Happiness: The Novel Formerly Known as Generica

by Will Ferguson

"The Age of Nice is at hand, and there's nothing we can do about it." But the protagonist of Will Ferguson's Happiness, terminally luckless book editor Edwin de Valu, does want to do something. In fact, he feels obliged to put a stop to the Age of Nice, because it's all his fault. Desperate to save a flagging career in the world of self-help publishing, Edwin has staked everything on a dubious, thousand-page manuscript bearing the motto "Live! Love! Learn!" Promising its readers endless wealth, effortless weight loss, and everlasting happiness, the book has become a runaway success. And that's where Edwin's problems really begin. There's the murderous cartel of drug and tobacco barons who want Edwin's head on a plate, as well as the fact that misery, cynicism, irrational hatred, draught beer--all the things that once made Edwin's life as an underdog bearable--have become outlawed. It's down to one man to save the globe from the tyranny of the group hug! But can Edwin do it before the world economy melts down and a bestselling serial killer called Dr. Ethics enacts his own deadly revenge?

It has been said--possibly by the sort of homily-peddling guru that Ferguson attacks so masterfully in his debut novel--that there are many routes to happiness. The general effect of reading this razor-sharp satire on the self-help industry is to understand that these routes lead us nowhere, except perhaps to a cul-de-sac called Hell. This would be depressing to realize, except that Happiness clubs its readers into submission with the sort of zany, almost otherworldly wit that makes us profoundly glad to be alive. --Matthew Baylis, Amazon.co.uk

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Humor, Book Club, Contemporary, Novels, Satire

339 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 17, 2001

About the author

Will Ferguson is an award-winning travel writer and novelist. His last work of fiction, 419, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He has won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour a record-tying three times and has been nominated for both the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His new novel, The Shoe on the Roof, will be released October 17, 2017. Visit him at WillFerguson.ca

Ferguson studied film production and screenwriting at York University in Toronto, graduating with a B.F.A. in 1990. He joined the Japan Exchange Teachers Programme (JET) soon after and spent five years in Asia. He married his wife Terumi in Kumamoto, Japan, in 1995. They now live in Calgary with their two sons. After coming back from Japan he experienced a reverse culture shock, which became the basis for his first book Why I Hate Canadians. With his brother, Ian Ferguson, he wrote the bestselling sequel How to be a Canadian. Ferguson details his experiences hitchhiking across Japan in Hokkaido Highway Blues (later retitled Hitching Rides with Buddha), his travels across Canada in Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, and a journey through central Africa in Road Trip Rwanda. His debut novel, Happiness, was sold into 23 languages around the world. He has written for The New York Times, Esquire UK, and Canadian Geographic magazine.

Reviews

[Snotchocheez · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

As much as I enjoy quirky satire, few books have consistently made me laugh--and think--like Will Ferguson's 2001 unexpected (albeit a wee bit dated) delight Happiness(TM), a book that hilariously yet poignantly eviscerates Americans' consumerist bent and the pursuit of happiness at any cost. He focuses his sights on the publishing world: specifically the Random Houses and HarperCollinses and Simon & Schusters responsible for churning out Self-Help books (everything from fad diet rehashes and "Chicken Soup for the Soul" inspirational claptrap, to monster megahit spiritual awakening screeds disguised as novels like James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy.)

This "apocalyptic" tale (so deemed in the introduction, a stretch for sure) is seen through the eyes of Edwin de Valu, a scrawny, sarcastic, vile turd (who cheats on his wife and kicks the family cat every opportunity he can) and low-level Panderic Press editor of their Self-Help catalogue. After the author of Panderic's biggest seller, the "Mr. Ethics" series, is convicted of triple homicide, Edwin is tasked with culling the slush pile for "The Next Big Thing" to replace their fallen-from-grace money machine. After weeks of fruitless slush pile-culling, a mammoth 1,000-page uneditable manuscript plops in called "What I Learned on the Mountain" by a Bangladeshi guru named Tupak Soiree. Though it seems like a comprehensive Asian mishmash of every single Self-Help book published to date, Edwin (under the gun to get something published or risk losing his job) gets the behemoth printed and distributed. And, amazingly, with no publicity or marketing effort, the book explodes in popularity. almost attaining a religious fervor with its readers. The book becomes so popular, with multiple millions of happy adherents, that a wave of non-consumption sweeps the country: First the tobacco and alcohol industries crumble, then fast food empires follow suit, then its just a matter of time before everything comes screeching to a halt. An economic standstill (yet with a populace filled with Happiness(TM))

Yeah, super far-fetched, I know, but you're not likely to confuse this satire for anything deep and meaningful. Yet, among the guffaws, there's just enough truth sprinkled throughout to give one pause: No, a Self-Help book isn't going to bring the country to its knees, but it's creepy fun imagining the scenario Ferguson (firmly tongue-in-cheek) lays out. And, if nothing else, this book is a hilarious alternative to fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood's clunky, similarly-themed dystopian novel, The Heart Goes Last. My sense of humor is a bit twisted, but you know, I'll gladly chortle my way through Ferguson's wry Happiness(TM) than endure Atwood's shlocky Possibilibots any day.

[Rumi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book on a whim. It was hardback, categorized under "Psychology" and it had its price dropped from $24 to 9 leva (which is about $4.50) I liked its name and cover so I took it. Later on, I remembered the last time I did that: I was unpleasantly surprised by a chick-lit with no literary value whatsoever. The sole reason I chose that book was its title - "Wish Me Sunflowers", which, I later discovered, was a huge mistranslation. (Really, what does this have to do with "Remember Me"?!) Thinking about that experience, I felt increasingly regretful about buying "Happiness".

The book started off as a purely entertaining read - and it did its job quite well. It was getting ever more interesting, and despite its size, I started carrying it around with me and read it whenever the bus was empty enough for me to open a book.

"Happiness" had its unexpectedly wise message: bliss isn't always the right choice. Life's made out of misery as well as happiness, it has its flights and falls, emotions make it interesting and real. It's not worth living in pure perfection. Life isn't really supposed to be devoid of sadness, indignation, anxiousness and despair. It should be a journey, a constant path towards our goals, a struggle and a battle. Our existence should be scattered with bitter tears and sincere laughter, powerful love and peeving hate, drunken dances and everyday meaningless conversations.

Nobody said it was easy. It should never be too easy. We've got to have the chance to take decisions and make mistakes in order to feel truly alive. It sounds pretty logical considering people's tendency to overcomplicate everything, to overreact and strive for misery.

The reason I loved this book is that there is much to learn from it, there's lots of room left for me to think, funny moments to laugh about, and an imperfect love story to relieve the uneasiness from my own relationships. It's actually far better than any sugar-coated account of how impeccably beautiful life is. I must admit that, as prone as I am to enjoying such ideas or creating them in my own mind. Happiness, by definition, is what we're all looking for. Not what we achieve and experience every single day. It's far more important to fight, to love, to rise up to the challenge, to feel, to live.

[Murat Dural · Rating 5 out of 5]

Çınar Yayınları'ndan çıkan "Mutluluk" Will Ferguson'un yazdığı "müthiş" bir roman. Kıymetli dostum ve editörüm Yankı Enki'nin önerisi ile listeme almıştım. Kolay okunan, alaycı, dengeli, esprili metin beni sararken bir taraftan da "acaba hep bu dinginlikte mi ilerleyecek?" diye sordurdu. Ancak final yaklaştıkça artan fikri yükseliş, daha felsefi, daha hayatı yorumlayan tarzı beni benden aldı. Mutluluğun distopyası olur mu sorusuna verilmiş en net cevap gibi. Kesinlikle bayıldım, hala kendi kendime gülüyorum ve muhakkak tavsiye ediyorum. Dediğim gibi hem çok rahat okuyacaksınız, hem çok düşüneceksiniz hem de hınzır hınzır gülümseyeceksiniz. Özellikle kitaplar, okurlar, yazarlar, editörler ve yayın sektörü sorunları, eğrileri doğruları, kısacası gerçekleri üzerine gerçek, nefis bir taşlama okumak istiyorsanız muhakkak kütüphanenizde yerini almalı.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hate overly buzzed-out-on-bliss New Agers constantly trying to choke you with Depak Chopra and Conversations with God? Tired of colon clensings, mediums, crystal chakra aligning, "only thing positive", doped out on wheat-grass leisure class America?

Me too.

Read this book. It's hilarious, it's realistic (in the most outrageously allegorical way), it's snappy and ugly, it's pissed off and dejected, it's decadent and insecure. It's hellbent on showing that real life is grand and spectacular, even if it's petty and messy and fucked up. And hell, the book's even heartwarming at times.

There are no Disney Cinderella rags to riches, virginal moral redemption plots here. But really, who the fuck wants that, anyway?

[Frenzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will Ferguson offers us a surreal comedy where a miraculous manual promises joy to anyone who reads it. The pursuit of happiness is a thriving market that lives and thrives in the opposite of what it promises, fueling people's unhappiness by creating false needs. In a publishing house, a manual arrives promising to make anyone who reads it happy, and from being a forgotten manuscript, it becomes a global bestseller. But what happens when everyone suddenly becomes happy? The vice market collapses: no more drugs, alcohol, or expensive status gadgets. The lobbies of power find themselves at risk of losing their profits.

This book playfully makes us reflect on the madness of the pursuit of happiness, exposing the tricks of the wellness industry. As Steve Jobs would say, "It's not the consumers' business to know what they want" - especially when everyone is happy for no reason!

[Ron Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forget the problem of evil. The problem of goodness gets all the attention lately. Nick Hornby took a stab with "How To Be Good," a comic novel just out in paperback that shows the destruction of an average family when Dad devotes his life to charity. Carol Shields's recent "Unless" pursues essentially the same plot, but this time, it's the daughter who disrupts life with her decision to drop out of college and pursue virtue. And now, let's all give a warm Monitor hug to "Happiness(TM)," a zany comedy by Will Ferguson in which the world is derailed by the ultimate self-help book.

One theme is clear in these witty novels: Goodness is boring. And a radical pursuit of goodness is downright dangerous. Of course, they're not the first to come to that conclusion. No less a Puritan than John Milton gave all the good lines in "Paradise Lost" to Satan, while Christ is a sort of obsequious doormat, the kind of person you'd like to live next door to, but never hang out with.

In Hornby's "How To Be Good," the first symptom of Dad's devotion to charity is an alarming drop in sarcasm. Suddenly, he speaks with "the slow, over-confident patience of a recently created angel ... in phrases from 'Thought for the Day.' " His wife assumes he's suffered some kind of brain damage.

The mother in Shields's "Unless" notices a similarly frightening change in her daughter. She sits on a street corner begging - "brimming with goodness," her voice "emptied of connection." The narrator checks out a book from the library called "The Goodness Gap" and makes a half-hearted effort to understand her daughter's pursuit of virtue, but deep down she's terrified by such radicalism. She can't help regarding her own quest for goodness with light doses of irony.

In "Happiness(TM)," Ferguson prefers vats of bitter sarcasm to light doses of irony. He's written what he calls "Apocalypse Nice," a story that "tells of a devastating plague of human happiness, an epidemic of warm fuzzy hugs." He confesses in the introduction that the novel grew out of a casual comment by a publicist: "If anyone ever wrote a self-help book that actually worked, we'd all be in trouble."

This "what if" premise doesn't make for the most profound exploration into the nature of goodness. "Happiness(TM)" is to theology as "Flubber" is to chemistry, but it's still sometimes very funny.

The narrator is a glib misanthrope named Edwin. Since abandoning his original career plans to become a professional bon vivant, he's worked as a nonfiction editor for a large New York publishing firm. Panderic publishes 250 books a year "that range from celebrity diet fads to 40-pound vampire gothics." Much of his time is spent wading through the slush pile of manuscripts, "where dreams come to die." He's looking for something "so humorless and slowly paced, so plodding and laden with arcana, that you just know it has to be Great Literature."

One day, he receives a manuscript that looks horrible even by Panderic standards. The cover letter -- adorned with daisy stickers -- promises that "What I Learned on the Mountain" will "provide happiness to anyone who reads it. It will help people lose weight and stop smoking. It will cure gambling addiction, alcoholism, and drug dependency. It will help people achieve inner balance. It will show them how to release their left-brain intuitive creative energy, find empowerment, seek solace, make money, enjoy life, and improve their sexual lives. Readers will become more confident, more self-reliant, more considerate, more connected, more at peace. It will also help them improve their posture and spelling, and it will give their lives meaning and purpose."

If you haven't spent time in a mall bookstore recently, you may think this is a bit over the top, but, in fact, it's impossible to exaggerate the banality of the self-help genre.

Just this week I received "It's Never Too Late To Be Happy!" by Muriel James, who claims to have sold more than 4 million copies. Her book doesn't have any daisy stickers, but it does have a well-adjusted bouquet on the cover, and the chapter headings are written in type that looks like enthusiastic handwriting: "Self-Contracting for Happiness!"

I also received "How To Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic's Guide to Spiritual Happiness," by Karen Salmansohn. It's a shiny, square gift book that looks remarkably like Ferguson's parody. (Yes, even with a big daisy on the front.) The design of these books suggests that the real evil they hope to cure is dull typography. In kooky fonts, Salmansohn dispenses wisdom like "Life Lesson #6: Never go shopping for kiwis in a shoe store."

Surely, Ferguson had such books in mind when he wrote this wacky, often clunky satire. In his dark vision of a chronically nice future, "Everything I Learned on the Mountain" becomes a wild bestseller that does everything it promised.

But worldwide satisfaction wreaks havoc on the economy: Who needs alcohol, fashion, or makeup once we've all learned to "Live! Love! Learn!"? Having published the sacred text that caused this tidal wave of saccharine, poor Edwin finds himself a lone crusader out to save civilization -- warts and all (particularly warts).

There's a surprisingly old-fashioned Puritanism in these witty modern novels by Hornby, Shields, and Ferguson. Each betrays a deep anxiety about the pursuit of happiness, suggesting that it's necessarily humorless, simpleminded, or fanatical. They take a kind of Calvinistic offense at any radical devotion to self-improvement, as though it violated their faith in Original Sin.

In light of this standoff between giddy self-help manuals and witty satires of them, it was a relief earlier this month to see Leif Enger's "Peace Like a River" win the American Bookseller Association's award for best novel of the year. In an unlikely story that's part Western, part Gospel, he tells about a Christly janitor who insists that his children answer violence with peace. He makes high demands on love, but he never laces up the goody two shoes. When times are tough, he sweats blood, and the sacred text he consults has no daisies on it. Enger's novel pursues not a middle ground, but a higher ground, demonstrating that radical goodness -- despite what so many books suggest -- needn't be silly, destructive, or dull.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0523/p1...

[B.M. M. Polier]

Here is the reason that this book is so wonderful: (Quoting a passage from the book as long as I don't get slapped with a huge fine for copyright infringement)

"And let's keep the total length of the book to 356 pages exactly. That's the average for current bestsellers. So make sure it comes in exactly - what did I say? Three hundred and fifty six pages. Okay, Edwin?"

(At which point I stop reading and think to myself, I wonder if... and then I proceed to turn all the way to the back of the book and look at how many pages Happiness™ is. Exactly 356 pages. That's my kind of humor)

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very funny and witty book about a low-level editor at a fictional Publishers in NYC, that gets handed a huge paper manuscript, that turns into the world's most phenomenal Self-Help book of all time. How this all happens is the hilarious and somewhat suspenseful story within. Problems occur however, when everyone stops smoking, drinking, eating, etc. and the world economy starts to tank! Who's going to find the real author, oops; and stop the wild circus ride?! Edwin de Valu, that's who! The low-level editor who never got a break in his life might become a hero! Or will he?
Search this book out my friends. It's worth it.

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy, stupid, funny book. I hella enjoyed Ferguson's sarcastic sense of humor and ridiculous story. A commentary on our plastic culture and crappy books. There was a portion of the book that lost a little steam so I couldn't give it 5 starts but besides that it was a great read. I'd love to burn one down with this guy.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rec. by: That insouciant little ™
Rec. for: The dissatisfied

Will Ferguson's novel Happiness™ is a smooth and savage satire, a humorous dystopia, a fin de siècle Brave New World filled with trenchant observations about self-help gurus, the world of publishing, Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers, and the whole United States of America at the turn of the 21st Century. The core idea of Ferguson's novel is as simple as a Hollywood pitch: what if someone wrote a self-help book that actually worked?

Ferguson's entirely plausible answer: the Apocalypse, as all of the industries of vice—and their corresponding industries of anti-vice—dry up and blow away.

Edwin Vincent de Valu is the editor at Panderic, a mid-level publishing house specializing in nonfiction. Through an unlikely but hilarious series of coincidences, he retrieves a mysterious typewritten manuscript from the slush pile and rushes it into print without a whisper of promotion (or even any actual editing), expecting it to vanish into the depths of the remainder bin.

But the book works, after all, and soon the word of mouth on Tupak Soiree's What I Learned on the Mountain, a thousand-page mass of platitudes, pithy observations and techniques for living (and loving—a fail-safe sexual discipline called Li Bok features prominently) has Panderic selling millions, then tens of millions of copies, creating millions, then tens of millions of people who are at long last truly happy and satisfied.

Problem is, truly happy people don't buy things they don't need... and soon Edwin, as one of the few people left who's capable of being miserable, realizes that he has to do something about the impending end of history.

Happiness™ is also a word-lover's book, a book-lover's book, filled with fascinating, real "untranslatables" like the German schadenfreude and the Japanese phrase mono no aware, full of arch cultural insights and vicious little digs at all of the participants in the publishing industry, featuring a cameo from a librarian who hates books, and having at the heart of it all a great and sprawling love for what (Ferguson says) Robertson Davies calls the clerisy—that is, the small but influential group of people who are truly and fully literate, for not only can they read, they do read, frequently and for pleasure.

If you're a member of the clerisy, like me—if you take great pleasure in reading—I think you'll like this book.

I wrote the review above in 2004, long Before Goodreads, and posted it on my personal website. I've pulled it out and reworked it here because I recently ran across a much newer Ferguson novel which, if all goes well, I'll be reviewing in due course. Because that's one thing that makes me happy...

[Senia ☆ EchoRain87 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Posso, potenzialmente, già eleggerlo come libro migliore dell'anno?
Forse è ancora presto, ma di sicuro farà parte di una TopQualcosa di fine 2024.
Ironico e dolceamaro contemporaneamente, questo libro ci mostra un mondo disfunzionale dove la Felicità® governa, ma dilaga anche la nostalgia di una vita vissuta fatta di risate che fanno male alla pancia e annebbiano la vista.
Perché il genere umano, checché se ne dica, funziona solo (e anche abbastanza dignitosamente) inseguendo i sogni, senza mai, alla fine, realizzarli del tutto.

[Darlabatiasmith Asterbuckleyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esto es una mezcla de un planteamiento muy original del apocalipsis y un refrito de comedia americana, groserias y chistes boomer. Y es una pena, porque de verdad que la trama cruda está muy muy interesante.
También, aún no entiendo por qué este libro se empeña tanto en una guerra intergeneracional, o sea, wtf.

[María Greene F · Rating 2 out of 5]

La idea inicial demasiado demasiado buena, pero su ejecución muy pobretona. Fui perdiendo interés paulatinamente en el libro y retomándolo cada vez con menos entusiasmo entre empezar y terminar otros. Por ahora, lo doy por leído aunque me faltó terminarlo, porque me doy cuenta de que me aburre y la vida es demasiado corta como para dedicarle tiempo a cosas que no van con uno.

Dos estrellas porque, de nuevo, la primicia es muy interesante y hay partes que sí se disfrutan. Pero realmente no pude conectar con él.

[Alice Mc · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting premise but actually quite boring. I lost interest about halfway through but ploughed on as it was a bookclub read. The writing style is satirical and there are some vaguely amusing bits but it just wasn't gripping at all.

[Renklikalem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazın son günlerinde okuduğum Mutluluk’u paylaşmayı unutmuşum! Rafa kaldırmadan birkaç satır yazmak istedim. @yazariylakonusanlar ile birlikte mevsimin ruhuna ve uçuculuğuna uygun bir okuma olur diye seçmistik bu kitabi, aynı zamanda bir @alpercaniguz tavsiyesiydi. Grupta çoğunluk tarafından pek sevilmese de, ben büyük keyifle okudum:) Neden bilmiyorum aklıma hep Doppler geldi okurken. Mutluluk da bir anti kahramanlar kitabi, başlı başına bir anti kitap diyebilirim belki hatta. Kişisel gelişim kitapları ile ilgili çok tatlı bir kurmaca. Sinematografi yönü de çok güçlü bence, zaten yazarı da sinema eğitimi almış. Çok akıcı ve sürükleyici ama bu mevsim veya önümüzdeki günler için değil de, yazlıkçılık günleriniz için birebir olacaktır. Bence kitabın tek kusuru bu lezzetteki bir kitap için fazla hacimli olması. Ben çok eğlenerek okumuştum.

[Stefania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edwin è un editor della Panderic Inc. una casa editrice di New York, si occupa precisamente dei libri di autoaiuto. Cinico, frustrato, sposato con una donna improbabile, sagace e divertente Edwin si ritrova impelagato in una serie di obblighi lavorativi che lo conducono a scegliere di pubblicare un libro di uno pseudo guru, che promette la felicità per tutti. Devo dire che questo libro mi ha molto divertita, tra le sue tante avventure un po' assurde un po' esilaranti è stato piacevole notare una sagace critica al mondo occidentale, al marketing selvaggio e freddo dell'editoria che distrugge la vera magia della letteratura, alle mode insulse e alla superficialità dei nostri tempi. Chissà se i creatori del film di animazione "Inside Out" hanno letto questo libro... Qualche punto in comune in effetti c'è, anche se sono sviluppati con un registro differente.

``In questa storia non c'è nessun "e vissero per sempre felici e contenti". E credo che la morale sia proprio questa.``

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated, hated, hated this book. I only finished it so I could write a proper review about how much I hated it.

"Happiness" the book is utter crap. (A favorable blurb from a celebrity appears on the cover. I think less of that celebrity than I did before.) If anyone ever gives you this book, rest assured that they either secretly hate you, or have terrible taste in literature, and in each case the solution is the same: never talk to that person again.

The premise of the book is that someone--named "Tupak Soiree," because of course--has written a book that guarantees perfect happiness to the reader, and mirabile dictu, it works. The story is told from the vantage point of the book's editor, Edwin, and he manages to be less likable than a Hemingway protagonist, which should tell you something. All Edwin does is complain and whine and bask in self-pity--that is, when he's not flirting with his supervisor, with whom he had a one-night stand. Did I mention that Edwin (unlike his supervisor) is married? HE IS! And he hates and fears his wife, although the word "divorce" never once occurs to him and he deals with his angst by kicking her cat. Repeatedly. With glee.

(His wife doesn't seem to care about him much, and is shallow and whiny, but OH WAIT THAT DESCRIBES EDWIN TOO. Y'all deserve each other.)

Ferguson, the author, never fully fleshed out his idea of what "perfect happiness" means or looks like, especially when it works for EVERYONE (or almost everyone). This results in inconsistencies that make the book feel sloppy. And when it's not sloppy, it's sexist, misogynist, and more. For example: Edwin decides that May has gone crazy and the book is evil because May stops wearing lipstick. I am not joking. Ferguson also seems to have a deep-seated fear of people wearing sweatpants, given how many times he attempts to make a joke about them.

Ferguson's heroes are people who HEROICALLY smoke a lot, HEROICALLY drink too much, and--most importantly--never stop blaming other people for their problems. (I'm not joking. Drinking and smoking in an age of happiness is so in-your-face rebellious & courageous, you guys!) Edwin only begins to act when other people seem too "happy" and it inconveniences him--specifically, no one is around to listen to his self-pitying whining anymore. I won't even call him an antihero, because Ferguson clearly wants us to pity poor Edwin, then admire his newfound courage and tenacity in the face of disaster. In truth, Edwin is just a self-absorbed douchebag who only took action when his sometime mistress got tired of being used and kicked him to the curb.

Save yourself. Don't read this book.

[Alessandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Folle ma me lo son goduto, un ironia particolare e pieno di colpi di scena. La storia non ha un vero e proprio senso pero mi ha fatta star bene e mi ha tenuto compagnia. ♥️

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cynical, satirical novel about what would happen to the world if self help books actually worked. The book pulls no punches making fun of every aspect of the self-help and enlightenment industry, not to mention big publishing houses, marketing, and office work in general. It's an entertaining read but very bleak humour and the ending felt a little flat and anticlimactic. Although this book seems to have won the "Stephen Leacock award for humour", I would actually recommend the author's earlier book "I Was a Teenage Katima-Victim" as much funnier.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.
And I think working at chapters just made it more enjoyable. Being faced with so many...too many self help books and their readers, I felt like I could relate to Edwin. At times I couldn't help myself but break into hysterics over some little quip.
The underlying themes were quite sad and heavy. How we are destined to be unhappy and discontented and constantly search for satisfaction and, in fact, that is what makes our world go round...yet, as I was reading, I felt comforted by that. It was as if he was saying it is okay to feel that way, it is what gives us drive.

[Ivan Martin Fernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha hecho reir y me ha dado para reflexiones y conversaciones interesantes en ratos del café en el trabajo. ¿Qué más le puedo pedir a un libro?

[Jennifer Rayment · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wry and funny and quite frankly just bloody marvelous. Perfect for anyone involved in any way in the creating, marketing and selling of books. And bang on commentary on the self help book market! It is absolute perfection.


Thoroughly enjoyed the Caveat Emptor, the alternate ending (which quite frankly will be truly appreciated by most Canadians - well except for maybe those from Quebec). Ok and got a kick about the line with Stephen King in Bett's Bookstore (which I have been to)

Favorite Quotes

"Join the club," said Mr. Mead. "That's the way it always goes. At some point, you outgrow your generation. Or it outgrows you."

"I know. You wouldn't think killing a tax auditor would be a felony. A misdemeanor, maybe, but not a felony."

"Two million years of human evolution, 500,000 years of language, 450 years of modern English. The rich heritage of Shakespeare and Wordsworth at his beck and call, and all that Edwin could come up with was "shit".

[Belinda Lorenzana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una novela disfrutable, muy divertida. Sin embargo tiene algunos huecos que no decido si son asunto de verosimilitud. Ciertos conceptos no me resultaron convincentes:

¿Por qué Edwin y el señor Mead son inmunes al "poder" del libro? ¿Qué pasó con los intelectuales?, ¿también se fueron de pesca?, ¿eran inmunes también? ¿Qué no era May una persona inteligente? Las personas inteligentes no leen superación personal (y si lo hacen, no se dejan lavar el coco).

Aciertos: el tono pesimista, el sentido del humor, el ritmo ágil. Estados Unidos es el escenario ideal para una historia sobre cerebros lavados y fanatismo.

Desaciertos: la traducción, la ausencia de personajes entrañables, el epílogo innecesario.

[Marilia Chaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There, stacked high on his desk, was a tower of paper. Thick slabs of manuscript. Slush. Unsolicited, unagented, unloved. This was where dreams came to die. Book proposals, cover letters, entire manuscripts – they gathered like so much detritus on the desks of publishers everywhere.”

My favorite kind of book: a story about book publishers and the making of titles. A laugh out loud portrait of our industry. Highly recommended for editors everywhere.

[Moloch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Molto, molto divertente, caustica e piena di trovate la prima parte, peccato che verso la fine l'autore si conceda qualche lungaggine (e qualche predica) di troppo, e il ritmo e lo humor ne risentano.

[lethe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read up to page 107, leafed through the rest.

[Evalunasylva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Não achei piada nenhuma e senti-me ludibriada pela sinopse que prometia "uma divertidíssima sátira" e usou palavras como "hilariante"... Onde?!?

[Sindhura · Rating 4 out of 5]

He suddenly felt weary, weary beyond words. This morning he had been happy. Cranky, bitter and weighed down with life, but otherwise generally happy. He had been in a groove, or at least a very comfortable rut. His life, such as it was, fit together. But ever since this morning, ever since that manuscript landed on his desk, it was as though everything had begun to unravel. The end of the wharf and the deep waters beckoned…

A quintessential editor finds a self-help book on his desk one morning and presents it to his boss on a whim. Then he goes to a hell lot of trouble to publish the book. It costs him so much while it makes everyone else happy. So what does he do? He hangs onto his sadness.

We need our vices. We need our cotton-candy fluff, because life is sad and short and over far too soon. Why do we spend so much time tinkering with our identities? Why are we so captivated with trivialities? Because these small, petty things are so important.

This book is a fun satire on all the life coaches and the gurus who promise enlightenment and peace. It portrays a dystopian world where everyone is happy. I don't think the business of self-improvement is the Original Sin. I don't think much of it, to be honest. But, there's no middle ground in this book. It forces us to look at the successful end goal that everyone is pushed to pursue these days - spiritual and otherwise. What are the costs?

Human nature, at its best, had always been based on a deep heroic restlessness, on wanting something - something else, something more, whether it be true love or a glimpse just beyond the horizon. It was the promise of happiness, not the attainment of it, that had driven the entire engine, the folly and the glory of who we are. The folly and the glory: the two were not mutually exclusive. Far from it.

I think we need to read a book like this every once in a while. Because we need different kinds of people in the world. Not just the troublemakers or the goodfellas. Not all the time.

Hellraisers don't meddle. They rage and roar, and they celebrate life and they mourn its shortness. Hellraisers destroy only themselves, and they do it because they love life too much to fall asleep.

[Alessandra Brignola · Rating 3 out of 5]

La ricerca della felicità è da sempre considerata il fondamento della vita degli esseri umani, l’aspirazione più alta a cui naturalmente tendiamo. Ma cosa succederebbe se ricevessimo la ricetta segreta, se un libro - anzi, meglio, un manuale di auto-aiuto - ci svelasse il metodo infallibile per essere felici? Niente più ricerca, solo felicità.
Secondo Will Ferguson, una volta raggiunto il nostro fine massimo, i bisogni inculcati dalle aziende e dalle pubblicità ai consumatori, quello che ci rimane è un’umanità priva di desideri e aspirazioni, omologata, felice ma vuota di sostanza. Insomma, una noia mortale. Niente più vizi - e addio a tabacco e droghe -, niente più desiderio di miglioramento - addio palestre, ricette salutari -, addio guerre, conflitti, litigi. Tutto piatto. Come fare allora a rimediare? Davvero la felicità può essere tanto distruttiva delle componenti innate che ci rendono veramente umani? Davvero raggiungere il nostro fine ultimo può essere così deludente?
Il libro è carino, l’idea interessante, la critica a tutto ciò su cui si fonda la cultura occidentale chiara e radicale. Ma purtroppo il rimando a “Le intermittenze della morte” di Saramago durante la lettura per me è stato inevitabile, e il confronto impietoso.
Ne risulta un romanzo godibile, ma niente di più.

[Chiara Pagliochini · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Lo sa che cos'è che ha fatto di noi ciò che siamo? Lo sa che cosa ha fatto di noi la più grande, squallida, egemone potenza mondiale di mangiatori di hamburger, calcolatori di calorie, spacconi di tutta la storia umana? La ricerca della felicità. Non la felicità. La sua ricerca."