The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering

What an incredible book.Interestingly, I feel that I was drawn to this book. I was talking to my girlfriend about this idea that we are constantly emitting some form of energy that is always seeking things that we align with. Almost like echo-location or something, and when, as eventually it must, this energy reflects back off of something and hits you again, you react. You feel it. Your reaction might be subliminal. It might be a small intuition that draws you to something, without having any clear idea as to why. And that’s what I think happened with The Scent of Time. Because reading it... so many of the ideas Han presents here were overlapping with other areas of my life. Other work that I’m doing. The overlap was of some variety that felt synergistic, and beyond coincidence. I guess, sometimes, we just encounter things at the right time. To the extent that the overlap creates a greater whole, and leads to holistic change. That's the hope anyway.And so Byung-Chul Han's essay on time felt important to me, on many levels. It challenged me intellectually, in a way that no book has done in a long time. It challenged me emotionally, as I began to sink into Han's viewpoint and became aware of the myriad ways in which I am stuck in a life of frantic activity. Ultimately, it felt intensely meaningful. The type of meaning that hums and deepens into itself. Maybe the kind of meaning that becomes being.Certainly The Scent of Time is a book that I feel I should return to several times. It's a book that I want to return to several times. Not just for valuable reminders, but to uncover more. To maintain a temporal gravitation fitting of the text and to break from a life that can (by design, in this era) become a series of point-like activities, stripped of duration, and meaning.So thank you, Byung-Chul Han… For thinking. For contemplating. And for allowing me to linger in these pages. For reminding me of the vastness hiding in a moment's hesitation.

Insightful about the dangers of our fast paced modern times and the type of societies that birth from it.

This is essentially a book about the late Heidegger. To that end, it’s great. Though I do think Han’s reading of Arendt is a bit unfair (hence the removal of a star).

The written was a little complex at first but is very insightfulTotally worth it, will definitely check out more books from this author and the quoted ones mentioned along the book

...do yourself a favor

The author read my anxiety and gave me philosophical therapy. Worth the price of his book.

Frankly disappointed. I had high expectations at the beginning, but as I went along they faded away.The writing is extremely convoluted (even though I studied philosophy) and there is no clear thread running through the text. It has sparks of genius at times but that is not enough to sustain the reading and develop the argument. Very repetitive, the author goes back and forth all the time on the same ideas, without offering new and attractive perspectives. Even if one agrees with his central thesis, it seems to me that the book fails to develop it and bring it to a close.

When I say mysticism, I don't mean it as a compliment. The author seems to rely on obscure language, needlessly complex phrasing, and way too many references other thinkers to make the narrative seem more profound than is warranted by its premises. The ideas are good, but they are not original and can be made much more accessible with clearer writing. This book seems to try to appeal for people who believe that "if it uses long words and quotes famous thinkers I don't completely understand, it must be deep."