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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello, and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher. And I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Adam Getze about a book he's just published with Bloomsbury in 2026, part of the Object Lesson series. And this object is one that I think is going to be close to, well, literally close to the hearts, but because they're on our faces, glasses. Millions and millions of people, I admit, myself included, wear glasses all the time. And that has a lot of implications. They fill, obviously a functional use, but they're on our faces. So there's a whole bunch of other ways that glasses have influenced all sorts of things. Science, tech, but also popular culture, film, our perceptions of ourselves. This one object has a ton of things bound up in it. So I, I think we're going to have quite an intriguing conversation about it. Adam, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [01:01]
B
Oh, thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
- [01:04]
A
Could you start us off, please, by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write an Object Lessons book and why about glasses?
- [01:11]
B
So I'm an academic and I'm an artist, visual artist and a writer. So two prongs, and that's what I do. And I publish books in the areas of fashion, identity, art and culture. The Object Lessons is just, well, it is a landmark series in terms of its format and very clean, very simple, and has now I'm very, very proud to be part of an eminent lineup, but some very interesting academics, writers, journalists, bloggers and stuff so on. And I was struck by the series several years ago and I did a proposal for them for paint, and they said it was great, but I kind of got second best. I didn't get over the line. I did subsequently turn that into a book, which is also through Bloomsbury, and I broadened it out and made it more philosophical. Called, it's called the Phenomenology of Painting, but I won't go into it there. But then I thought, look. Then I saw the ads again in the New York Review of Books, which I've subscribed to for my sins for well over 35 years. And I thought, geez, you know, glass half full, glass half empty. And I, I scoured the their site and they hadn't done glasses. And one of the things, as you know, is sometimes the best ideas are the ones hiding in plain sight. Know why this is. This is sort of the most obvious. And even my eldest Son said gee dad, it's like say sometimes the best ideas are the ones that you know are hanging, are the lowest hanging fruit. So I did a proposal. It was of a different tenor from what I did before. There is a sort of a fictocritical component to it which I'm not always a huge fan of but because I think if you can't do it well, it's done very badly. But I also used as a challenge to move into different genres and they always seemed very interested in it. And so I also did it because. Well, I was diagnosed with. Well, I had problems with turns in my eyes when I was 4. That's narrated in the book. I had glasses very, very early on. Now let me just say this from the very beginning this is, and I think I mentioned this in the book there are kind of sad stories about my life and others but it's definitely not a boo hoo book. I am not bitter, not sad, not anything. I'm glad to have gone through those experiences. But as a lad I had poor coordination. The glasses situation sort of nerdified me. I guess I was the last to be chosen for the Socrate, you know, and sort of laughed at and so on. So there was a sort of a pathology there. I mean I had to have surgery done on both eyes because I had turns in them. I talk about that, about the viewfinder of the Fisher Price which people I'm showing my age will know about which is first kind of mechanical virtual VR. And then this was. This happened when I was three and a half and then I got these terrible turns in my eyes and I had to operations and then I had glasses from there on and then, and then in my teens of course and. And in Australia the summers can be diabolical and of course you've got kind of pimply faces and that makes you face even more pimply, doesn't it? Be greasy nose and everything. And being conscious of your looks as a teenager and so on. And I just decided to jettison them. I just decided this is at about 18. And I remember I used to have checkups every twice a year. It was this kind of ritual. And then the ophthalmologists saw there was an improvement in my eyes. He couldn't believe it. Well, there's one for everyone is to give it a go and not obey, obey all the time. And it was only until, I guess until my mid-40s that I resumed having glasses. So there was this kind of hiatus of kind of being glasses free which I Think is this kind of, you know, it's a little bit like Siddhartha or something going out and then coming back into the fold or something glasses wise. So I had this kind of this childhood, let's call it, it was troubled. And then I was kind of glasses free and then I'm back onto this sort of middle aged grind where I have my, my pharmacy glasses. I've got sort of one, two pairs downstairs and two pairs upstairs, one in my work bag and so on.
- [06:07]
A
So a whole journey that you've been on that as you said, is kind of threaded throughout the book because it opens up a ton of things for us to discuss. Obviously relevant to your experience, but I think relevant to a lot of people's experience.
- [06:19]
B
I didn't want it to be. It's a boohoo book, but I wanted to let them know there is a pathology there, there's real experience there. But at the same time, you know, it has to have a light touch and it's not, it really is not about me. I just wanted to know them, to know that I have some authority because I know what it's like to wear these on my nose, to have them. I mean there's this one anecdote there which, which I recount which is about real sort of pathological prosthesis if you like, if you. Where, where I, I ran across the road as, as a schoolboy does. Impatient idiot. And the, the glasses fell out of my bag and I immediately as like a kind of. Well, this is similar to what people do I guess with their phones now as an extension of the body. I lunged to get them. I was, it was a, it was a six lane highway, three each way. I lunged to get them. Bang, it turned and the car just smashed the glasses. And the glasses in effect saved me because. But it was this immediate reflex and I had this. I'll never forget that moment because I realized how bound I was to these things.
- [07:27]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely something a lot of us with glasses can relate to. You know, the just kind of reflex aspect of it. But I think something else that you mentioned I want to pick up on, which is the sort of how other people who maybe aren't wearing glasses perceive those who are. Especially when we're talking about kind of the formative years of self image in kind of childhood, in teenage years, that sort of thing. And that has I think a lot of influence when we talk and you do in the book about kind of Hollywood and media portrayals of glasses. But I Want to sort of unpick, I suppose, a little bit of that because the assumption sort of is like, oh, well, Hollywood traditionally makes nerds wear glasses, but like, did Hollywood make that up before we have Hollywood before the 20th century? What sorts of meanings did the visual of someone wearing glasses have?
- [08:19]
B
I think I like that question. I think I would have to say that I think Hollywood had a lot of play in that because I'm a great fan also of 19th century literature. I mean, the use of glasses is usually, whether you want to go from Balzac to Trollope to Dickens, it usually is to do with a kind of dignified. Or it's either a clerk or someone who's a dignified father or something like that. Just by the by, and I'm sure we'll get to this again, is there is very little telling. There may be something in Gaskell, I don't think in Austin, of. Of women wearing glasses. And this actually is replicated in. In the history of painting as well, which I touch on in my book. But I think, you know, as. As the moving image is so powerful in relating stories. But it has to be. And after the talkies came along in the early 20s, 1920s, there is a need to tell things quite quickly and to operate on multiple registers and to make several signs. And glasses is a very easy one because it signifies that this person is operably not the hero. This is a support person, or this is the person who knows, but this is someone who's. If there is a love interest, who is definitely not within the ambit of the love interest. So I would have to say that in Hollywood movies and subsequently the media, the popular media had a large role to play in the kinds of presumptions, prejudices that. That circulate around glasses. Yes.
- [10:05]
A
And were those particular connotations of glasses there before we get to Hollywood? And so much visual kind of media, as you said, sort of there all the time. Is that what people thought about glasses before that?
- [10:18]
B
It's incipient. There are seeds of that. So the history of art, I mean, there's a lot in the media at the moment on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. And of course, you've got the figure of Benjamin Franklin who invents the bifocals. And so he's depicted in his many depictions with glasses, and he's depicted as someone who is a venerable celebrity. So glasses have a kind of operably positive dimension to that. However, paintings of women, well, definitely not in the Renaissance, since the 18th century, when you also have a widening. There are far broader variety of people who are having portraits done up in middle classes and so on. Women are not represented as having classes, and when they are, it is usually in a sense of them being elderly. But it was very much the case of right up to today, you'd have your selfie, you take your glasses off and do your selfie and put them back on. So there are structural precedents to that.
- [11:39]
A
Okay, that's really interesting to understand because Hollywood is so impactful, as you mentioned, so seeing kind of the seeds before that is an intriguing aspect. But going back to the kind of multiple things you told us about in terms of your own story, I want to sort of keep pulling some of those threads. And one of them you mentioned is the kind of perceptions around glasses specifically for children and how that might be different to ideas about what it means for adults to wear glasses.
- [12:06]
B
Oh, definitely. Look, I just a very good friend of mine as a young lad and he's very gifted and sometimes people say these days, on the spectrum, I prefer just to say, extremely interesting, a young guy. And he also has glasses. And it's the glasses that sort of adds to his, if you like. And I can identify with him at that age actually. It's his so called oddity and his difference. I mean, he's very bright. I'm not saying I was, but he was very. He's very bright. So the thing is that there is that. I mean it really, we have to go back to our sort of childish animality. You know, we, we run around, we jump, we throw. This is a discourse which is far broader than this podcast where there's a lot of discussion of children not going out as much and not taking risks or climbing trees and those sorts of things. But children muck around and I know of many occasions when simply I just take my glasses off and put them in my pocket and do whatever I need it to do. And then there was also some kind of discourse where, you know, you never hit a child with glasses. And you know, when I would be enraged with, with someone, I remember when I was like seven years old, you know, they made some facetious comment that I was some sissy. So I took them off and I said, how is it now? So I mean, I mean the thing is that the glasses is. Are seen on multiple levels as impediments, that the child is somehow less. Both that they have inferior vision, but then they have the glasses and then they have inferior mobility on top of that. So it's A kind of multi layered impediment. So it's still, I think is still very difficult and I think for respective reasons for the young boys, as it is for girls, the girls are simply, I'm sure they'll be derided, laughed at or they seen as the hangers on to the leaders of the band. It's prevalent and it's palpable.
- [14:24]
A
And if we're talking about young bright children running around going on adventures while wearing glasses, I mean, to what extent has Harry Potter changed those sorts of negative perceptions?
- [14:35]
B
I think to some extent, but I don't think that we can lay the sort of the liberation of glasses feat of Harry Potter. I mean, if you sort of pause to think him wearing glasses was almost perhaps in retrospect an obvious choice. Because what J.K. rowling wanted to do is to separate him from, from the usual kind of kid. And so he was unusual and he had this kind of nerdy kit, but he could still do superhero special stuff. So it was the combination of that which leads to his charisma. But that perhaps might lead into later on our talk of Superman and the idea of the superhero versus the glasses. But I think that the Harry, the Harry Potter in a certain way destigmatized glasses for children. But I don't think it's really changed the kind of cliched perceptions and the kind of binaries between nerd versus cool kid that really prevail. And some of those are quite fair enough because the thing is that as soon as you. I mean it's both biological and fundamental, but it's nature and nurture at the same time. Which is also, I think, these contentious debates in terms of our own physiology and gender these days. But I think the thing is, once you wear these glasses, it is a physical sign to a child that you are somehow in need of this prosthesis. And this certainly has effect on a lot of people that they need an extra bit of kind of care and what that does to the psychology. I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know, but I can certainly vouch for what I've observed and experienced, that somehow you should be treated with kid gloves. And that's a notion that I did touch on in my book.
- [16:39]
A
Yeah, that's definitely something, as you said, that comes up in the book, as is the discussion about Superman and glasses. So can we go there and talk about that now?
- [16:47]
B
Yeah, I mean that was something that I was really kind of interested. I mean, everyone knows that, right? And then I, when I was doing the book that, you know, Clark Kent versus versus Superman and, and we're kind of, you know, the great suspension of disbelief, you know, really, you know, this guy who's sort of totally buff and you know, he's got great bone structure and you know, dark hair and same shape. I mean maybe we, we're looking through the lens of our, our AI and our, you know, computer identification systems these days, but are you really going to not see that they're the same man? But at the same time, one thing I uncovered in writing the book was that there was research done and there was a failure in identification of people wearing glasses versus those who didn't. There is a kind of a cognitive dissonance I think is the fashionable return to, you know, between someone wearing glasses, someone not, and the modes of identification. I mean, I noticed recently in the new iPhones when I had moved from the thumb recognition to facial recognition, they now have systems where they can recognize my face even when I'm wearing glasses. So that's a kind of interesting kind of leap. I was thinking about that because. But cognitively, apparently there is still some impediment, some kind of point of prevention that glasses allow for. But at the same time the Clark Kent Superman binary also then reinstates again, doesn't it, the cliche because Clark Kent in the classic Christopher Reeve Batman version is sort of bumbler and he's got these big glasses. So it does reinforce that stereotype.
- [18:54]
A
Got it. Well, that's definitely interesting to see the kind of research side behind it. You did mention there sort of smart glasses and as you suggested, maybe that would be kind of a way that in future this sort of confusion or misrecognition would not happen really at all. But given how much you've thought about kind of glasses, wearing them, what it means to wear them, what it means for others to see you wearing them. What do you think about the potential rise of smart glasses?
- [19:20]
B
Yeah, I was having a discussion with my 20, 20 year old son last week and I was sort of talking to him about the idea of cognitive change and the way we perceive the world. And I sort of said to him, you know, when you're sort of 35 and you, well, they're truly an adult, I mean just 25, you think you kind of know most. And then things kind of technology, things change, they change again and change again. And if you still think you know most, the peril be to you. And, and we were talking about this the way there are technological changes, physical changes, but neurological and cognitive changes and he, you know, we were discussing the way in which there would definitely be a development in smart glasses, which is a version of, I think it's a Tom Cruise, I mean those, those you know, Mission Impossible and, and you know, technological, you know, wonders that are there and Minority Report, which is another sci fi movie that he was in, but those where people will have smart glasses. And so now you can do it if you're dating someone or even if you're, you're meeting with someone, you're a new employee, we do a search. Well, smart glasses will mean we'll go into a party and we look at someone, they'll do a recognition of them and then they'll that it'll be a rundown possible three dates are dumped all three times. So it doesn't like this, doesn't like that. I mean this is the minute, but geez, how boring is all that information gonna make life? I mean I'm not a forecaster, but I mean I think most people would agree with this is him. And we had a discussion and my 20 year old son was pretty watertight on that as well. But geez, I woe betide that situation because talk about a mystique going down to zero.
- [21:20]
A
Well, moving from something that certainly sounds like it might be inevitable and may not be great. I wonder if we can discuss perhaps more optim, I suppose, bits about you getting to think about glasses and write about them in this way. I mean, you already mentioned some kind of surprises you got to come across in figuring all this out. Was there anything else in the sort of investigating, thinking, writing process of all of this that really sort of positively surprised you or intrigued you that you weren't expecting to come across?
- [21:50]
B
Well, certainly, I mean in first of all certain things I knew, which was the idea of cool, but being able to kind of sort of do a little bit more of the deep dive in that and look at the different, whether it's from Ray Charles right through to Reservoir Dogs, the product placement of Ray Bans in Reservoir Dogs, the different kinds of Ray Bans that people can see all those styles online. And I detail most of those. So it allowed me to go through all that, but also it really allowed me to explore again this idea of the kinds of waves of glasses. In other words, it's mostly negative or unfortunate. I mean the cons outweigh the pros of children, but once they come to a certain age, say the 40s, you've got a lot of stars adopting glasses. And it's a. And as most people know, stars have stylists, they're agents, but I also have stylists. And it's not just them wearing glasses, it's a particular kind of register to tell the audience that they've come of a certain age, they, they know more, their skills are better and they're willing to actually move towards a different kind of role, different kind of, of character, of logical skill set if you like. So this is very much a technique which is, which is used in Hollywood as well. And you can see this over and over and over again from Brad Pitt to Anne Hathaway. And so particularly they like to turn up with their Prada glasses or their Armand glasses when they're doing interview which shows them again, which also shows them to be their so called authentic self when they're being interviewed as opposed to their acting self. So it's a very, very clever technique there. But the other thing is on the discussion with friends of mine who medieval experts and classicists, they pointed out that with all the, and this was fascinating, which I identify in the book as well, is with all the technology that the Romans had, why didn't they have glasses? And the answer is I think fascinating to speculate. And the answer I come up with is that the Romans did value old age. So the Roman senators, I mean there was made an exception with, with some individuals I think, including, but don't forgive me my ignorance here, but I think that when the senators when Augustus Octavian before he assumed emperor, but he was before, but he was before 41, but they had to be over 40 senators. And so from there we have the idea of senatoris and certain estimates and so on. So they valued old age. So it was the idea of standing in your old age. But also they had different kinds of slaves and they had educated slaves, maid slaves which educated their children. So it would also be a sign of status amongst the upper classes of Roman not to have prosthesis like this because it would indicated that they had sufficient means to have slaves to read to them. So these were kind of interesting little crevasses in knowledge.
- [25:36]
A
Yeah, some very intriguing ones there. And I wonder if we can talk about the Ray Bans and the sort of dark glasses and cool for a moment perhaps as a final discussion on glasses, kind of moving from clear ones to sort of darker ones. Can you tell us more about what was intriguing to you about going down the crevice of investigating Ray Bans and what dark glasses mean for cool?
- [25:58]
B
Yeah, I mean on one hand it's intriguing, on the other hand you Know, it's such a norm these days. It's obvious I'm going to show my. Hopefully some of your listeners are going to know this great classics of the 80s. I even quote the Don Henley, the Boys of Summer. You've got your Ray, you know, sun class, your Ray Bans on brown skin glistening in the sun. And that's quoted. Then there's the Corey Hart one hit wonder. I wear my sunglasses at night. And I mean you've got, as I mentioned, Ray Charles, but you've got Bono from U2 who has an eye condition. But he also said that he would use glasses at a certain point with celebrity to desert kind of barrier. And I recall that. I mean I'm not, but I recall actually also doing that. It also when in my 20s as well, when I put glasses, my glasses on in such locations as a kind of a barrier. So the glasses there are, you know, it's the glasses in the, you know, which is the situation of the celebrity who does not want to disclose, you know, the windows to the soul, the eyes. So that creating that barrier of mystique where they're physically present but they're actually not giving fully to the audience in order to maintain that mystique. So that's where that kind of cruel, that aloofness comes in. And I think that there's also a chapter in there which deals with the black classes of blind people. The idea of looking inward and that the way in which. And I equate that together with the use of dark glasses and cool of those people who can see. But it is a way in which that people do not have to engage with the outside in a way that may make them feel vulnerable or make them vulnerable to too much judgment. I think there's a lot to be said to some extent. I think in this world of disclosure and at cancelling and knowing everything about everyone, I think there's still a lot to be had about wearing dark glasses in public.
- [28:20]
A
Well, certainly I think lots to think about for any listeners who wear glasses of all different kinds at various ages. I mean, we've covered rather a lot of territory here and I know that you're working kind of, it sounds like always on lots of different things. So the glasses book is out in the world for people to engage with. But is there anything currently on your desk that you want to give us a sneak preview of?
- [28:42]
B
Oh yeah. Well, it's a book close to my heart as an artist. I've worked with clowns for a long time with my sons as well. You can see that on my website which is. Which is also got the book on the website Adam getsi.com but I've currently impress a book on. On clowns, the history of clowns. Clown culture. Clown culture, it's called From Comedy and Horror from Fast Film. So that's. I'm putting that to bed. I'm. I'm having a little bit of a break. But the book on clowns is happening and I'm working on a collaborative venture on the called Xcomics. It's the. The epiphenomer of comics. Everything that comes out from comics like, like from merch right through to so our rl. Real life shs. Real life superheroes. So the things that come out of comments. So that's sort of. That's with my colleague Jonathan Bernie. So those. I think it's a lot of fun and one of the things I really enjoy about this job is that you can kind of, if I may say, you can kind of make it up as you go along. You just learn it. You do. And it's just such a wonderful sort of passage of learning and discovery and then in occasions like this where we can change ideas. So, you know, most of the stuff I do is really just stuff I just want to get my teeth into. I'm not heavy for a cause. I'm not trying to proselytize or anything like that. It's just shit that I find really interesting.
- [30:27]
A
Well, that sounds like a great place to be in. So best of luck with all of your ongoing and future projects. And of course, listeners can read the book we've been discussing titled Glasses, the latest in Bloomsbury's object lesson series. Adam, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [30:42]
B
My pleasure.
- [30:44]
C
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- [31:25]
D
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