Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy | 
 enlarge | Author: Eric G. Wilson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 20396
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0374240663
Dewey Decimal Number: 152.4
EAN: 9780374240660
ASIN: 0374240663
Publication Date: January 22, 2008
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Beautiful, important book July 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As a society, we are in love with happiness. We lust for it, we search for it, we will do anything to have it. And it's almost never questioned. In fact, if you don't want happiness, your own or at least someone else's satisfaction, most people probably think you're crazy and you'll probably never be respected. Here, finally, is an intelligent, philosophical and beautifully written defense of the viewpoint that melancholy is a natural state, that, to a certain extent, being unsatisfied is being true to yourself. Wilson uses examples from literature and history to show that melancholy makes one more sensitive to the beauty of the world and a more authentic, alive human being. For those that want to make the most of life, who want to understand why we're here, this is an essential perspective. An almost perfect book.
 One Man's Opinion of a Hugely Complex Issue June 23, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The rather simplistic premise here is that we in the West are being medicated into blandness and conformity, becoming zoned-out zombies with "flaccid grins" and that, as a result, our creative spark is being extinguished. What would Beethoven, Van Gogh, Keats, Dylan Thomas, Virginia Wolff, Hemmingway, John Lennon (you get the idea) have produced if plied with Prozac or Paxil? Whilst I wholeheartedly espouse the belief that massive, often debilitating depression has produced our greatest works of art, it is patently obvious that there is a huge price to be paid for such beauty and truth, and that Wilson tends to romanticize the states that oftentimes lead to madness and untimely demise. Nearly all the examples he cites were patently afflicted by clinically depressed states and not just "sweet sorrow" and melancholy, and this distinction is not clarified. The tome contains painful (oftentimes laughably pompous) prose and could readily have been compressed into essay form, more appropriate for a nationally syndicated magazine. Good starting point for a lively, in-depth discussion of a hugely complex issue. However, for the scholarly amongst us, look elsewhere.
Confused June 2, 2008
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
The author seems to be confused on several points. First, he can't seem to decide if he's writing to instruct or writing to entertain. It can get frustrating wading through paragraphs of adjectives looking for premises to support his conclusions.
He also seems to be confused about the connection between melancholia and creativity. He first claims that melancholia is "a major cultural force, a serious inspiration to invention, the muse behind much art and poetry."(4) But he later makes the stronger claim that melancholia is necessary for creativity, as its eradication would "lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse."(5)
Please keep in mind that I stopped after the first chapter. Although some reviewers liked later chapters, I couldn't bring myself to wade through further confusion and overinflated prose.
buy it...or not. May 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
If you look at this book, read an excerpt, and _still_ scratch your head about it...this book is, quite simply, not for you. If, however, you heard about it on NPR or read an article or read an excerpt and it immediately called to you on a fundamental level, this book absolutely is for you.
This book was a fantastic way of describing the "me" that has always been indescribable. I found in its pages a reassurance that I was not alone and it was perfectly acceptable to be this way. The author does not simply rail against the "delusions of happy" today's world tries to spin for us, it opens up and describes the melancholy soul as well.
I found this book as a salve to the questions of my own inner melancholy.
 Very Reflective April 18, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
After reading Garrison Keillor's review in the New York Times, I still decided to purchase the book for myself. I have felt that happiness has been overrated in our culture and the author expands on my feelings and gives it life. Who would have thought that melancholy would evolve as a desirable quality? I never did but I experience it everyday. I thank the author and his insights. Thank you. By the way, now I'm happy.
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