The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo – Loy Machedo’s Book Review
There are some books which are incredibly powerful, unbelievably influential and truly life changing. These books become best-sellers & timeless classics. And I am constantly on the lookout for such books.
And in my quest to dig out yet another treasure – I bumped into this book, aptly titled “the Japanese Sensation selling 1.5 Million Copies”.Well – I suppose you do not need any more praise or recommendation for a book than that title – being a 1.5 Million copies best seller.
However, after buying the book and reading through its pages – the thought that came to my mind was…..seriously – what the fuck is all this crap?
The author Marie Kondo as a human being I am pretty sure is an incredible person. I have watched a few videos of her on YouTube and can tell you without a doubt – she looks like a very sweet and genuine individual. But where it comes to being a writer who pens her thoughts on to a book – let me tell you – she sucks at it big time. And by that I mean specifically when it comes to her philosophy where cleanliness, keeping tidy & keeping things in order is concerned – You will start getting the feeling that either she is a Paranoid suffering from Anthropomorphism with hardcore OCD or someone with serious mental & emotional problems.
Let me make you understand why do I land up with such harsh judgements.
Keep your house tidy
Remove whatever you do not need
Throw away whatever doesn’t add value to your life
Now this I can understand.
However, what I cannot understand is when she goes into extreme detail on identifying and dividing & sub-dividing clothes based on category & subcategories to the point where she elaborates THE SAME MANTRA in the 200 pages of this book. And I am not joking or exaggerating when I say that she keeps repeating the SAME mantra again and again and again through ALL the 200 pages.
She gives too many examples of herself and her clients having the SAME problem over and over again and then the she gives the SAME solution again and then repeats herself with the SAME solution over and over again. Oh yes, and did I mention she also lectures you with the SAME philosophy?
I mean you can read it once.
You can read it twice.
You can read it three times.
But after that – how many more times would you like to read the same thing again and again?
There are some bits in the book that seriously make no sense – like
The authors recommendation of getting rid of all your books,
There is one that states where you have to touch your clothes, feel them, kajol them and feel ‘one’ with them and
Yes, the bit where you have to bow down and worship the house before you enter it.
I’m sure this must be a practice in some countries but the author goes all extreme with her nonsense. Oh yes, and did I mention that you should only keep those clothes that “Spark Joy” in your life?
The author also has this ridiculous habit where all your clothes must be thrown on to the floor. And you should pick them up one by one, feel one with them, give them the care, the love and respect the clothing deservesAnd only after you have this kind of pseudo-mental-emotional connection – then and only then you should place it with love, respect and veneration of being placed in its proper place.
My only problem with this approach is – seriously who has time for this shit?
In fact one of the lines taken from her book states the following “She insists that you must give your socks room to breathe after they have had a hard day’s work on your feet (after thanking them kindly for their service, of course.)” Look at them carefully. This should be a time for them to rest. Do you really think they can get any rest like that? And it makes your stockings much happier, too.
Yup….. thats what I need to know.
The major problem with this book is that it stops trying make this possible and takes into the weird zone of being a mental case.
Other problems with this book:
There are no pictures on how to keep things clean or tidy or how to fold clothes
Whatever she has stated – the information you can get it from the internet
There is nothing revolutionary about what she has stated.
There is way-way-way too much fluff is everything she has stated
Her 200 pages with over 50 chapters could have been summarized into 1 to 2 pages as nothing she stated later offered anything new
Marie Kondo likes anthropomorphism – she likes to thank her stuff for giving her joy, she likes to greet her stuff, she loves to ‘feel’ her stuff and be gentle with them when folding them, she wants to ensure that her stuff can ‘breathe’ after being folded…. You know all the cuckoo stuff.
Personally, I found the thin line between mysticism, magic & madness totally nonexistent. So unless you are ready to become a nutjob with some serious personality issues – I wouldn’t recommend this book at all. This is a book that is written by someone with serious personality issues who believes going to the ultra-unhealthy-extreme is the key to joy and happiness.
In fact she herself admits in her book where she tells about having to be taken to the hospital via ambulance because of activities tidying up at a client’s house the day before. She claims with seeming pride that she “must be the only patient to ever have ‘too much tidying’ written on her medical record.” I think she missed the vital clue – she suffers from mental & psychological issues and seriously needs to visit a psychiatrist for her current psychological behavior.
Overall, a totally fucked up book that will waste your time, your money and scramble your brains for no rhyme or reason. A waste of time and another joke of a book that considers itself to be a “best-seller’.
