Here it is... the book thread!

Started by scatcat, November 30, 2007, 03:55:17

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revolt

Quote from: japanesebaby on October 03, 2008, 13:24:00


eric g. wilson: against happiness. in praise of melancholy.

http://us.macmillan.com/againsthappiness


Americans are addicted to happiness. When we're not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness, or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life:Stumbling on Happiness; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment; The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. The titles themselves draw a stark portrait of the war on melancholy.

More than any other generation, Americans of today believe in the transformative power of positive thinking. But who says we're supposed to be happy? Where does it say that in the Bible, or in the Constitution? In Against Happiness, the scholar Eric G. Wilson argues that melancholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that it is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation—and that it is the force underlying original insights. Francisco Goya, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, and Abraham Lincoln were all confirmed melancholics. So enough Prozac-ing of our brains. Let's embrace our depressive sides as the wellspring of creativity. What most people take for contentment, Wilson argues, is living death, and what the majority takes for depression is a vital force. In Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Wilson suggests it would be better to relish the blues that make humans people.






That's all very well, but as much as I love art, if being forced to chose between art and happiness, I'd take happiness any day.

japanesebaby

Quote from: revolt on October 03, 2008, 13:36:00
but as much as I love art, if being forced to chose between art and happiness, I'd take happiness any day.

:?:
sorry i don't understand what you mean. it's not about any choice between art and happiness...
it's about fake empty happiness (by which we are surrounded today and which undoubtedly is one of the biggest problems of our modern world), faked happiness that eventually kills creativity in us. and just because we're so keen to be "happy".
there's no happiness without a healthy amount of melancholy and if the melancholy side in us is being drugged with zoloft etc., we are putting off our possibilities to true and healthy happiness too.

(sorry if i'm jumping to conclusions but i somehow do feel like you didn't read the book, didn't you?)



Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

revolt

Quote from: japanesebaby on October 03, 2008, 14:00:33
Quote from: revolt on October 03, 2008, 13:36:00
but as much as I love art, if being forced to chose between art and happiness, I'd take happiness any day.

:?:
sorry i don't understand what you mean. it's not about any choice between art and happiness...
it's about fake empty happiness (by which we are surrounded today and which undoubtedly is one of the biggest problems of our modern world), faked happiness that eventually kills creativity in us. and just because we're so keen to be "happy".
there's no happiness without a healthy amount of melancholy and if the melancholy side in us is being drugged with zoloft etc., we are putting off our possibilities to true and healthy happiness too.

(sorry if i'm jumping to conclusions but i somehow do feel like you didn't read the book, didn't you?)





You're right, I didn't read it. I was just reacting to the summary you provided... And I agree with your comment, but the thing is, melancholy is just a thing that comes naturally to some people some time, it's part of them, but I don't think it is the kind of thing that you should cherish or support. I'm sure many melancholic people, if given the chance, would prefer not to be it. There are many ways we can be "deep" and "enrich" ourselves without delving deep into melancholia. Because that feeling can also be a disease, you know? (well, I'm not talking about myself here, don't worry).

And also, I'm aware that many of the most impressive works of art were produced under melancholic states or even more depressive and anguished states... But maybe many of the people who produced them would have prefered not to have been in the "adequate" psychological conditions to produce them. Do you understand what I mean?

Anyway, the search for (some kind of) happiness is probably the only thing that all humans have in common. There's nothing wrong in it. Maybe some of these forms of happiness are "superficial" but who are we to judge? A "non-superficial" person will find find his/her own way of pursuing happiness and enrichment, he/she will have no need for a book to advise him/her to do it...

I hope I've made myself more clear this time.  ;)

japanesebaby

Quote from: revolt on October 03, 2008, 14:21:41
Anyway, the search for (some kind of) happiness is probably the only thing that all humans have in common. There's nothing wrong in it.

of course there's nothing wrong with the search for happiness. it's something that we all yearn, all living things does, humans, animals, even plant life i believe... but i don't think that's the starting point here. it's about all that forced "fake" happiness of today. it's being poured upon us from all around, all the time: e happy, smiling, perfect people, successful people with prefect families, dream houses etc. etc. - we're being told that's what everyone wants and needs. it's not natural when it goes beyond certain point, when all things melancholy are deemed somehow "ill" and unnatural. when people come to feel that happiness is about being happy-happy-happy 24/7 and when they can't take a single moment of melancholy anymore, they can't take even the smallest misfortunes without resorting to pills or something. that's not natural.
and i think that's what the book states as it's starting point: that we should not reject melancholy as some sort of unwanted sickness. it's actually very vital for us, it's vital for our creativity. there must be both light and darkness. and all this artificial happiness is not constant light.

actually, the book has been criticized for glorifying melancholy, romanticizing it. but that's a general misunderstanding of its message. the writer actually posted an open message about this once, wanting to correct this misunderstanding by some critics. he said he never ever wanted to glorify depression or anything like that. he only wanted to try and point out how empty our lives will become (or, have already become) when we live in a society that teaches us to refuse the healthy balance of happiness and melancholy. and he chose to do this by showing how certain amount of melancholy is vital for creative spirit, how nothing springs out/gets created out of sheer happiness alone.
and in that i think he's quite right.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

revolt

Quote from: japanesebaby on October 03, 2008, 19:29:35
actually, the book has been criticized for glorifying melancholy, romanticizing it. but that's a general misunderstanding of its message. the writer actually posted an open message about this once, wanting to correct this misunderstanding by some critics. he said he never ever wanted to glorify depression or anything like that. he only wanted to try and point out how empty our lives will become (or, have already become) when we live in a society that teaches us to refuse the healthy balance of happiness and melancholy. and he chose to do this by showing how certain amount of melancholy is vital for creative spirit, how nothing springs out/gets created out of sheer happiness alone.
and in that i think he's quite right.


Well, I agree he's right. But is he saying anything new, really? At least since Freud, since psychology started to really develop as a science, it's been aknowleged that psychic health is really a question of balance between opposites: positive and negative, light and dark, good and evil, the pleasure principle and the instinct of death...

Now, it may happen that the book in itself is a good read, because it's really well written and researched and so on. It's just hard for me to understand what its "target" audience can be: "superficial" people will not be reading it, will they? And as for "non-superficial" people, well, I don't think they need to read it, either. Because, as far as I can understand from what you've written, the book will only be telling them things that they already know by themselves...

japanesebaby

Quote from: revolt on October 06, 2008, 16:32:37
t's just hard for me to understand what its "target" audience can be: "superficial" people will not be reading it, will they? And as for "non-superficial" people, well, I don't think they need to read it, either.

but when did "superficial" people read anything at all? so trying to "educate" was always useless.
i think even plato already said something like how in the end, in a democracy like ours, idiots rule anyway, and how by their greater numbers they can always suppress the ideas of those who by definition would "know better".
i don't doubt plato was right. but if we think this book is useless "because it has no audience" then i think we could just as well stopped writing all these kinds of books altogether and most of all we could have stopped it years and decades ago - even freud was doing it in vain. because íf we take that stance then we can say it was all in vain ever since plato's days... 

but people do write on, keep talking... just because they find it important.
so isn't that important as such?

Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

revolt

Quote from: japanesebaby on October 06, 2008, 17:32:42

but when did "superficial" people read anything at all?

Well, I think they do. I think most "best-sellers" are generally directed at people who I would call more or less "superficial".


Quote from: japanesebaby on October 06, 2008, 17:32:42
but if we think this book is useless "because it has no audience" then i think we could just as well stopped writing all these kinds of books altogether and most of all we could have stopped it years and decades ago - even freud was doing it in vain. because íf we take that stance then we can say it was all in vain ever since plato's days... 

but people do write on, keep talking... just because they find it important.
so isn't that important as such?

Well, I'll be the first to say that it's better to talk than keep silent. With things we find important, that is.

But I also think that Plato and Freud did contribute something relevant and new, something that would always make a difference and would always find its audience, sooner or later. Whereas I was questioning whether Eric G. Wilson was in fact contributing anything that could be "classified" that way... So, maybe not the best comparison there?

japanesebaby

uote author=revolt link=topic=4324.msg56835#msg56835 date=1223309148]
Quote from: japanesebaby on October 06, 2008, 17:32:42

but when did "superficial" people read anything at all?

Well, I think they do. I think most "best-sellers" are generally directed at people who I would call more or less "superficial".[/quote]

ok fair enough. i didn't intend to hint that people are totally dumb if they don't read. by "anything" i meant "anything a bit deeper, not readers' digest, bestsellers etc. -there's nothing wrong if people see reading as one form of entertainment, just like there's nothing universally wrong if people consider music or movies merely an entertainment. that's their choice and who am i to judge them? i just meant that you cannot judge a book (or a piece of music or a movie etc.) just by saying "the masses won't pick it up anyway". it's not the book's fault if people choose to look for mere entertainment instead. and therefore i really don't agree that we can think a book is "useless" if the masses don't pick it up.
by the way i find this especially curious coming from a person who (i think) is not at all into mainstream music - because if we use "superficial masses" as some sort of basis here, then shouldn't we then also say that all marginal music is not really worth anything because it has no mass audience? for instance all classical music today would be worthless then, all marginal bands, all underground art - basically, anything that doesn't sell.

and if the book doesn't have anything highly original to say:
sure, plato and freud had. but if we purpreme originality take that as a basic requirement, if we insist that a book is worth nothing unless it invents something completely "new" - then something like over 99% of everything written today is surely more or less useless. i mean, we can slag off almost everything published today with a "it's not as groundbreaking as plato was" - but then what?

personally i do think a book (or other such piece of art) does make difference if it manages to remind us about these things, if even one person picks it up and thinks "well this is interesting, i hadn't thought about this before", then it was worth something. the fact that "the superficial masses won't read it anyway"
so imo there IS some kind of value in taking certain topics up again, reminding people about them.
just my opinion.

anyway look, actually i only posted here in order to revive this thread, to make people to post what they are reading - not because i wanted to advertise this book and this book only. not because i think it's something that everyone "has to" read. surely there are similar books out there, but this is rather recent one and therefore someone interested in such things might come across it more easily than something published 50 years ago that has now been out of print for several decades.

see, i didn't start a new thread especially for this book or anything. it was just a post in a thread about books. if somebody thinks it's interesting, fine - if not, that's fine too. it was merely a "currently reading" kind of post. nothing more. so please, let's not keep fighting over this matter. everyone just please post what's currently on your nightdesk - regardless of whether it was a groundbreaking opus or not.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

revolt

By I don't want to fight with you. I just like to discuss things and I also like to make myself clear. So I'll just answer a few of your comments in order that you don't get me wrong...


Quote from: japanesebaby on October 07, 2008, 07:34:47
i just meant that you cannot judge a book (or a piece of music or a movie etc.) just by saying "the masses won't pick it up anyway". it's not the book's fault if people choose to look for mere entertainment instead. and therefore i really don't agree that we can think a book is "useless" if the masses don't pick it up.
by the way i find this especially curious coming from a person who (i think) is not at all into mainstream music - because if we use "superficial masses" as some sort of basis here, then shouldn't we then also say that all marginal music is not really worth anything because it has no mass audience? for instance all classical music today would be worthless then, all marginal bands, all underground art - basically, anything that doesn't sell.

I think you got me wrong here. My "the masses won't pick it" comment (which wasn't exactly stated that way, I clearly meant to say "the superficial people", not the masses) was only made in a context where I was trying to show I could not see an audience for this book: the superficial will never read it, the non-superficial won't need to read it, so most probably there will be no audience at all.



Quote from: japanesebaby on October 07, 2008, 07:34:47
then something like over 99% of everything written today is surely more or less useless.

Ah, you know, but that's more or less what I think.  :-D And that's why I prefer reading the classics or maybe a few novelties that strike me as having something new to say to me... Because time is limited, I certainly don't have time to read books that tell me what I already know (well, there is an exception to this, of course: there are books that are such a pleasure to read that I find myself re-reading them, even if I already know everything that is there).


Quote from: japanesebaby on October 07, 2008, 07:34:47
personally i do think a book (or other such piece of art) does make difference if it manages to remind us about these things, if even one person picks it up and thinks "well this is interesting, i hadn't thought about this before", then it was worth something. the fact that "the superficial masses won't read it anyway"
so imo there IS some kind of value in taking certain topics up again, reminding people about them.
just my opinion.

Well, OK, I think I understand your view. You know, people CAN understand one another, it's only that sometimes a little effort is needed to achieve that understanding.  ;)

japanesebaby

Quote from: revolt on October 07, 2008, 12:40:50
the superficial will never read it, the non-superficial won't need to read it, so most probably there will be no audience at all.

sorry, i don't completely understand your reasoning. non-superficial people don't need to read it - sure, i had no "need" to read it but i did. even though i know there's been a lot written about this subject. i don't understand how or why some topic should become boring and useless when "it's been said before". pretty much everything has been said before by now anyway.
i think you forget that there are always NEW readers out there who might pick this subject up for the first time. why didn't they pick up all those similar books that were written before? perhaps because they are badly out of print and hard to get. i can think of a lot of other good reasons. so to keep talking about something that is intersting IS interesting as such and has some value of its own, imo.

Quote from: revolt on October 07, 2008, 12:40:50
it's only that sometimes a little effort is needed to achieve that understanding.  ;)

sorry, but now i really don't know what you're hinting to here. that it will take some effort before you can indeed prove me wrong and make me chance my mind and "admit" that this book is useless and therefore i was simply wasting my time with reading it, not to mention make a post about it?  :?
now i just regret that i even posted in this damn thread. i though i made a simple harmless post and suddenly it became such a big issue. i don't know why.

(the strangest thing here is that i'm discussing a book with someone who didn't even read it...)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

revolt

Quote from: japanesebaby on October 07, 2008, 19:50:04
sorry, but now i really don't know what you're hinting to here. that it will take some effort before you can indeed prove me wrong and make me chance my mind and "admit" that this book is useless and therefore i was simply wasting my time with reading it, not to mention make a post about it?  :?

No, it's not that at all. I don't mean to prove you wrong or win you to my side on this. Or in general. What I meant is that after we've discussed things I have finally understood your opinion better. And hopefully my opinion had been made clearer to you too, but apparently that hasn't been the case...

And that " ;)" was there because in the "How beautiful you are" thread there was this sense that "no one ever understands another". It was a light joke - "see, WE seem to be understading each other now". Apparently I was being a little optimistic. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying... And please, I'm not being ironic or sarcastic here. I wish you didn't read things in my posts that aren't there at all.

Poe

Hmm, time to get some life back into this thread. Reading everything and nothing at once as usual (go figure), but here's one book that stands out:


Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence

Wouldn't say it's my kind of book, I can see why some people can't finish it, but nonetheless, I quite like it. It's the language, the strong female characters and the philosophical musing that does it I guess.
[i]Betty said she prayed today
For the sky to blow away...[/i]

scatcat

Currently reading ( or trying to concentrate to read.. ).  :lol:

'bird by bird'  some instructions on writing and life, by anne lamott.   :smth023

It is an extremely down-to-earth book on anyone out there for those who have always thought of writing a book.

Just to quote the blurb: ' Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm my brother's shoulder, and said, " bird by bird", buddy. Just take it bird by bird."'

With every page, I have found myself giggling at the reality and rawness of writing..learnt over years of trial and error. It is a beautifully written book, absolutely wise and helpful. It is not only a book for writers, or writers-to-be, but for any reader who maybe sometimes think.. hmmm.. maybe I could become an author.

.. even if you don't think you may ever get to put your life down in a book someday, I highly encourage THIS book, as an overture to life, in general, a very funny, and realist view to life..

I highly recommend this book to all those creative out there- this book has MANY creative ideas ( not just writing) and inspiring ideas on viewing the 'outside' world as more or-less an experiment.

4 stars for me!! Really funny and truly inspiring.   :smth020



Seventeen seconds
A measure of life

Hero

I'm reading 'I Capture The Castle' by Dodie Smith (the person who wrote One Hundred and One Dalmations, genius, obviously)

Anyway it's about a girl called Cassandra (I like that name) and her family live in a real castle but its a bit run down and her father is an eccentric reclusive author who hasn't worked in years so they have no money.

It's basically just about her life and family and first love.
I've not finished it yet but it's quite good. I found it on a list of books you should read before you turn 21. I'm not too sure if i would agree.  :roll: It's good but not life changing.

Next up 'The Painted Bird' by Jerzy Kosiński (most probably because of the Banshees conection  :lol: )


fiction

I´m on the first book of Cormac McCarthys Border trilogy, "All the Pretty Horses" and as always Mr McCarthy has the ability to describe the dullest shades of grey with the spectrum of a brilliant rainbow and completely seduce you with what could otherwise has been a trivia story.
again and again and again and again and again and...