Book Review-The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery By Adam Gopnik

I have been a longtime fan of Adam Gopnik’s writing and reporting for as long as I have been  a regular reader of the New Yorker magazine. His self-deprecating sense of humor and philosophical slant to his writing makes the stories not only enjoyable but also thought provoking. He has a style that is well thought out, erudite, and unforced.

I was drawn to his book as I have been interested in mastery for a long time, particularly the stories of people who have worked diligently towards achieving mastery; I am curious about their struggles with the process of achieving mastery, the lessons that they have learned about themselves, the nature of the process, and the demands working towards mastery places on their cognition, patience, and resilience.

The word mastery has been used and abused in the recent years because it has become the part of the lexicon for the quickie How-To business book industry, it has been metamorphosed into  a trite caricature by pretenders. Once the business book writing cabal find a hot popular topic such as mastery, the phrase is repeated ad infinitum by all the other members of the cabal. Every business book author ceaselessly repeats mastery as a mantra, but it is obvious that they are only interested in the shallow and superficial aspects of what it takes to achieve mastery. They tend to dig into the results of mastery rather than the hard intellectual and physical work necessary to achieve mastery. Since I am familiar with Gopnik’s previous work,  I knew that I could trust Gopnik to get beyond the superficial and trite to get deep into mastery.

The book occupies a much larger landscape than I expected. In fact, it is broader, was more introspective, and much more internal than what I had expected. I would say that the book both exceeded and expanded my expectations.  The coverage was more expansive while also was not fearful about being abstract.  

The book is, as expected,  full of philosophical digressions, which is why I love reading Gopnik. The subtitle of the book is the Mystery of Mastery. What is the mystery? Why is the idea of achieving mastery so mysterious?

The organization of the book interspersed the seven mysteries of mastery amongst the chapters devoted to the topics that Gopnik investigated and worked at to attain mastery. Obviously, he was not able to achieve mastery in all of the topics he investigated, but his willingness to jump into the process of learning and working towards mastery gave us a strong perspective on those things that he had to fight through to even get close to the edge of mastery.

The seven mysteries are:

·       Performance

·       Identity and Intention

·       Interiority

·       Meaning

·       Late Style

·       The Act Itself

·       And the Resolve.

Those chapters are illustrated through topics of investigation that Gopnik attempted:

·       Drawing

·       Magic

·       Driving

·       Baking

·       Boxing and Dancing

There is also an additional chapter that is devoted to a topic that is not about a skill or an action but a personal topic, which at first made me uneasy at first, but that was Gopnik’s intention. The personal topic is relieving. It took an act of courage for Gopnik to discuss this particular topic, and I appreciate his bravery and honesty. This chapter is a dive into gaining mastery over something that is personal and internal, it is a necessity for him rather than a choice that he made as a luxury.

Three topics drew my interest the most, although I learned something from each topic. Magic, Boxing, and Dancing were topics that I felt most comfortable with, for whatever reason. Magic stands out in this book because this seemed to be the center of why Gopnik dove in to investigate the topic of mastery. He delved into the history of magic and the mystique that had grown up through the years around performing magic. He also told stories about magicians, historical and present-day performers, digging into why they work so hard at their performances and what drew them into its grips. He investigates the motivations behind some of the biggest names in present day magic and tries to answer the question about their obsessions . The digressions into the history of magic was not really a digression per se, but a history lesson that gives context to the present-day magic scene and magicians.

Gopnik’s story telling ability pulled me into the details of the topics, no matter how mundane I felt the topics were, he has a way of looking at the different facets of the most normal and ordinary tasks and giving insight. The interspersing of the Mysteries of Mastery chapters perfectly complemented the stories and gave meaning to the stories and framed the mysteries through the context of each topic.

I have made a list of the mysteries in my Commonplace book to contemplate and to force myself to think in those terms. Perhaps I am making more out of Gopnik’s views of  mastery, yet I am willing to wager that I am not overthinking his mysteries. Regardless, I will be stimulated and entertained.