I finished Having and Being Had by Eula Biss earlier this weekend. Biss tries to walk through her ascent from starving artist to gardening homeowner, her discomfort at the tension between her egalitarian principles and the comfortable space she has created for her life and work.

It’s short, with some wistful and ironic witticisms from the author mixed with generous quotations of David Graeber, Binyamin Appelbaum, Alison Light, and others. Biss precisely defines similar words (splitting the hairs between labor, toil, and work) and identifying the metaphors or euphemisms (the “Opulence White” she considers painting a room, the possible double meanings of “aggressive investing”) we use to avoid thinking about them more closely.

It felt like I was reading an alternate universe version of How To Do Nothing, not only because they both star Mierle Ukeles as a prime example of work and systems re-examined, but also because it was unsatisfying, half of a meal. When writing about what she finds displeasing about driving cars, Biss writes:

Cars make you stupid, in the way wealth makes you stupid. In the way any sort of power makes you stupid, really. And it is this, my own stupidity, that I dislike most about driving.

For her, there is nothing to be done but sit with the discomfort and feel better for knowing we feel it. I’d read more Graeber for solutions.