latest endeavour is a book Silence in the Age of Noise details his remarkable lifelong quest for the simplest yet largely unachievable of pleasures.
When talking about your incredible expeditions in the book, you said, “Here stillness is all-absorbing. I feel and hear it. The sound of space does not feel threatening or terrifying, but comforting.” Can you take us back to that time?
That was 24 years ago. I haven’t really been thinking about it too much since then until I started to write this book on silence. Then I looked at my diary and found this quote. What was interesting about walking to the South Pole alone, which I think actually everyone should do, is that when you start going it is absolutely white and flat all the way to the horizon. You have about 1400 kilometers to go, everything you need for the expedition on a sleigh and no radio that was working so I was completely left with no one to talk to. You start walking and the days and weeks go by, and you start to realise that it is not completely white after all; you start to see the colours in the snow and ice, blues and reds and greens. Also, it’s not completely flat, you can see all these structures in the ice and snow. You get this feeling that your body doesn’t just stop at your fingertips, it is as if you are extended into nature. You have a dialogue with the environment, not in a literal sense with words, and then after a few days you start to get answers to some questions that you didn’t even know you had been asking yourself. Of course, all of this leads back to silence.
"You start to get answers to some questions that you didn’t even know you had been asking yourself."
When you say that everyone should go the South Pole, some people might think you are joking, but you say it like you really mean it. Do you genuinely believe that we all have it within ourselves to do it?
This is not something I feel, it is something that I know. I believe that everyone is born an explorer. I look at my kids and they wanted to climb before they could walk, but of course this spirit is diminished. By the time we are 4 or 5 years old it becomes less and less, whether that’s due to expectations in kindergarten, from your parents and friends etc.
Obviously from a practical point of view, the walk to the South Pole is a physical thing, but it is more a mind game. You know, a mouse can eat an elephant if it takes small bites.
When we talk about silence in culture, you hear phrases like ‘awkward silence’, or ‘deafening silence’, or even the practice of a minute’s silence out of respect for someone who has died. But this is not the type of silence that you are talking about, is it?
No. I wanted to write a book about how silence can enrich your life and it can be a positive thing. It is also something that we are deeply missing in society. I look at my daughters and they don’t know what silence is, because they are always connected. They think that silence means nothing, and of course in philosophy you learn that nothing comes from nothing. But I think that is wrong, because silence is something.
"I have to say that out of 50 days and nights, I only missed the outside world for a few hours."
I want to go back to the time of your explorations. When I say silence to you, does a specific moment come to mind for you, like reaching the peak of Mount Everest?
I wish I could say yes, but when you get to the summit of Mount Everest, at first you are super happy, but after about 2 or 3 minutes the next thought you get is how the hell you are going to get down.
So it’s basically a massive come down?
If anyone ever tells you that they would like to climb Mount Everest to enjoy the nature and the environment etc., then it’s not true.
I remember you mentioning in the book that the hardest point of going back to normality was actually talking again.
Yes. Although Antarctica is not completely silent it is a really, really quiet place. So the most interesting part of walking to the South Pole is that you have no distractions. Back home there is always someone waiting for you, or you are hoping that someone is waiting for you, you are expecting a message or you are living through your devices, always distractions.
I have to say that out of 50 days and nights, I only missed the outside world for a few hours.
You spoke with the artist Marina Abramoviç about her experiences of silence. She was in the desert but she heard nothing but noise. Do you think the by-product of silence can be anxiety because we have never experienced true silence before?
Yes absolutely. I like that anecdote from Marina because I think her experience is very common. She went into the desert because she had been longing for silence, she wanted to experience it. She got to a really quiet place and sat down, and of course she had all of this noise in her head even though it was so peaceful around her. I think that is very typical, also if you sit down in a room by yourself tonight trying to feel the silence, you will still be thinking. Usually when we are thinking a lot, it is about the past or the future, and that is noise. So like Marina, you have to learn the hard way – she had to get through all that thinking in order to relax and learn how to appreciate inner silence.
Let’s go back to your childhood, because in the book you talk about being tormented by silence as a young child. I find that an extraordinarily strange thing to remember and to stay with you.
Maybe tormented is too strong a word, but when I would be going to sleep at night, I was the youngest of the children so I had to go to bed earlier and I could still hear some noise, so I couldn’t get to sleep. Time would pass by and it’s not a nice experience to just lay there and wait for sleep to come.
Then, of course, there is the silence when you don’t have anything to do as a child, with no one to play with. I remember my mother telling me that it’s healthy to be bored, but I found it really unhealthy.
But today I have started to agree with my mother. I look at my kids now and they are always doing something so they are never bored in the same way that we were in the 1960s. But they are bored in the sense that they have a poverty of experience because they have too much to do, whereas in the 1960s our poverty of experience was due to having nothing to do. I think it is kind of the same feeling.
Would you say that what your mother told you about boredom has informed the way you live your life? You seem to constantly be searching for new experiences or pursuits, so what is the philosophy behind this drive to always be doing something?
There is no philosophy behind it but I think that it is hard to say why you do something. Life is about fulfilling your potential, and I think that most people underestimate their own possibilities in life.
You mention that you have traveled to all the continents. Do you think that all cultures define silence in different ways?
Absolutely. I am mostly writing from a Western or Norwegian/European perspective, but in Eastern cultures, silence is a much more important thing. If you listen to Japanese people talking it seems to me that the silence in between their words is just as important as the words.
I think what you mention in the book goes for culture as well – there is space and silence in art, music and film, and sometimes those silences are the most profound moments we can experience.
Right. I didn’t write about film, but it is interesting because I read the autobiography of the director Ingmar Bergman, and his ultimate dream was to make silent movies again. He felt that way he could really express what he had in mind. In music, there is a lot of silence in classical music and so people complain that there is no silence in popular music, but that isn’t correct; there is silence in pop music but it is slightly louder.
It’s just like someone making a speech if they know how to use the silence, if you listen to Barack Obama’s speeches on Youtube you can see how he uses silence to capture the audience all the time.
"If someone who died 50 years ago came back today and saw everyone holding their phones like teddy bears, walking up and down the street, they would think we are crazy."
In preparation for this interview, I was looking at this experiment in the US where they had groups of people just staring at each other. They had such a high success rate of marriage after that, it was incredible. Most people would find that idea terrifying, which is strange because it is literally just silence.
This experiment you are talking about was scientific research into what it takes to fall in love. They came up with 36 questions, and you can see them if you search for the 36 Questions That Lead To Love’. They sit them down together and they ask these 36 questions back and forth, and it ends with the couple looking into each other’s eyes, who they have never met before, for 4 minutes. What happened then was that most people fell in love. In fact, most people got married within 6 months after the trial. I actually tried it myself, and it works.
I’m interested to know how a Norwegian explorer became so intrigued by this idea of silence because I thought there was so much silence in your culture already. Am I wrong about that?
No, you’re absolutely right. Where I live, if you walk in one direction for 30 minutes you will find a quiet place. So it is easy to find silence but most people don’t do it. You get up in the morning, go to the office or school and come back home again, cook, watch some TV, check your phone or Google something and 20 minutes later you are still on Google. You end up sitting in your home saying how quickly time passes and that life is too short, but of course it feels short if you live a life like that.
I think this is very common in cities all over the world, so it is not sufficient to have some quiet places close by – you have to find those places. I believe you can find that silence just out on the street or on the runway at Heathrow.
I’m interested in knowing about finding that silence in the distractions of our own culture. Living in London is a terrifying experiences in terms of noise pollution. What are some of the ways in which you think we can limit the amount of noise and distraction in our lives?
My colleague wrote a book a couple of years ago called Norwegian Wood, which became a bestseller in the UK. It’s about Norwegian men mostly, who chop wood, stack it and then burn it through the winter with their family. Of course, the reason most of these men in Norway go out chopping wood is to get away from their family. They get a break for a couple of hours, focusing on one thing. It is the same reason why people knit, play piano or read a book, partly because it is how they experience silence. Sometimes at home I will turn on the music, just to get rid of all the other sounds, and then I can feel it, the silence within.
I think it is important to keep in mind that the silence I experience is different to everyone else’s. When I talk about the silence within, what you meet there is yourself. To meet yourself is one of the toughest things to do in life and that is also why it is so important, because if you get through all the noise then you also let other people slip through. You are running away from yourself.
Throughout history, there has always been this advice to get to know yourself, and I think any advice that lasts for over 1000 years is advice that should be taken seriously.
I don’t believe you need to go and live in a monastery, which you can do if you want, but I think that we are naturally social creatures. Sometimes you just need to have a break.
There are a lot of philosophical references in the book. One of them is Blaise Pascal from the 1600s, and he said something that I love. He said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”.
That’s Pascal’s idea, because we are not willing to sit through the noise in your head. Man cannot stand sitting alone not doing anything. But of course we can, you just have to go to it with the expectation of doing something rather than doing nothing and then you experience the silence. What is interesting is that Pascal saw this problem and wrote about it almost 350 years ago, but in the last 5 years or so we have had so much more noise. If someone who died 50 years ago came back today and saw everyone holding their phones like teddy bears, walking up and down the street, they would think we are crazy. Of course we are crazy.
So there are a lot of people out there searching for nothing, as you say. But in the book you do say that you have searched for absolute silence but never found it, going on to say, “I believe that absolute silence exists more in a dream than in reality”. Maybe explain what that means?
When I started writing, I thought it was possible to find absolute silence.
But, to cut a long story short, I now believe that you will not find a totally silent place. There is this room way underground in the middle of Paris, right by the Pompidou Centre, where there is supposedly no noise at all. So after I finished the book I went there and it was really strange. With no noise, after a while it becomes hard to know which way is up or down etc. But you end up just hearing your heartbeat and your breath, you can almost hear your blood circulating around the body, so even there you have noise.
During your many adventures, did you have any moments where you came close to death?
I think from the outside, if my mother had been watching me, then I would say yes I have come close to death, several times. But when you are there in that moment, I didn’t feel that way, even when I’ve been attacked by a polar bear and have also fallen down a crevasse. But as a consequence of what I was saying earlier about this feeling that you extend into nature, you just relax about what is happening around you and accept it as part of your daily life. I think it’s scarier standing in a taxi rank in Oslo with a lot of drunk people.
Thinking about the future, I read somewhere today that architects in Britain train for 5 years but only spend one day on sound. Do you think that we need to adopt a much more mindful approach to silence?
I think that many people like architects and designers want to have noise. You want a restaurant with good acoustics and to have a system that can play loud music. It’s not because they are stupid, it’s because it brings good business; you want people to come in, to feel cool, eat and drink and then leave after 2 hours. So it makes absolute sense. For architects they need to understand 2 things and those are sound and light.
The visual aspect is also very important?
Yes, there is this very famous museum in Paris, the Louis Vuitton museum that Frank Gehry designed and everyone is crazy about. It’s a great building, but if you look at the light, as an art museum it doesn’t work; it’s more like a warehouse. If you start to build a house you should first imagine the light and how that will influence the space and then go from there.
One of the other things you have done is a walk across LA, which I think is a really original endeavour, as well as walking the sewers of New York. Do you feel that in order for us to find peace of mind and silence we need to plan something that is a bit out of our comfort zone?
Absolutely. This walk in LA was something that almost everybody can do – I just walked from one end of the city to the other for 4 days, walking slowly and staying in hotels on the way. The whole idea was just to see the city from the pavement because in LA hardly anyone walks around.
Didn’t the police stop you?
Yes, they thought it was really suspicious for someone to just be walking around. They said that the only people they saw walking in LA were crackheads, prostitutes, and crazy people.
It was a really interesting trip. We passed the Church of Scientology at the east end of Sunset Boulevard, which I have passed many times in the car but this time I decided to go in. We did one of their personality audits and after 90 minutes they decided that my friends and I had deep personal problems, but they could help.
"When you get to the summit of Mount Everest, at first you are super happy, but after about 2 or 3 minutes the next thought you get is how the hell you are going to get down."
My last question to you would be if you have had any success in teaching your daughters the art of silence?
2 out of 3. Right now they are 15, 18 and 21. I gave them each a copy of the book and the 2 eldest read it, they found it interesting and were very positive about it. They are still on their phones all the time but I think it has had an effect on how they are living their life. I didn’t want to stop them from being connected but maybe just a bit less and to think a bit more. The 15-year-old didn’t get it at all; she started to read it and thought it was a total waste.
I guess critics will always be critics.
All black and white images by © Lars Petter Pettersen
Silence: In the Age of Noise
Carol Haggas
Booklist.
114.5 (Nov. 1, 2017): p4.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Silence: In the Age of Noise.
By Erling Kagge. Tr. by Becky L. Crook.
Dec. 2017.160p. illus. Pantheon, $19.95 (97815247332301.152.1.
In an increasingly cacophonous world, finding pockets of silence is nearly impossible. Background music is
ubiquitous; pings and rings from phones interrupt family dinners; and trains, planes, and automobiles
provide constant surround sound. For world-renowned adventurer Kagge, silence is not only essential for
his solitary pursuits of the world's most inaccessible places but it is the impetus for those treks. Relying on
his own experiences and appreciating the wisdom of great philosophers, Kagge analyzes three basic
questions: What is silence? Where can it be experienced? Why is it important? Through 33 searing and
soaring essays, Kagge endeavors to find the answers. For Kagge, silence is more than the absence of sound:
it is the incubator for thought, the conscious eradication of external distraction, and the ability to live in
one's own mind as fully as one lives in the physical world. Infused with powerfully evocative art and
photographs that enhance his salient concepts, Kagge's treatise on this endangered commodity provides an
intriguing meditation for mindful readers.--Carol Haggas
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Haggas, Carol. "Silence: In the Age of Noise." Booklist, 1 Nov. 2017, p. 4. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A515382851/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f273ae6f.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
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Kagge , Erling: SILENCE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Oct. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Kagge , Erling SILENCE Pantheon (Adult Nonfiction) $19.95 12, 5 ISBN: 978-1-5247-3323-0
A slender investigation into the idea of silence and its importance to those who dwell in the ceaseless noise
of the modern world.
Norwegian explorer and publisher Kagge (A Poor Collector's Guide to Buying Great Art, 2015, etc.), the
first person to reach all of the Earth's "three poles"--the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of
Mount Everest--should be an expert on silence; he once spent more than 50 days trekking alone, without
radio contact, to the South Pole in Antarctica, "the quietest place I've ever been." A dinner conversation
with his family and a lecture on the topic provided the author with the impulse to write this book, which
consists of 33 attempts to answer a series of questions: "What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more
important now than ever?" Drawing from his personal experiences, as well as conversations with artists,
poets, athletes, philosophers, and musicians, Kagge challenges readers to grapple with the concept, inside of
which, he contends, "the world's secrets are hidden." Interspersed with the short chapters are images,
including photographs taken by the author during his expeditions and works by artists including Ed Ruscha
and Catherine Opie. Despite its philosophical nature, the book is aimed at a general readership, and,
befitting the subject matter, the narrative has a meditative quality. Kagge explores his subject from many
different angles--not simply as the absence of sound but as a matter of human perception, a force both
external and internal. Though they contain no startling revelations, his reflections provide a thoughtful
approach to a topic of import to many who live in "the age of noise."
An eloquent and persuasive argument for the significance of silence, in all of its forms, from an author who
has explored the limits of the human experience.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Kagge , Erling: SILENCE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509243926/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=46c0b4c7.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509243926
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Silence: In the Age of Noise
Publishers Weekly.
264.24 (June 12, 2017): p51.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Silence: In the Age of Noise
Erling Kagge, trans, from the Norwegian by Becky L. Crook. Pantheon, $19.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN
978-1-524-73323-0
Kagge (Under Manhattan), an explorer and publisher, provides 33 answers to three linked questions he
poses to himself--"What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more important now than ever?"--in short,
meditative essays. The book expands the concepts of silence and noise beyond their aural definitions and
engages with modern culture's information overload, need for constant connection, and cult of busyness.
Kagge draws on his experiences as an explorer, including a solo sojourn to the South Pole and a climb up
the Williamsburg Bridge, and on more mundane experiences such as his daily commute. He also takes
inspiration from famous people as various as Seneca, Kierkegaard, Elon Musk, and Rihanna. An
intentionally scattershot bibliography ("an attempt at listing those sources I can easily recall") may frustrate
those wishing to read further. Kagge writes accessibly and economically, supplementing the text with the
occasional inclusion of art and photographs. He raises some intriguing ideas--regarding, for example,
inequities in access to silence and the concept of silence as a luxury--that could benefit from more
examination, but the format requires that he provide only minimal analysis. Great pleasure lies in Kagge's
creative investigations. The reader leaves more mindful of the swirl of distraction present in everyday life.
(Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Silence: In the Age of Noise." Publishers Weekly, 12 June 2017, p. 51. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495720693/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9d9fbad9.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495720693
Review: 'Silence in the Age of Noise,' by Erling Kagge, translated from the Norwegian by Becky L. Crook
NONFICTION: A Norwegian explorer and publisher muses upon the benefits of silence in today's rushed and urban social-media era.
By MICHAEL MAGRAS Special to the Star Tribune DECEMBER 29, 2017 — 7:41AM
Author/explorer Erling Kagge at the Louis Valentino Jr. Park and Pier in New York City. George Etheredge • New York Times
GEORGE ETHEREDGE • NEW YORK TIMES
Author/explorer Erling Kagge at the Louis Valentino Jr. Park and Pier in New York City. George Etheredge • New York Times
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As any fan of his work will tell you, the prolonged silences in Harold Pinter’s plays reveal as much about his characters as the dialogue they exchange. In everyday life, silence usually isn’t that foreboding, but it can be just as revelatory. And as complex: The same stillness that offers solace from the relentless whirl of daily distractions can also be a tormentor when one has trouble falling asleep.
Erling Kagge, a Norwegian explorer and publisher, discovered decades ago that he has “a primal need for silence.” He examines this need and its many manifestations in “Silence: In the Age of Noise.”
His obsession began when, after he gave a lecture in Scotland on the importance of silence, he went to a pub with some students. The three questions they most wanted him to address form the basis of this book: “What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more important now than ever?”
In 33 short chapters, he recounts the extremes he has gone to in search of answers. The first person ever to walk alone on the South Pole, he spent 50 days in Antarctica and found not the flat uniformity he had anticipated but “countless shades of white.” The trip taught him to “value minuscule joys. The nuanced hues of the snow. The wind abating. Formations of clouds. Silence.”
From the North Pole and the summit of Mount Everest to Sri Lanka and the coast of Chile, Kagge investigates the wonder and mystery of silence. He writes in a chatty, accessible style and with a healthy dose of humor, even when discussing philosophical subjects. When he cites Heidegger’s contention that one grows nearer to others through truth rather than technology, Kagge writes, “Having tried my hand at internet dating, I am inclined to agree with Heidegger.”
This volume also includes photographs from Kagge’s travels and reproductions of Ed Ruscha paintings, including works that set the words NOISE and SPACE in thick yellow lettering against a deep blue background. The paintings are brilliant, but their incorporation here is a too obvious way to emphasize points that Kagge makes with more elegance in his prose.
“Silence in the Age of Noise” by Erling Kagge
“Silence in the Age of Noise” by Erling Kagge
“Silence” may not be groundbreaking, but it still offers thoughtful meditations on the importance of “pausing to breathe deeply, shut out the world and use the time to experience ourselves.” You don’t have to go all the way to Sri Lanka to find silence, Kagge writes; “you can experience it in your bathtub.” The important thing, he argues, is to seek out those contemplative moments and pay attention to their message.
“That which is vital, which is unique, is already within you,” Kagge writes. The trick is to pause long enough to hear it.
Michael Magras is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. His work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Newsday.
Silence: In the Age of Noise
By: Erling Kagge, translated from the Norwegian by Becky L. Crook.
Publisher: Pantheon, 143 pages, $19.95.
Review: Erling Kagge, a Man in Search of ‘Silence’
The Norwegian explorer’s solo trek to the South Pole in 1993—without a working radio—convinced him of the need to block out the noise sometimes. Sara Wheeler reviews ‘Silence’ by Erling Kagge.
Review: Erling Kagge, a Man in Search of ‘Silence’
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
By Sara Wheeler
Dec. 21, 2017 6:30 p.m. ET
3 COMMENTS
Twenty-five years ago, the Norwegian adventurer Erling Kagge trekked solo across Antarctica without a radio (actually, the aviation company that flew him to the coast insisted that he take one, and he did—but he dumped the batteries in the plane’s trash bin). The experience of being alone for 50 days inspired this book: a meditation on the need for, and meaning of, silence.
As the subtitle (“In the Age of Noise”) indicates, the notion of cultivating silence is mightily unfashionable as well as hard to achieve. Mr. Kagge began by asking himself the questions: “What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more important now than ever?” He reckons that he came up with 33 “attempts at answering them.”
Mr. Kagge has skied to the North Pole as well as its southern counterpart, summited Everest, and sailed across the Atlantic and back. He once did some urban exploring in New York City, sneaking to the top of the Williamsburg Bridge in the dark. He is a lawyer, a serious art collector and a distinguished publisher (his own house brought the book out in Norway). His previous six books include tomes on exploration and art collecting.
Review: Erling Kagge, a Man in Search of ‘Silence’
PHOTO: WSJ
SILENCE
By Erling Kagge
Pantheon, 144 pages, $19.95
He admits that he is as ready as the rest of us to busy himself “with this or that, avoiding the silence.” He also acknowledges the “fear of getting to know ourselves better.” But he argues that it is important to train the mind to hear silence. In the Antarctic, he writes, “the quieter I became, the more I heard.” He recognizes, too, that the next hardest challenge, after walking to the South Pole, is “to be at peace with yourself.” He is optimistic, despite the chaos that reigns. “I believe,” he writes, “it’s possible for everyone to discover this silence within themselves.”
He quotes contemplative wisdom from a variety of sources, from the rock band Depeche Mode to the 19th-century French novelist Stendhal (these two just a few lines apart). Mr. Kagge also cites scientific studies in which subjects were left alone with no external stimuli. In one such, a joint venture between the University of Virginia and Harvard, “nearly half of the subjects eventually pushed on the button to administer an electrical shock in order to reduce their silent time.”
“Silence” (fluently translated by Becky L. Crook ) is a slim volume at 144 pages, with a biggish font and lots of white space, and it is as much object as book, something to be handled and savored. It is illustrated with photographs and paintings, many of the polar regions and all conjuring silence, if an image can (which it can); the production qualities are superb. Mr. Kagge is especially interested in visual representations of his subject. “The most powerful scream that I have ever experienced,” he writes, “is one that is void of sound: The Scream by Edvard Munch. ” Other practitioners referenced include the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović, who famously sat for 736 hours at New York’s Museum of Modern Art peering at visitors in silence.
The author has a sense of humor. “Having tried my hand at internet dating,” he says, “I am inclined to agree with Heidegger, ” the philosopher having said that in order to achieve nearness, we must relate to the truth, not to technology. Mr. Kagge is also not afraid to dive into contemporary culture: There is a section on “the drop,” the pause near the beginning of a pop song when, after an introductory buildup, silence occurs before the main event.
There are truisms (“silence is an experience that can be had for free”), and many of the sentiments are not original. That doesn’t matter, but it might have been acknowledged. For example, Mr. Kagge ends his book with “You have to find your own South Pole.” A lot of people have said that. Shackleton, for example, the polar explorer, said, “We all have our own White South,” and Thomas Pynchon, who didn’t go anywhere near the South Pole, wrote in his novel “V.”: “You wait. Everyone has an Antarctic.” Sara Maitland’s 2008 “A Book of Silence” also champions the countercultural notion that silence is more than an absence of noise, though, unlike Mr. Kagge, she emphasizes the role of prayer. Curiously, both authors cite Rothko as a master of the pictorial representation of silence.
A little of the sanctimony in these pages rings hollow. After retailing an interview with Elon Musk, Mr. Kagge says: “I am not so stupid as to compare myself to Elon Musk. However, when I look back on my time as a publisher, the only unusual thing I have done, on a completely different scale to Musk, was to stand uninterrupted at the kitchen sink and raise a few questions about sanctioned truths.”
As a publisher, Mr. Kagge has learned that it is possible to sell hundreds of thousands of books “about knitting, brewing beer and stacking wood” and links this fact, plausibly enough, to “a desire to return to something basic, authentic, and to find peace, to experience a small, quiet alternative to the din.” He discusses the craze, among the wealthy, for relaxation retreats where silence is on the menu (he did a yoga version himself, in Sri Lanka). He also taught himself hypnosis, “in order to disconnect. . . . I lie there hovering a couple of centimetres above my bed each afternoon.”
I too remember crunching over ice at the South Pole—though I had not walked there like the author—and thinking about the ethereal quality of silence that the owned world cannot give (no country owns the Antarctic). Erling Kagge captures that wonder on the page.
Ms. Wheeler is the author, most recently, of “O My America! Six Women and Their Second Acts in a New World.”
Appeared in the December 22, 2017, print edition as 'Quiet, Everybody.'