Better Off

It's a happy coincidence that I picked up my roommate's copy of Better Off, Eric Brende's account of a year without (much) technology, just after finishing More Information Than You Require, which early on in listing Hodgman's related titles claims that he has written a book entitled My Stunt Memoir Year: The True Story of a Man Who Spent 365 Days Writing a Memoir To See What Would Happen (It Made Him Fat and Rich!)

It's a format that is by now (in the wake of the I've-yet-to-read-'em Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All, among others) pretty familiar: author has certain beliefs or curiosities, decides to indulge them via a Wacky Scheme that will take about a year, chronicles the effort and walks away with new and deepened understanding of what he thought he knew going in. And presumably lands a big publishing deal about 40 pages after the narrative ends.

It's easy to be a little skeptical of such works, particularly something like Better Off, which approaches its niche ideology (an aversion to modern technology) from a fairly full-fledged, idealistic place. Brende, at the piece's start, is at MIT for grad school and deeply suspicious as to whether or not technology assists its users -- he recounts his father's free time disappearing when he gets a word processor to help speed his writing work, discusses the ways in which he is driven to work 60 hour weeks to support a car that he needs in order to get to the job at which he has to work 60 hours a week in order to pay for the car that etc. etc.

The hook comes when Brende hits upon the idea of joining a Menonite community. Having poked around at the idea (and being disappointed that most Amish communities allow their members to "lease" cars instead of "owning" them, and in various other ways obey the letter of their restrictions while still using modern technology), Brende finds a sect that refuses to use any piece of equipment containing a motor. And for the next year, he lives among them, renting farmland and growing crops, raising barns and caring for livestock, attending Menonite services, bartering his goods in town, etc.

It's primarily interesting as a document of this society -- Brende is ardently opposed to most "helpful" technology, so it's not surprising to see him documenting the many ways in which he finds he has more free time when he's simply plowing a field so that he can feed himself and his wife. Instead, it's interesting to see him get a sense for the nuance of humor among the Menonites, to track the diverse origin points of members of the community, and to observe the ways in which they have found simple ways to remain largely autonomous.

As the book progresses, it gets somewhat less interesting -- when his wife gets pregnant, much of the book focuses on their experiences in childbirth and planning for a family, and as the narrative grows more personal and less sociological, it's less unique and frankly less compelling. But there's some interesting writing and thought here, a glimpse at a community whose firm adherence to a withdrawl from modern society and technology looks incredibly tempting in many ways.