The Pain Scale

by Eula Biss

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Read For School, Writing

20 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Eula Biss holds a BA in nonfiction writing from Hampshire College and an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Northwestern University, where she teaches nonfiction writing, and she is a founding editor of Essay Press, a new press dedicated to innovative nonfiction. Her essays have recently appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction and the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Nonfiction as well as in The Believer, Gulf Coast, Columbia, Ninth Letter, The North American Review, The Bellingham Review, the Seneca Review, and Harper’s.

Reviews

[Stephanie Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was the first "long" piece assigned for reading by my Literature and Medicine professor and wowowow this tugged at my heartstrings and made my heart ache for the author and her kindred pain. I love creative nonfiction that braids together every train of thought possible at a moment to tell a story.

[Patricia Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite pieces of writing, ever.

My first exposure to the lyric essay style was when my high school English teacher had us read this. It spoke to me. It showed me that writing which is fluid and fragmentary in form can feel true and in tune with life. It showed me that writing can be playful and, in the same breath, cut deep. It mirrored my thought processes and nascent creative urges. It gave me permission to write my mind.

I come back to it whenever I need a reminder.

[Laura julio · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We have reason to believe in infinity, but everything we know ends”

[Sachi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't a book so I feel silly logging it but I want it on here so I can always find it. This essay captures the experience and utter magnitude of chronic pain so well - as she says, 'precisely because it is eternal'

Also cannot stop thinking of this line: The problem of pain is that I cannot feel my father’s, and he cannot feel mine. This, I suppose, is also the essential mercy of pain.

[Sophie 🥱 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating this writing is entirely against its entire point however I need to express in some capacity the effect that reading this has just had on me so a 5 star representation will do.

[nhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful essay loved the ties between religion/suffering/pain/mathematical concepts. the kind of writing i aspire to do

[Natasha Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This (seminal) work completely opened my eyes to what an essay can hope to accomplish, the boundaries a "lyric essay" can traverse, etc. Formal experimentation at its best; Biss stays GOATed.

[Lorena Cocora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

Great short piece on the ineffectiveness of rate scales and how frustrating and isolating it can be to have to rate your pain when no one can actually feel it the way you feel it.

It is a bit conflicting to give it a score on a 1 to 5 scale. So, to be more in tone with the writer this reading felt like meeting up with an old friend for a cup of coffee and finding out that you still relate to each other. It’s a bit sad but heartwarming at the same time.

[felacko · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow this was incredibly lovely- thank u misu for the recommendation! saving this as something i'll recommend and read over and over again

[Kenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really well written essay and I picked up every point that was put down. How we rate our pain on the pain scale is only relevant to the pain one has felt in the past, and because a doctor doesn’t know the true extent of pain you have felt in the past, the scale is somewhat useless. Bliss doesn’t outright say the scale shouldn’t be used, but she supplies many points as to why it’s flawed and doesn’t work the way it’s intended. She mentions many things like how people often rate their pain as a 5 in order to appear just average on the scale, that pain is different than how we suffer from pain and they often get confused, the 0 on the pain scale practically messes up the entire scale based on the fact that no pain at all isn’t possible. I found the religious references really intriguing and they worked really well. I really enjoyed this and it definitely made me thing about pain on a deeper level

[vique · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The problem of pain is that I cannot feel my father's and he cannot feel mine. This, I suppose, is also the essential mercy of pain"
Reading this after watching my father slowly dying for 3 years with cancer... and his last year being so full of several pain, to the point even morphine didn't help him anymore, seeing him being swallowed by unimaginable pain and wondering how could he do that... reading this has made me cry a lot more than i thought it would. i still cannot imagine the worst pain imaginable. i will never forget these words... beautiful book.

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was such an amazing read for me. I have lived with chronic pain for my whole life and I am “in remission” for the first time. Practically every line in this essay was something I related to on some level. It was a great piece of work and beautifully written. It reads like poetry. It broke my heart, but also made me feel understood.

I know it is a little weird to rate this book after the topics covered, but I couldn’t help myself.

[⟡ brittney ⟡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone that suffers from intense pain from different health issues, this was incredibly impactful to read. It put so much of my own experience with pain into words and focus in a way I’ve never been able to before, but also really expanded on the lived experiences of chronic pain in thoughtful and beautiful ways while not straying away from the suffering that comes with it. It’s an amazing essay, definitely recommend.

[Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When I cry from it, I cry over the idea of it lasting forever, not over the pain itself. The psychologist, in her rational way, suggests that I do not let myself imagine it lasting forever. “Choose an amount of time that you know you can endure,” she suggests, “and then challenge yourself only to make it through that time.” I make it through the night, and then sob through half the morning.”

[Tara ☆ Tarasbookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, lyrical, nonfiction braided essay that weaves together deftly researched, wide ranging topics such as the Beaufort wind scale, Dante’s Inferno, the concept of zero, memories of her father who was a doctor, and the author’s experience of chronic pain and the pain scale.

[Karen]

I'd like an update... did she ever solve the cause and get it to stop hurting?

[ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was decent. read it for my advanced creative nonfiction class. i bookmarked a lot of quotes. pretty profound stuff.

[eino❤️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

iha vitu hyvä

[Zoe Lubetkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the hypotheticals and short paragraphs; feel like Sierra would like this. I wasn't obsessed with the format but I think because I'm reading 15 years later the form doesn't feel as new

[PickleManOfD00m · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been crying for three days. oh my god. i love it.

[Janvi Chhabra · Rating 5 out of 5]

“But I am comforted, oddly, by the possibility that you cannot compare my pain to yours. And, for that reason, cannot prove it insignificant.”

[Emily Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Although the distance between one and two is finite, it contains infinite fractions. This could also be said of the distance between my mind and my body. My one and my two. My whole and its parts."

[Amelia McIntosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this essay in 2014, and it has since shaped how I write. Still holds up.

[Incandescent Dust Mote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Profound .... People have reason to believe in forever even though everything in their lives comes to an end... Also is there no 10 th circle in Dante 's hell?

[tortoise · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When I cry from the pain, I cry over the idea of it lasting forever, not over the pain itself.”

[azul]

si me vieron llorando en la samuel ramos no u didn’t

[Rachel Means · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75, rounded up. I had to read this for a class, and I was surprised by how much it touched me. As someone with chronic pain, this essay really made me feel seen.

[Akiva ꙮ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read online here: https://www.snreview.org/biss.pdf

[cowboymater · Rating 4 out of 5]

mann