Darwin's Worms: On Life Stories and Death Stories

by Adam Phillips

Adam Phillips has been called “the psychotherapist of the floating world” and “the closest thing we have to a philosopher of happiness.” His style is epigrammatic; his intelligence, electric.His new book, Darwin's Worms , uses the biographical details of Darwin's and Freud's lives to examine endings—suffering, mortality, extinction, and death. Both Freud and Darwin were interested in how destruction conserves life. They took their inspiration from fossils or from half-remembered dreams. Each told a story that has altered our perception of our lives. For Darwin, Phillips explains, “the story to tell was how species can drift towards extinction; for Freud, the story was how the individual tended to, and tended towards his own death.” In each case, it is a death-story that uniquely illuminates the life story.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, Science, Evolution, Death

148 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Adam Phillips is a British psychotherapist and essayist.

Since 2003 he has been the general editor of the new Penguin Modern Classics translations of Sigmund Freud. He is also a regular contributor to the London Review of Books.

Phillips was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1954, the child of second-generation Polish Jews. He grew up as part of an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins and describes his parents as "very consciously Jewish but not believing". As a child, his first interest was the study of tropical birds and it was not until adolescence that he developed an interest in literature. He went on to study English at St John's College, Oxford, graduating with a third class degree. His defining influences are literary – he was inspired to become a psychoanalyst after reading Carl Jung's autobiography and he has always believed psychoanalysis to be closer to poetry than medicine.

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Phillips is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. He has been described by The Times as "the Martin Amis of British psychoanalysis" for his "brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling" work; and by John Banville as "one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson of our time."

Reviews

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, with its intelligent and profound meditation on mortality, really helped me to cast off the baggage or shackles of the unrealistic religious notions of justice and redemption which had become absolute burdens in the face of my own experience of life and of such historical facts like the Holocaust, to me the defining moral conundrum of our age, in which for the victims there was no redeemer waiting in the wings and afterwards so little justice meted out to the perpetrators.

By the time I left the monastery where I had lived and studied and loved for seven years I was an atheist, albeit a terribly reluctant one, yet I still harboured dreams (or tyrannical fantasies) within a type of secular religion, of the perfectibility of the individual, State or society with its secular beliefs of justice and redemption. But what I had experienced, and continued to do so in my new life, was imperfection and corruption, where of justice and redemption there was little sign, and where death made a final mockery of our brief lives and cherished beliefs. This little book saved my sanity. It opened my eyes to the stunning humility and honesty of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, and reconciled me to an imperfect world and has helped me deal with my fear of death.

Adam Phillips gently tries to lead us away from hoping for a better world outside of this one. Like Darwin and Freud, he argues that we need to accept the world as it is, and to cast off ways of thinking which seek to redeem us. And it is through accepting death that we can do this.

For both Darwin and Freud, the idea of death saves us from the idea that there is anything to be saved from." The "religious" obsession with our need for improvement limits us and binds us to the notion that we are somehow 'faulty', Augustine's old "original sin' myth.
We shall not achieve perfection so we should not seek it.And by letting go of this notion, this self-imposed burden, we are suddenly liberated to live each day to the full. And death, which is part of the package of existence, will come in its own time, becomes something far less frightening.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book contains two essays, one on Darwin and another on Freud, couched within a prologue and an epilogue. There are many who have pointed out that the Freud that emerges out of Phillip’s writing is not the father of psychoanalysis but someone else, to what extent is this figure truthful to the real Freud is a pointless question. I don’t think that I keep returning to Phillip’s works for the real Freud but because of Phillip’s enigmatic image of Freud. At this point you could ask to what extent is the Darwin in this book real, and my answer would be I have no idea. Perhaps what you find here is not exactly an analysis of Darwin and Freud but rather an interpretation of them, where both Darwin and Freud are artists: two individuals who tried to find new ways to look at reality, at life. And just like a good interpretation that is in itself a work of art, Phillip moves us with his ideas, or intimations of them, but if it is for convictions that we search the pages of this book I think we will be disappointed. For Phillip’s both Darwin and Freud are occupied with the question of transience: the result of the death of eternity, a side effect of the death of God. But not just transience but what is destroyed is a cosmic order: a hierarchy in which ‘man’ occupied the second highest place. Both Darwin and Freud and Phillip with them are preoccupied with how are we going to find our peace with this new world, this new position that we find ourselves in, but Phillip doesn’t just want us to stop at coping with it but to find pleasures in these new sights that we encounter. And this book wants us, among many other things, to be experimenters attempting to find pleasure in this little life of ours.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darwin's realization that much of the earth's surface is the product of earthworm excrement and Freud's antipathy to biography prompt Phillips' elegant, dense discussion on mortality and freedom. Discussions of such things as Freud's death instinct tend to lose me, and at times that was the case here. But Phillips' formulation of the two thinkers projects is probably as clearly stated as they can be and invigorating in their conclusions about nature and our place in it.

A quote: "For both Darwin and Freud the idea of death saves us from the idea that there is anything to be saved from. If we are not fallen creatures, but simply creatures, we cannot be redeemed. If we are not deluded by the wish for immortality, transience doesn't diminish us."

A good book to read alongside Julian Barnes' Nothing to be Frightened Of.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engrossing meditation on mortality that is surprisingly life-affirming. I read it while at a particularly low ebb in the hope it would hasten my emotional demise but – who would have guessed it – it cheered me right up! More seriously, this is a well-written essay on what death does to the human body and spirit.

[Peter Bruno]

Really beautiful meditation on the human condition.

[Richard Ascough · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always fun to read (and re-read) Adam Phillips and while this is not his best work, it still conveys his erudition both in his comfort zone (Freud) and outside (Darwin). Phillips relentlessly draws the reader to thoughts of death by reviewing Darwin's fascination with the simple earthworm churning detrius into topsoil before delving into Freud's resistance to biography as a refection of the death-instinct. There is lots to digest in this short book, with many quotable quotes along the way (e.g., "what is narrative about if it is not about objects of desire and the detours and obstacles and dangers entailed in their acquisition," p. 83).

[sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

love some freud biotheory but unfortunately this read like an undergraduate term paper :(

[Murf Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a good time reading these stories. It took me a little while to get the hang of Phillip's writing style, and I needed to read several things a few times to really understand the idea. Darwin and Freud shattered our way of thinking with their works, and Phillips focuses on Darwin's love of earthworms, their abilities, and power. Darwin believed earthworms were the ultimate representation of nature because the worms' lives are all about digestion without question. No concern with culture and to do the work until the next chapter of life or transition. The digestion is also the way of plowing the land and covering the past and letting the past go, instead of using the past to try and shape the future. According to Phillip's interpretation, this is what nature really is, very tough with a certain amount of suffering and certain death that is only concerned with living and not how living is viewed by those living. The idea that nature is something to be controlled and if for our bidding is ludicrous. Phillip tackles Freud the same way but using Freud's hatred of biographers/biographies to illustrates Freud's point that life is really just a way to die as one wishes. A biography of someone's life is missing the point of life. We can't describe our lives because we are living them and for another to write of our lives would only be an exercise in studying the biographer because it is the biographer choosing which portion of our lives is important or "good."

[Nico · Rating 4 out of 5]

“For both Darwin and Freud the idea of death saves us from the idea that there is anything to be saved from”. I really enjoyed this book and especially the authors style. The chapters on Darwin I surprisingly found more interesting than the ones on Freud. I think this was because of the constant reiteration of the concept of biography in relation to Freud felt strained, but I understood the connection needed to be made. Overall this book was great at conceptualizing mortality in a way that felt like a I was reading a meditation. Definitely want to read more Adam phillips.

“It has been the tendencies of western belief systems to value what is immortal - god, truth, the sole - Darwin and Freud encourage us to describe what thus craving for continuities might be a solution to. And they press us to think of lives as more miraculous than our deaths; our death is inevitable, but our conception is not.”

“The unconscious is the true physical reality…in its innermost nature it is as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world”

“Like his favored worms, organisms might happen to collaborate with each other and even with other species (even if this could not be described as their intention); but their survival in order to reproduce would always set ineluctable limits to the very real communality that could be observed to exist in nature”

“The only world that is possible must be the best of all possibly worlds”

[Aaron Ambrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darwin and Freud didn’t kill God. Rather, they gave us new ways to consider our role in the world that no longer required a god. The ongoing health of God in our culture just shows that there are lots of ways to understand one’s role in the world. Phillips’ project here is to highlight a specific observation shared by Darwin and Freud - life is ever changing, attachments are ever dying, and without deaths there can be no room for the future to appear. Mourning is an act to embrace, reacting to the changing environment (i.e., evolution) is crucial to survival, and death is married to life. Relish all life - because death is inevitable, but your birth was not.

[Mauro Locarnini · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the book and very much liked the conclusion. However the writing style is overly complex and makes the reading unnecessarily hard. I enjoyed the philosophical journey to interpret both Darwin (which I haven't read) and Freud (which I have). It was super interesting but too hard.

[John Fredrickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this book. The section on Darwin was OK, as it managed to convey a little bit of who Darwin was, and how his focus on worms provided some relief and insight into the life and death process. The section on Freud I found to be rambling, and lacking in any focus that I could discern.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Academic and dry

[Anna Novikova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has some thought provoking moments but it’s also written in both a vague/obscure and repetitive manner. Still interesting, and the epilogue was prob my fave part.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phillips as usual where he brings the width and depth of his reading into my home. Always so much to learn, different ways of looking at things.

[Nicola Parise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Phillips explores the lives and works of Darwin and Freud to bring fresh perspectives on mortality and death to light. His writing is clear and to the point, making intelligent and well considered arguments. This book is most valuable for the way it shakes up worn out discourses surrounding death and challenges readers to reconsider conventional notions of mourning.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

A challenging, dense, slow read, which unfortunately didn't pay off all the work. I felt the author, like so many before him, way overstepped in his analysis of Darwin in his effort to support his thesis.

[Gail McConnell]

'How should we live if we take unredeemable transience seriously?' (46)

[Mymortalremains · Rating 5 out of 5]

On death and meaning of life: an evolutionary and psychodynamic approach to existential issues.

[Susan Bernstein]

Worthwhile--about the "art of transience" and loss, death, change, ambivalence. Compares Darwin and Freud on death, ephemera, impermanence.

[Clementine Morrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really want to like this book. There is a lot of really interesting stuff here, but I don't agree with the conclusions the author draws from it.