Waiting for the Weekend

Discusses the origin of the week, the observance of the Sabbath, and the development of the weekend, describes weekend behavior, and examines the modern preoccupation with leisure time

Rybczynski ( Home ) traces the evolution of the seven-day week back to the Babylonian calendar and, more recently, to the Great Depression, when the two-day weekend became institutionalized in the U.S., with shorter work hours viewed as an antidote to unemployment. The common 19th-century European practice of "keeping Saint Monday," or not working on Monday, paved the way for the modern weekend, which the author sees as a reflection of our mechanized culture: "We want the freedom to be leisurely, but we want it regularly . . . like clockwork." In an enchanting, strikingly profound meditation on the relationship between leisure and labor, Rybczynski investigates holy days, precursors of modern holidays, and sketches a social history of reading, TV-watching and gardening. His beautifully written book is full of interesting tidbits: the Japanese language has no word for leisure; 22 million Americans work more than 49 hours a week.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A kind of observing philosopher of the domestic, Rybczynski (an architect by profession: The Most Beautiful House in the World, 1989, etc.) here takes a look at time, work, leisure, and recreation--and at that entirely man-made phenomenon, the weekend. What might seem obvious is hardly so in Rybczynski's hands. There ``never has been a human society that did not recognize the need for regular days off,'' he tells us, and from there delves into an entertaining history of that ancient ``man-made'' interval known as the week (``What does the week measure? Nothing''), from there into the more modern history of what we call the ``weekend'' (it was born in England, in the 19th century), and from there into the study of what ``leisure'' has been in ages gone by, and of what it seems to have become today. With immense learnedness but an equivalent lightness and grace, Rybczynski touches, among other things, on the history of drinking, gardening, marketing, of stamp collecting and the use of country houses (including Pliny the Elder's), even on the history of reading and, more recently, of TV watching (``a poor sort of leisure''). All may not be entirely well just now with our own uses and understanding of either recreation or leisure, Rybczynski hints, particularly as we try too hard, through them, to compensate for a decline in the meaningfulness of work--but even here he remains equable and guardedly optimistic. Forfeiting the stronger narrative pull of The Most Beautiful House in the World (where a house, after all, was dreamed of, planned, and built), Rybczynski nevertheless offers a companionable ramble along a winding pathway of cultural history in a quiet and thinking book, a kind of intellectual browse that's--well, perfect for a leisurely weekend's reading. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In the form of a long, extended essay, the author discusses the emergence of the two-day weekend from the 19th century to the present. Successive chapters trace the historical origins of the week; days of rest throughout history; sacred and secular time; the boundary between leisure and work; the nature of leisure; the make-believe world of weekend retreats; controversy over the purpose of leisure; the present reorganization and standardization of work throughout the modern world, in which leisure now fulfills unmet work needs; and differences in national attitudes to leisure. The author draws on the works of Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, Jane Austen, Lewis Mumford, and others. This witty, readable, well-researched study with extensive notes and suggestions for further reading is certain to stimulate thinking. Recommended for general collections as well as history, sociology, business, and urban studies. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/91.
- Lesley Jorbin, Cleveland State Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.