Melankoliye Övgü - Mutluluk Mitini Yıkmak ve Hüznü Kucaklamak

by Eric G. Wilson

Melankoliye Övgü, mutluluğun tek seçenek olarak sunulduğu modern dünyaya cesur bir meydan okuma.

Eric G. Wilson’a göre melankoli, insan ruhunun gölgede kalan yüzü değil, anlam ve derinlik kazandığı bir alan. Bu kitap, korkularımızdan kaçmak yerine onlarla yüzleşerek insan ruhunun en derin noktalarına ulaşmanın yollarını gösteriyor.

Wilson, okuru melankoliyi bir zayıflık olarak görmekten vazgeçip onun dönüştürücü gücünü anlamaya çağırıyor. Tarih boyunca melankolinin sanatı, edebiyatı ve insan düşüncesini nasıl şekillendirdiğini çarpıcı örneklerle anlatıyor. Beethoven’ın ezgilerinden van Gogh’un fırça darbelerine, John Lennon’ın şarkı sözlerinden Sylvia Plath’ın dizelerine kadar birçok yaratıcı dehanın ilham kaynağı olarak melankoliyi işaret ediyor. Yaratıcı bir ruh hali olan melankolinin, bazen neşeyle bazen de acıyla insanı daha yüksek bir farkındalığa taşıyabileceğini vurguluyor.

Melankoliye Övgü, antidepresanların hızla tüketildiği bir dünyada, ruhun derinliklerini keşfetmek isteyenler için bir manifesto. Bu kitap, okuruna melankolinin karanlık tarafında saklı olan ışığı bulmayı ve bunu bir yaşam rehberi haline getirmeyi öneriyor.
“Eric G. Wilson, ruhun karanlık gecesini savunarak modern dünyanın neşeye olan takıntısına hak ettiği eleştiriyi getiriyor. Eserin, bu anlam arayışı ve zarif karşıtlıklarla dolu yaklaşımı, adeta ruhu yüceltiyor.”

– Colin McGinn, The Wall Street Journal

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Self Help, Mental Health, Science, Essays

160 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's no secret that I'm into books about our inner mental states, and the trouble they sometimes give us. So when a review copy of "Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy," by Wake Forest University English professor Eric G. Wilson came to the office, I greedily snatched it up.

What we've got here is a collection of four essays plus an introduction and conclusion. Wilson lets on that he's experienced depression, which he prefers to call melancholia, all his life. He doesn't go into his own personal experience much, but enough to let us know that he's slowly decided to take pride in his mental constitution. He is a melancholic and proud of it.

When he's not talking directly about himself, Wilson is using examples from literature (he likes Melville and Coleridge), or making broad sociological/philosophical claims about America at large. These claims fill most of the first essay, and I think they're the weakest part of the book. They're sweeping and not backed up, so I found myself disagreeing with him every step of the way, just out of crankiness. He argues that the majority of Americans are what he derogatively terms "happy types": not genuinely happy, but sort of Stepford-sitcom-hyperconsumerist happy. That's not a super new argument, I don't think, but it's one that I could probably have much sympathy for if it were presented in a subtle, persuasive way. Instead, Wilson takes such a superior, we-sensitive-souls-versus-all-those-vulgar-Americans tone, that I'm dying to separate myself from hm any way that I can. When he talks about the "mall mentality" afflicting these sanguine Americans, I feel like I'm reading something from the late '80s or early '90s. When is the last time you heard someone inveigh against malls? Wasn't that all the rage 15 years ago? One gets the feeling that Wilson's critique has been forged without a lot of direct observation of the world around him. I would have appreciated more specific details: show me a "happy type," for real, or else just stick to talking about yourself and/or the books that you know.

Overall, Wilson's point is that melancholy can be a fertile state of mind. He talks quite a bit about famous artists and writers who struggled with their moods. He seems to be saying that melancholics perceive the world more deeply than other kinds of people. But here we get to the root of my problem with the book: it's not his message, which is sort of fine-but-not-earthshaking. It's his tone. I didn't know that anyone still made prose in this particular shade of purple. Wilson writes, I'm afraid, like the lifelong English professor who's finally getting a chance to write the "creative" book he's always wanted to do. At last, a chance to be poetic, to give free rein to the imagination! Batten down the hatches, people. Wilson's hyper-aestheticized version of melancholia is enough to make the J. Peterman catalog sound staid. (And yet, it does sound like the language of advertising. He's got the almost-Victorian maudlin thing down cold.)

"We melancholy souls no doubt feel keenly the loss of our great old cityscapes and our forests and marshes. We love the beautiful ruins of aged buildings. We love the intricate architectural designs, the carvings and the mosaics and the rough stones. We love high ceilings and crown moldings. We love worn-down hardwood floors. We love the smell of rusting radiators. We love rickety windows that rattle in the wind. We also adore those ancient and lovely woodlands where we can walk alone and hear distant geese honking over the horizon. We can't get enough of trees in winter, of the thin brownish pines wisping among the oaks that never move. We are mad about the mucky earth covered in dead leaves. We inhale the nostalgic air and feel alive." (58-59)

Okay. So "we" love crown moldings. Even if Wilson weren't presuming to ascribe his bourgeois tastes (I mean, he knows they're bourgeois, right???) to all of us, I'd still prefer 20,000 words about J. Peterman's weathered but loyal leather mailbag.

"Against Happiness" is a good example of a book whose delivery and sloppy argumentation completely turned me off from some conclusions that I'd usually more or less agree with.

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just so there's no misunderstanding: I totally concur with Wilson's thesis, which is that "happiness" is not the natural human condition (indeed, it's possibly a recent invention), and suffering (or, as he keeps calling it, "melancholia" [*retch*]) is not only more valuable creatively, but closer to the human norm.

But wow, this book is just godawful.

First problem: he completely avoids the fertile relationship between capitalism, "happiness", and the pharmaceutical industry. This is a fatal cop-out: my guess is either he's boning some Prozac Nation grad-student waif, or Farrar, Straus and Giroux are in Big Pharma's pockets.

Second problem: his jubilant pop-wank theorizing (more like reassembling) leads him into into cross-eyed parallels between Herman Melville and Bruce Springsteen, or Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Joni Mitchell. None of which make any sense.

Third (worst) problem: this English professor just sucks at composing sentences in English. How's this for a brilliant post-narcoleptic insight: "There is of course something soul-deadening about being overly in love with oneself. When a person views the world only through his own experience, he divorces himself from the polarized flow of existence, that persistent dialogue between self and other, familiar and unfamiliar..." Rakka rakka rakka, and that's about where clueless Narcissus joins his wobbly blue twin.

Or this: "Melville and Springsteen alert us to the energy of winter. We all know of this, the mind's winter. No leaves now hide the nakedness of the branches. We stare at the gnarled and exposed limbs. They shiver in the wind..." I can't go on. Just a shyte writer, worse than Norman Vincent Peale.

Never trust a professor with a soul patch.

[Emma Sea · Rating 1 out of 5]

We are possibly not far away from eradicating a major cultural force, a serious inspiration to invention, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are wantonly hankering to rid the world of numerous ideas and visions, multitudinous innovations and meditations. We are right now at this moment annihilating melancholia. We wonder if the wide array of antidepressants will one day make sweet sorrow a thing of the past . . . what is behind this desire to purge sadness from our lives? , , , Why are most Americans so utterly willing to have an essential part of their hearts closed away and discarded like so much waste? . . . an obsession that could well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse." (pp. 4-5)

Fuck you, Eric G. Wilson. The myth of the tortured artist kills humans. Fuck you twice.

[Jafar · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things that any foreigner who’s lived in the U.S. long enough will eventually notice is how fixated Americans in general are with being, and being perceived as, happy. There’s quite a contrast with the rest of the world, as it’s pointed out very well in this book. In the rest of the world, you’re not committing social suicide if you don’t project a happy image of yourself.

Needless to say, making Americans happy has turned into quite a business. Who knows how much is spent on drugs and therapy and self help books and New Age gurus. (One particularly narcissistic aspect of this happiness business is the artificial boosting of self-esteem. I’d be very interested to know how much Americans spend annually to read or be told that they’re special and unique and beautiful and great. But that’s another subject.) However, when you read that 85% of Americans describe themselves as being very happy or happy, you can’t help but suspect that at least some of these happy campers are lying to themselves (denial, repression) and/or others (conforming to social expectations).

One thing that I really liked about Wilson’s analysis is how he links the American fixation on happiness with “the American dream.” With the near-successful conversion of America into a giant dull suburb with its cookie-cutter housing developments and shopping malls filled with the same chain stores, the next logical thing would be to do the same with human traits. Define any personality quirk and any deviation from the standard happy model as a disease that should be medicated out of existence. Turn everyone into the same drab Pollyanna going around with a painted smile proclaiming: “I’m happy. I’m special.” It’s good for business. Ask Republicans. They consistently report to be happier than Democrats.

Wilson tries to make a case that this kind of hollow happiness only breeds blandness; it forgets an essential part of a full human life; it ignores the value of agony to feel real ecstasy. Melancholy (not to be confused with the lethargic state of clinical depression) can and does create an agitation in the heart and mind that propels one to question the status quo and produce new ways of seeing and being. There are the countless artists and poets and geniuses to prove this point. Wilson mentions some of them as anecdotes. In the end, I’m not sure how convincing this book is to every reader, but Wilson’s near-poetic prose should be a joy to read for everyone.

[Irmak Zileli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Byung Chul Han'ın olumluluk toplumu ya da palyatif toplum olarak kavramsallaştırdığı, acıdan kaçma ve hayatı olumsuzluklarından arındırarak strerilleştirme eğilimine Eric G. Wilson mutluluk takıntısı diyor. Bu eğilimden de en çok "pozitif psikoloji" alanını, kişisel gelişim endistürüsini ve Amerikan toplumunu sorumlu tutuyor.
Melankoliye Övgü, okuruna hüznü kucaklama çağrısında bulunuyor ve Amerikan rüyasından cimdikleyerek uyandırıyor. Özetle şunu söylüyor: Tüm yaratıcılıkların anası melankolidir.
Bilim insanlarından felsefecilere, müzisyenlerden edebiyatçılara uzanan pek çok örnek üzerinden de bunu temellendiriyor. Meselenin ölüm ve yas duygumuza kadar uzandığını, hem yalın hem de derin bir bakış açısıyla gösteriyor.
Şu satırlar acıdan geçmenin kıymetini çok güzel hatırlatıyor:
"Keskin melankolinin sahip olduğu bu 'uyanık ızdırap' insanı iliklerine kadar titreten bir deneyime, bir 'krize' yol açabilir. Bu hayati an, kişinin her şeyin doğasına dair aniden edindiği bir içgörüden kaynaklanır: Hayat, ölümden doğar; ölüm, hayatın var olmasına yol açar. Bu içgörü melankoliyi canlandırır ve onu enerjik kılar."

[Gencay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melankoliye Övgü bana önemli bir şey öğretti: melankoli bir hastalık değil, bir armağan. Uzun süre, hüzünle birlikte yaşamanın bir eksiklik olduğunu düşünmüştüm. Oysa bu kitap, melankolinin insanı derinleştiren, ufkunu açan, hatta insanlığı daha iyiye taşıyan bir güç olduğunu gösteriyor.

Yazar, mutluluk takıntısının kapitalizmin dayattığı bir illüzyon olduğunu çok yerinde ve sert bir biçimde eleştiriyor. Suni neşelerle yaşayan toplumların boşluğunu ve yüzeyselliğini anlatırken, aslında melankolinin insanı hakikate daha yakın kıldığını hissettiriyor. Yazar kitap boyunca toplumsal eleştirilerini, daha çok Amerikan toplumunu referans alarak, hatta zaman zaman ergence bir öfkeye kapılarak sıralıyor.

Bana birçok konuda yalnız olmadığımı göstermesi açısından bu kitabı okumak benim için önemli bir deneyim oldu diyebilirim. Melankoli, çoğu zaman yanlış anlaşılan, hatta bastırılmaya çalışılan bir duygu. Ama dünyayı anlamanın, güzelliği fark etmenin, yaratıcı düşünmenin kaynağı olabilir. Onu reddetmek yerine kabul etmek, kendimi kısmen, daha çok zihinsel yönüyle özgürleştirdi diyebilirim, biraz iddialı bulunabilir belki bu, ancak şu gerçeği kabul etmeliyim ki, kitap aynaya bakmamı sağladı ve o aynada kendimle ilgili birçok şeyi fark etmemi sağladı. Üstelik kitabı okumadan önce hiç de böyle beklentilerim yoktu.

Beni en çok etkileyen alıntılardan biri şöyle:
"Ama en derinimde, iliklerimde, melankolik biri olmak için doğduğumu hissediyorum. Doğumumla elde ettiğim bu hakkıma bağlı kalmazsam, kendimi sahte hissediyorum. Benim ait olduğum yer karmaşa içindeki dünya."

Kitapta ele alınan melankoli, bazı yönleriyle yakın geçmişte okuduğum Italo Calvino’nun Palomar’ının gözlemlerinde yakalanan derin düşünce ve hayret duygusuyla da paralellik gösteriyor.

Benim için Melankoliye Övgü, sadece bir deneme kitabı değil; hayata bakışımda sessiz ama kalıcı bir güncelleme oldu. Gördüğüm kadarıyla özellikle yabancı okuyucular arasında bu kitabı oldukça sert eleştirenler olmuş, buna pek anlam veremedim açıkçası.

Depresyon ve melankoli ayrımını net bir şekilde yapan yazar, melankoliyi ruhumuzun taşıdığı bir yük değil, bir zenginlik olduğunu gösteriyor ve hayatımızın bir gerçekliği olduğunu şu sözlerle ifade ediyor: "“Hüzün, gerçeklerle uzlaşmamızı sağlar, bizi hayatın akışına dahil eder.”
Tüm melankolik ruhların okumasını tavsiye ederim:)
4,5/5

[iva° · Rating 4 out of 5]

u svijetu u kojem su uspjeh, zadovoljstvo, osjećaj ispunjenja i sreća "must" i u kojem se loše raspoloženje podiže pilulama, dobro je podsjetiti se da imamo pravo i na tugu, introspekciju, nezadovoljstvo, osjećaj besmisla i, uopće, jad.
knjiga kao oda svemu onome što čovjek jest -miks cijelog spektra emocija i doživljaja- od kojih niti jedna nije "kriva".

preporučam ako si sklon tjerati sebe u sreću, pod pritiskom diktata XXI. stoljeća i invazivnog "američkog sna" o ljepoti/uspjehu/bogatstvu bla i ako se osjećaš krivim ukoliko te obuzima nezadovoljstvo, osjećaj manje vrijednosti ili sklonost bježanju u vlastitu nutrinu.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

(This review is long and ranty. You've been warned!)

If I could give this book ZERO stars, I'd do it. It's truly awful. Awful in a train-wreck/can't-look-away sense.

It's too bad, because he has some good points. I'll summarize them here, to save you the trouble:

1) True joy or happiness can only be experienced by comparison with true sadness, existential doubt, and grief. By dodging the "bad", we don't have the proper tools to appreciate the "good".

2) Many of the world's greatest artists and thinkers experienced periods of deep melancholy (a word I'm now completely tired of) and acknowledged that the melancholy was both muse and burden.

3) We (and apparently "we" = all of America, if not the world) are making a grave mistake in trying to eliminate all feelings of sadness or doubt, because we doom ourselves to a flattened, bland, banal existence.

Those three points have validity. Now, in no particular order, my complaints:

1) The writing is terrible. It does improve over the course of the book, but it's still pretty dreadful. The first problem (evident in the beginning of the book especially) is his over-use of assonance and alliteration. It's like some high school English teacher once told him that those were good devices to use in his writing, and he's tried to insert them into every sentence since then!

1.1) The set-up of the writing is awful. By this I mean that he spends a majority of the time talking in generalizing terms about people--be they people who are "happy types" or melancholic--but then sometimes slips into giving specific examples drawn from his own life. This dilutes the power of the personal examples--a book dealing entirely with his own experience of melancholy would actually be more interesting. As it is, the personal examples seem maudlin (at best) and self-aggrandizing (at worst).

2) He doesn't present any footnotes for some of his claims. While he rails against, for example, the over-use of prescription drugs to eliminate sadness, he provides no data about how many prescriptions are written for "run-of-the-mill" sadness vs. true depression. While I don't doubt that this occurs, it feels like he's picking on people with a legitimate medical issue. (He claims he's not. But he also doesn't indicate an understanding that clinical depression is very different from the sort of generalized "all-life-will-end" sadness that can be a powerful creative force for *some people*. He may understand this difference quite clearly, but he doesn't share it with us.)

3) At times, he takes on a tone that is downright condescending and snobbish. While I fully support his right to live his melancholic life the way he wishes, he doesn't provide enough *actual* information about the lives of the so-called "happy types" to criticize them. It seems that he has made a lot of inferences about their lives, and some of these inferences may be correct, but everything he says is anecdotal.

4) He falls into a few traps--like criticizing the American war(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan--that are so out of place in the rest of the book that he should have just left them out. If he wants to write a book about American cultural imperialism that's fine, but his critique here is bizzarely out of place.

5) I believe that he *thinks* he's writing about all Americans (if not all western people). He's not. For example, he criticizes religion for the role it plays in 'helping' people avoid grappling with difficult issues, and instead presenting them with a milk-toast sort of a smiling, wish-fulfilling God. That's fine, in and of itself, though he seems underqualified to deconstruct religion in this way. My bigger problem with this is that he ONLY addresses western Protestant practices--as though there were no other religions in America!

All in all, Wilson comes off as an academic in an ivory tower, pontificating on the troubles of the world. While he hits some of the troubles on the head, it seems that he has no real understanding of the lives he's criticizing--and also thinks that these lives are (perhaps) not *worth* understanding.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a short book it sure took me a long time to get around to this, but I wanted to knock it out in one sitting. Wilson's approach is essentially an effort to explain the benefits of Romantic melancholy to a "don't worry, be happy" world. It's a daunting task given that Americans in particular prefer the cheery optimism of the manifest destiny soul to the sublime darkness of the introverted soul. While I generally liked the book, I found some of the points and examples came and went a little too quickly for my taste---references to Springsteen, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, etc., fly left and right without much elaboration, as if no one would dare quibble with Wilson's interpretations of their work. Maybe that's the best compliment I can give Against Happiness: while I agreed with much of what's said here---especially the interpretations of Keats---the debater in me wanted a bit more on the other side. Yes, Melville was about as dark a dude as American letters ever produced, but he also understood that it's a thin line between melancholy and monomania (i.e. Captain Ahab). Then again, considering the up-with-people audience he's aiming to persuade, Wilson probably didn't feel his could introduce those ambiguities into his argument for fear of undermining its assertiveness. Still, a highly worthy read.

[ZJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

So at the beginning he said he was differentiating between melancholia and depression but then kept idolising and referencing people who suffered greatly from mental illness, some of whom took their own lives as a result? Additionally, I think it's a bit bold to suggest that people with "mild to moderate" depression should simply deal with it in the hopes that they might produce great works of art or literature- like I see what the thesis was and I agree with some parts of it but other parts such as the above, not so much

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally really liked this book mainly because of its literary style. The author uses poetic prose to describe melancholy. The text is so rich and dense with metaphors which is very refreshing and uplifting. Some reviews have attacked the book for not being rigorous enough and for lacking the scientific evidence to prove the main point - that melancholy is needed in a world full of "ubiquitous placid grins". To me I find this beautifully daring. The author relies on his own personal experience as a melancholic soul to advance his statements as well as his wealthy baggage of literary knowledge. He gives plenty of examples from the greatest artists of our times such as Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Keates, William Blake and others which help the reader understand and link with the argument itself. You have to read this book with an open mind and be careful not to take everything at face value. It is a comfort for the troubled souls who are more at ease with their dark sides, but could bring out a strong defensiveness from those who don't like to face their own demons (hence some of the "not-too-good reviews" I've seen). This book is very thought-provoking. I would read it again and take my time to absorb every mental image and every meaning.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

I heard the author interviewed on NPR, and this sounded interesting, so I gave it a shot. I was only able to read 30 pages before I threw the book down in disgust. This thing is an essay that has been padded with just enough ridiculously melodramatic prose to justify being categorized as a book. I can't believe this guy teaches at the university level. The premise is sound, but there is way too much fluff to get through; I couldn't stomach it. Absolute disappointment.

[Agneta Jakab · Rating 4 out of 5]

How often have you felt that being sad is socially wrong? Did you find yourself in a crowd and felt like an outcast only because maybe you didn't feel the need to talk and pretend that everything is ok even when it wasn't?

Melancholic people question the past, the present and the future. And that's why they force things to move forward. They make art, science, literature, and that's because they don't settle for what life gives and pretend to be happy while ignoring everything that happens around them that doesn't suit the ready-made cognitions and behaviours that most people use. They choose to overthink and ask questions.

The author presents you some outcasts that are role models even today, and that's only because they accepted their emotions, questioned their own existence, their purpose, or even death. They saw beauty in the fact that everything and everyone passes away, everything dies, and maybe that's why everything has such beauty and should be valued.


This book doesn't tell you not to be happy, it tells you that you should accept the bad that comes with the good, the fact that you're a whole human being and that you should live your entire life with all the emotional states there might exist. And that you really shouldn't be ashamed of them.

Afterall, at the end of a long period of suffering, happiness has a sweeter taste, doesn't it?

[Merve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kitap niye bu kadar sert tepkiler almış anlamış değilim açıkçası. Hele biri bayağı bayağı küfretmiş aşağı yorumlarda
Yazar aslında farklı bir şey söylemiyor. Duyguların politik, sosyal yapılarına dair birazcık okuma yapmış her insana aşina olan şeylerden söz ediyor. Bilgileri tazeleme adına yazılmış bir eser. Sürekli mutluluk, al harca hep mutlu ol ekonomisinin yürürlükte olduğu kapitalist toplumlarda mutluluk pompalamasina karşı çıkıp bunun karşısına melankoliyi koyuyor yazar. Depresyonla arasindaki farka daha baştan değiniyor.
Biraz yüzeysel bir yorumu var, kişisel örneklere deginmekten çok daha genel bir yorumlama tarzı var. Bu eleştirilecek bir boyut. Ama o kadar sert yorumları hak ettiğini de düşünmüyorum.
Mutluluk -ucucu ve geçici bir duygudur bu- üzerine, ve özellikle harcama, hayat deneyimi satma üzerine kurulu bir toplumda olumsuz duyguların, melankolik bakışacisinin, bence hüznün ve kederli oluşun da başka bir varoluşa imkan tanıdığına deginiyor.
Yenilikçi bir kitap mı hayır değil, ama onca da kötü değil. Biraz fazla üsttenbakmacı şekilde mutlu tipler ve kahraman(!)lastirdigi ve idealize ettiği melankolik tipler arasında bir genelleme yapması da tatsız olsa da değindiği konular açısından göz atmaya değer yine de.

[Mackenzie Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is over the top, but precisely in a way that appeals to me. This is an instance of recognizing faults and not caring. Everyone likes to have their off-center worldview validated every once and a while.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“Is our nation’s happiness, it’s crass self-satisfaction, it’s wretched contentment, partially responsible for its getting behind a recent was that never should have occurred?”

At one point he lists many of the icons of American melancholia from Herman Melville and to Jackson Pollock, Edward Hopper and Bruce Springsteen. I really enjoyed his summary of Joni Mitchell’s experience of melancholy and some of the ways it impacted her creative and personal life. His take on Keats also made for really interesting reading too.

At times Wilson goes quite deep, dark and philosophical. But he’s not meaning to be dark, that’s just the surface of it and when you examine what he’s saying and look to what he’s ultimately getting at, you soon see that it’s a positive thing.

“The predominant form of American happiness breeds blandness. This kind of happiness appears to entertain a craven disregard for the value of sadness.”

He does occasionally lapse into romanticizing selective ideas of melancholy and depression, something he admits to, which can feel a bit off. I’m not sure that he fully develops all of his ideas convincingly, and there’s certainly some padding in here, but overall I think he makes some decent points well enough without being too profound or entirely original.

[Ermina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sviđa mi se glavna ideja do koje dolazi u samom završetku: melaholija je šifra za inovativnost - iz nje nastaje ljepota koja umire i umjetnost koja je savršena.

[Chrisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book, some sections in the middle are a bit slow, too steeped in philosophy for me, but most of it is good, the last couple of chapters especially. The author does a good job of exploring the shifting moods that many people go through that appear to be depression, and what that is all about... he brings it all around to how it's part of the human earthly condition to go through these melancholy moods---if we didn't we wouldn't be alive...and that in many cases it is melancholy or dealing with an unhappy reality that spurs creativity as a way to deal and to heal from this...I thought I wasn't going to like it becuase the first part discusses America as materialistic and opportunistic and that this country was founded on the idea of not facing reality and try ing to find an escape from this cold hard life: i.e. Americans live in lala land. And not that he's wrong in all his points, but this is no new idea, yes we're materialistic, and we take over everything in order to get a profit, yes it's capitalism, nothing groundbreaking. As he goes on though, he gets into some great discussions about how we experience life, about true reactions to things rather than the expected "happy" glossed-over reactions that are common and acceptable by all. Sort of a discussion about do we really say what we feel, do we live what we feel, are we honest? Or has our culture shaped us into glossing over life lying to ourselves about what we really enjoy, what we really like, what we're passionate about. These are subtle things but great to delve into. I did find myself dissagreeing with a lot of his points as I went along but that has been enjoyable as well. Very thoughtful book.

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

This slim volume isn't so much "against happiness" as in favor of melancholy, or, more specifically, for embracing all our emotions and reactions to phenomena and living with uncertainty as whole people. As a thesis, I'm all for it. Unfortunately, the author does not present any ideas beyond what I've summarized above in one sentence. Even worse, the prose is awful; like the self-help cheerleaders he opposes, Wilson lards his polemic with cliches, banal observations, and quotations from much better writers and thinkers. Here's a sample:

"We melancholy souls no doubt keenly feel the loss of our great old cityscapes and our forests and marshes. We love the beautiful ruins of aged buildings. We love the intricate architectural designs, the carvings and the mosaics and the rough stones. We love high ceilings and crown moldings. We love worn-down hardwood floors. We love the smell of rusting radiators. We love rickety windows that rattle in the wind. We also adore those ancient and lovely woodlands where we can walk alone and hear geese honking over the horizon. We can't get enough of trees in winter, of the thin brownish pines among the oaks that never move. We are mad about the mucky earth covered in dead leaves. We inhale the nostalgic air and feel alive."

It's like Restoration Hardware ad copy directed at hipsters convinced of their singular sensitivity. Dreadful.

[Jonfaith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Samizdat selected this one, it was slight, hardly philosophical, (you know ,mannnn) made more references to pop songs than any weighty (yeah, I made that distinction) tome and it was over before really beginning. What really sucks is that I bought it new. Any further irony with the thematic is understood and inscribed upon the flesh like the hapless colony campers in Kafka's purview.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I ended up liking it.  On the face of it, as a deeply melancholy person who has long struggled with chronic depression and related issues, and who has empathetically read about a variety of melancholy people who were nonetheless intensely creative and deeply humane (like Abraham Lincoln), this book ought to be aimed at a sympathetic audience.  And yet this author manages to screw up the approach by making this book against a lot more than the fake happiness that is common all around us.  The author's discontent appears far deeper than that, leading him to excuse all kinds of wickedness from people on account of their being creative people who do not need to be held to the moral standards that are applied to humanity as a whole, and leading him not only to oppose fake happiness but to oppose the genuine joy that comes through a life of loyal love to God and service of others.  Instead, the author promotes the solipsistic view that people who are rebellious against God's ways and against society are always to be praised for that rebelliousness, and to be excused of any of their flaws on account of their melancholy.

This short book of about 150 pages begins with an introduction and quickly moves to a highly critical attitude towards America's war on melancholy through self-help books, the cultivation of relentless false cheer, and mind-altering chemicals that view sadness as something to eliminate rather than something to (at least occasionally) cultivate (1).  After that the author looks at the man of sorrows that presents Christ as a sorrowful person rather than the happy and joyful person that he is often seen by others (2)--though it should be remembered that Jesus Christ showed both a great deal of cheer and happiness as well as a great deal of sorrow during his earthly life, and the author misses the sense of balance and proportion.  The author then moves to a discussion of generative melancholia, which is the deep sadness that is associated with creative people like Salvador Dali or John Lennon or this reviewer (3), as opposed to the sort of melancholy that leads to mere passivity or addictive behaviors.  The author's next chapter on terrible beauty praises the heavy cost of creativity for people like Beethoven and praises the rebellion that creative people often show to established ways of belief and behavior (4).  Finally, the book ends with a conclusion, biographical notes, and acknowledgements.

As is often the case in a book like this, the author is engaging in a false dilemma when he praises melancholy in the condemnation of fake happiness.  There is, of course, a third way besides fake happiness and genuine suffering and spiritual and emotional torment.  Even as someone well familiar with deep anguish, there is the longing for genuine happiness.  And at frequent times, usually spent in the enjoyment of godly and friendly company, there is the achievement of such joy, which does not require fake smiles or empty platitudes but which involves genuine creativity and cooperation and happiness.  Apparently the author, though, only finds value in the rejection of God and His ways as well as a hostility to society at large and a misanthropy towards other people.  The fact that the author misses the fact that he is engaging in a false dilemma suggests the way that it is easy to pit ourselves against something we recognize as evil without recognizing in ourselves that we are merely in the opposite ditch rather than providing insight and wisdom to others, and that avoiding this trap requires a perspective that is above that of this author.

[Oni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Against Happiness, In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson is a philosophical meditation on today's obsession with happiness, the constant fight to eradicate any trace of sadness or melancholy and any moment of doubt and inner questioning by all means including numbing entertainment, medication, excessive insistence on positive thinking and vilification of blueness. He argues that all these lead to a diluted existence, indeed to a refusal of true existence itself. For authentic exuberance for life can only spring from the realization that true joy and melancholy nourish each other, for only by fully embracing one's existence with all its tantalizing doubts, its gloomy moments, its bipolar moods, its painful ironies can one truly attain moments of pure joy. A true appreciation of light can only be attained after viscerally acknowledging that it contains all shades, including black.

Though they did not strike me as particularly new - Blaise Pascal for instance wrote about it - I agree with Wilson's thesis and found interesting his focus on today's U.S. society and momentum. However, his overall discourse became a bit tiresome. His writing is elaborated but his arguments aren't. He weaves analysis of his personal experiences with an abundance of examples from the art world. From Romantic poets and philosophers to Joni Mitchell and John Lennon, he sweeps a large though mostly Western-centric sphere to argue against artificial happiness and to prove that melancholy and embracing uncertainty sharpen creativity and true understanding. His examples are interesting and there's something to learn from them but personally, I would have appreciated an inclusion of examples outside the Western sphere as well, perhaps an analysis of attitudes towards happiness in African and Asian cultures. Moreover, his writing seemed affected, melodramatic even, managing to sound presumptuous, and repeating again and again the same handful of points and ideas. Repetition though not a proof or argument maketh.

[Marjan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this rather short book the author argues that melancholy (which he defines or identifies as a feeling of unease, a mild depression, or feelings of alienation, despair, questioning status quo, loneliness, uncertainty, dissatisfaction and alike) is a necessary component of artistic creation and even experiencing life to full extent. It is nicely written, although not without problems. After the first reading I can identify at least two: the first is small and semantical (almost irrelevant), and the second much more problematic (of statistical kind). Let us start with the easy one:

The book title promises an ode to sadness and the first pages will almost disappoint all the "emo-people" out there, because what this turns out to be is actually a praise to life and joy (don't worry, there is some emo material later on, although only as a brick in a larger pro-joy argument). Author attacks this current American shallow materialistic and sterilized way of suburban life with a steady job, monthly mortgage, 1.7 children, SUV, shopping malls and afternoon book clubs... Predictability and dullness is all around us, and all in the name of erasure of fear, chaos and insecurity, thus achieving the "American dream" - sterile happiness. What an illusion that is! I couldn't agree more with the author on this point. To experience life in full one needs to experience the rough edges of loss and misfortune just as well (the point also being argued by Oscar Wilde in De Profundis, and a number of other authors). Those low moments give joy and happiness its heights. What the author mistakes in this argument is, that he looses focus on what is a tree and what is just a branch of that same tree. He uses the word 'melancholy' for the entire set of these symptoms and denials, while the denial of melancholy is but a sub-category of a much larger family of denials, which is the denial of Chaos (with Emergence and Complexity) in general. Fixing that mistake, the entire first 2/3 of the book could be much easier to understand and many of the negative reviews thus irrelevant. If rewritten in a bit more cynical language it could easily fit in as a chapter inside Taleb's latest book Antifragile for he argues exactly the same thing, although he invents a number of nicknames for people who fall for such fallacies: sucker, fragilista, turkey, etc. :) But one who has read at least the basics of the Chaos theory can easily overlook this mistake and read it without being disturbed. The whole point of the argument remains clear and brilliantly true. (The first part of the title "Against Happiness" is a bit problematic too, because the happiness the author has in mind is that of a shallow suburban kind, thus creating completely misleading title in general. OK; I get it, the book has to sell...)


But towards the end the writer starts to praise melancholy just a bit too much for my taste. It is certainly true that melancholy, depression and even other mental illnesses are closely in bed with the (Artistic) creation, but their relationship is a bit more complicated than the one the author has in mind. And from here on I speak also from my personal experience. It is certainly true that experience of pain, loss and misery makes one compensate trough artistic creation, but not everyone make it to that point! The cure or the poison is not so much in the structure of the molecule as it is in the dose. Just a bit too much, and a potent antibiotic can become a deadly serum. So does depression. Millions suffer without creating anything, many finish with suicide or just die nameless in some hospital or under the bridge. Perhaps they also didn't discover their talent in time, or the illness came too soon or in a too severe form? ALL of the artists this book mentions are but a drop in a ocean, they are a positively emnforcing evidence, but if we want to have a clear picture of what is going on, we also have to pay a visit to the cemetery and make a fuller count (the absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence). Then and only then we can claim a statistical connection between melancholy and creativity. I suspect that the relationship does not go both ways (from the claim that "brilliantly creative people experienced melancholy" does not necessarily follow that "ALL melancholic people shall create brilliant works" and that melancholy itself should thus be praised). That, in my view, is a serious logical and statistical error which I many times described in my own writings and experienced on my own skin. The reality of creativity and melancholy (together or separate) is much much more complex than that. Serous depression is a completely paralyzing state in which one cannot lift even a finger without immerse psychological and sometimes even physical pain. Even if the author explicitly avoids this kind of illness in his initial definition of melancholy, it still hangs in the air somewhere above the argument, for it is true that those artists didn't go just trough the milder versions of it, but also trough the real deal. So is it worth it?

But - given the starting definition of the argument, according to which melancholy is not a state of mental illness but just a slight unease and a healthy dose of loss and pain that is unavoidable in any life, I must agree with the point of the book. Such melancholy does strengthen the spirit and it sure gives beauty its meaning. Not only that; if I shamelessly compare it with my notes from the past months, I can find almost identical ideas in a number of paragraphs trough out my scrapbook... the truth is unavoidable - or rather - great minds think alike. :) In that sense, I can't thank the author enough for doing the work of writing this basics down for me, so I can continue where he left of. There is still lots to do here. :D

But seriously: It was a good read and I'm glad it remains on my shelf for future contemplation on this subjects. The book itself contains many further references for advanced reading and study. Read it.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like another reviewer, I wish there was a way to give no stars, and no points. Even my 1 point is too high.

I agree with many of the philosophies in this book. I think we overemphasize happiness in our society, that we put on masks and pretend we are happy too often to fit in, and that we overmedicate. We define happiness too stringently, when it can be different for everyone, and I think it is our right and task to find out what makes us happy. However, Professor Wilson does not make a persuasive argument against happiness, nor does he make a particularly lyrical praise of melancholy. Melancholy is one of my favorite words in the English language, and I love melancholy. You can’t know joy unless it you have known sorrow, and you can’t know sorrow unless you know joy. They are intricately linked. I also think any argument must be precise in its language. Other, more apt titles for this book might be, “Against Conformity,” or “Against Subdivisions, and Capitalism,” or “Against too much Sunshine and living in areas with too much sunshine.” He loves clouds, and mean people, and crumbling buildings, and somehow he thinks that he is first, unique, and secondly, more insightful than those who dislike those things. He also disproves his argument since he says over and over how he loves these melancholic things, and how they bring him to his senses, to feeling alive, how they inspire him to write better, how they spark a feeling not unlike joy. He says it over and over, and what he is saying is that be going into the melancholy, he becomes happy. He doesn’t dive into melancholy and get sadder; he finds himself there and finds peace and calm. I am very sorry to tell him, that is happiness. He is a happy American type.

What he constantly calls “happy American types” are people who love malls, subdivisions, can’t bear to not keep up with the Joneses and have to have the biggest and fanciest house on the block. Don’t we all know those conformists and materialistic people are fake happy? They deserve our sympathy and it would be a much better use of all of our time to battle against them in productive ways: block their malls and developments with letters and emails, boycott soul destroying media and TV that promote their Stepford-like existence, etc. Don’t sit there and judge. Melancholy does not do that, insecurity and daddy issues do that. There are a thousand ways to live this life, and if you choose you focus on the melancholic parts, good for you, go for it, but let the rest of us choose our moods. I think it is much healthier to enjoy all the flavors, and moods, and seasons of life: I am one of the happiest people I know, but I love going deep into the desert, especially badlands, and contemplating emptiness and alone-ness. I love torch songs, and melancholy music that strikes a bell inside, like the sound of a mournful pedal steel in folk music. I encompass it all, and am fully realized and absorbing all of what it means to be human.

This author is trying to make a case for melancholy but by attacking the rest of us, he looks weak and petulant. One example of his strange, narcissistic views:
“We suddenly feel better- not blissfully happy but tragically joyful…The greatest tragedy is to live without tragedy. To hug happiness is to hate life. To love peace is to loathe the self…”

Again, he is describing being happy although calling it “tragically joyful.” Feeling better is not melancholy, it is using melancholy to FEEL BETTER AKA HAPPINESS. No one on the planet can live without tragedy. It happens to us all, and to imply that his sought after tragedy even comes close to the tragedies that befall those who do not live in ivory towers in universities is arrogant and shameful. His view is more indicative of the American exceptionalism and entitlement he is so quick to judge and condemn. And I would say, “to hug melancholy is to hate life. to hate peace is to loathe the self.” But I didn’ t write a book against melancholy, and wouldn’t. Live life as you feel you should.

And leave those of who relish every minute and feeling, ugly or beautiful, happy or sad, to truly experience what it means to be human. He goes on a rant about all the ways he has “tried” to get “lost in the collective stupor.” “I have tried to turn my chronic scowl into a bright smile. I have attempted to become more active… I have taken up jogging, the Latin language, and the chair of an English department. I have fostered a drive to succeed in my career. I have bought a palm pilot, insurance policy, and a cell phone…I have taken an interest in Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have feigned interest in the health of others. I have pretended to take seriously certain good causes to make the world a better place. I have started eating salads…”

The whole book drips with this arrogant, egotistical, and ridiculous drivel. Some might say it is the epitome of negativity, but eating salads as an example as a “collective stupor” behavior? Smiling? Has he never known a baby or child? Smiling is natural and instinctive, as is being melancholic. Scowling all the time is not natural. Speaking from a child development standpoint, I hope he never has them. It is just nonsense.

I had thought wrongly that the book might be great for debate; I am a terribly happy and joyful person, double whammy, so it is good to read opposing viewpoints. Maybe if his jacket photo showed him scowling I could take him more seriously.

[Jan Bloxham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unclear prose; the author tries to soar but can’t escape the pit of black bile. Sporadic paragraphs hinted at something beautiful, but it remained forever out of reach. Like happiness, which the book harks against. We can all sympathize with that, at least.

“The greatest tragedy is to live without tragedy. To hug happiness is to hate life. To love peace is to loathe the self. The blues are clues to the sublime. The embrace of gloom stokes the heart.”

[Michael Lisk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, the prose gets purple at times, but I enjoyed the perspective. A nice companion to Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death." Also, check out some of the other reviews: people either loved it or hated it which is always a good sign something interesting is going on.

[Bassam Alzayer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book could’ve been a one page article.

[Jonathan Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Happiness isn’t the only virtue worth fighting for. Melancholy has allowed artists, innovators and leaders to push forward humanity for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Sometimes lost in the diction, the book has a strong argument to go against happiness as the only feeling to have in this world.

[Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most pretentious book I've read to date. Unfortunate as there are some decent points to take away hiding beneath layers of extreme attempts of prose, running in circles about the points made, and just an air of "I'm so smart and no one understands".

[Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy,” a 2008 book by Eric G. Wilson offers a useful and needed counter force to the dominant American culture of happiness, incessant smiles, positive thinking, and an effort to banish sadness, by drugs if necessary.
This book is not about clinical depression, as he points out, but about everyday suffering and sadness that are an inevitable part of life. My only complaint is that he makes this point over and over again in slightly different wording. I think this material would have better been a long magazine article instead of a 151-page book.
Wilson uses the examples of philosophers from Aristotle to the present and thinkers such as Carl Jung who studied and wrote about melancholia. Artists such as Melville, Blake, Coleridge, Keats, and Beethoven grappled with disabilities, sickness, failures, and melancholia and used them in their creation of literature and music. Wilson says that recurring melancholia is a sign of good mental health and the source of insight into the human condition.
Everlasting happiness should not be the goal of humans, Wilson writes.
“Trying to forget sadness and its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos, this sort of happiness insinuates in the end that the blues are an aberrant state that should be cured as weakness of will or removed with the help of a little pink pill.”
Wilson sees happiness and sadness as opposite poles of human life, both necessary.
“Again, what is existence if not an enduring polarity, and endless dance of limping dogs and lilting crocuses, starlings that are spangled and frustrated worms? Grasping onto one side of the perpetual antagonism between opposites, trying to experience happiness without gloom, is akin to wanting the sun to shine all the time, wishing only for winter, or yearning for up with no down.”