Cigarette Lighter
by Jack Pendarvis
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Pub Date 28 Jan 2016 | Archive Date 10 May 2016
Description
Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors…. The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem at first a niche object-only for old fashioned cigarette smokers-in this book Jack Pendarvis explodes the lighter as something with deep history, as something with quirky episodes in cultural contexts, and as something that dances with wide ranging taboos and traditions. Pendarvis shows how the lighter tarries with the cheapest ends of consumer culture as much as it displays more profound dramas of human survival, technological advances, and aesthetics.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic
Advance Praise
“I didn't realize how much I needed this book. It brought back terrible memories of an uncle dead in Vietnam, nothing but his Zippos to imagine him by, and the beautiful boy who broke my heart, leaving me with a carpenter pencil and a tiny lighter I could hang from my keychain (though I never did; that would have been much too painful). And that's just the start! Cigarette Lighter is worth it for the index alone, but there's so much more. Like this gem: 'Your cigarette lighter represents your soul, so you get drunk and give it away to your pal, or your pal steals it without compunction. Either way, you can't hang onto it forever.' Ah, such is life.” – Mary Miller, author of The Last Days of California
“This book is a Zippo fueled by the remarkable mind of Jack Pendarvis. A blend of histories-movies and TV, war and cars-Cigarette Lighter is so good I took up smoking.” – Chris Offutt, author of My Father, the Pornographer
“Cleverly disguising itself as a Rabelaisian account of the cigarette lighter in our films and in our lives, this raucous object lesson takes as its real subject, the indefatigable Ted Ballard-octogenarian, curator of the former National Lighter Museum in Guthrie, Oklahoma, collector, misanthrope, raconteur, and consummate charmer-and becomes, in the end, a sly meditation on impermanence, wherein, in the words of Jack Pendarvis, the lighter finds out what the match already knows.” – Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shiftedf
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781501307362 |
| PRICE | US$16.95 (USD) |
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Featured Reviews
Reviewer 153322
Impressionistic social history of cigarette lighters, from guns repurposed as lighters, the classy aura of gold Dunhills, the military souvenir value of Zippos, gestures of cigarette lighting in books and movies (and the intimacy implied by eschewing a lighter and going cigarette to cigarette) to the decline of American lighters in tandem with smoking decreasing.
Caroline W, Reviewer
Wow! This book was so very different from anything I have read before. A story of life,culture , films all brought together through an everyday object. It is written with a dark and incredibly sharp humour. The author references the film Coffee & Cigarettes & this book reminded me of the film in many ways. such as the atmosphere of the film and it's sharp wit..
I actually laughed aloud at parts of the book. The author mentions his connection to children's cartoon Adventure Time and it is very easy to see the connection. Both are hilarious. I really would recommend this book although I do appreciate it might not be for everyone.
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