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	• Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy Eric G. Wilson Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
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Very Reflective

After reading Garrison Keillor's review in the New York Times, I still decided to purchase the book for myself. I have felt that happiness has been overrated in our culture and the author expands on my feelings and gives it life. Who would have thought that melancholy would evolve as a desirable quality? I never did but I experience it everyday. I thank the author and his insights. Thank you. By the way, now I'm happy.

buy it...or not.

If you look at this book, read an excerpt, and _still_ scratch your head about it...this book is, quite simply, not for you. If, however, you heard about it on NPR or read an article or read an excerpt and it immediately called to you on a fundamental level, this book absolutely is for you.

This book was a fantastic way of describing the "me" that has always been indescribable. I found in its pages a reassurance that I was not alone and it was perfectly acceptable to be this way. The author does not simply rail against the "delusions of happy" today's world tries to spin for us, it opens up and describes the melancholy soul as well.

I found this book as a salve to the questions of my own inner melancholy.

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Satisfied

This is a very well written, intelligent look into the world of melancholy. It is a small read but packed full of insight. Sure to become a topic of discussion and debate!

Yes, but.....

This slim, dense, nutrient-packed volume is profound, revolutionary, and potentially life-changing. I don't think it ever uses the word "Zen" but it wants you "in the moment," because the moments are going to end -- pretty soon. If you're not very aware, it could alter your consciousness some.

And....we are always on the lookout for stories of Extraordinary Comebacks, to share with others, and collect (some day) in a volume 2, and we found a few more in this book, notably Handel, who was fallen on hard times (1741), and burst his way out of them with a 24-day compositional marathon, stinting on both food and sleep, to create the timeless marvel, Messiah. We enjoyed the forays into Keats, Beethoven, John Lennon and Georgia O'Keeffe.

But this is not a self-help book, make no mistake. It is rather, the anti-self help book. It's ok to be sad, is the message in essence, in fact, it is the human condition. (We knew that, and you did, too). That may be a bit mundane, and obvious, but the author riffs on it at length. Most books tackle how to get of those straits, this one says 'not gonna do that, not gonna go there.'

Crossing the river from individual psychology to sociology and politics, the author asserts that avoiding feelings, especially the bad ones has its consequences: that the ironic, unfeeling Seinfeld generation ("no hugs, no learning") was tailor-made to look the other way for a "corrupt administration's" forever war with almost no protest. (Jerry would shrug at this point....)

Still, it seems to me the human is hard-wired to want something more, a lot more, a greater destiny, something beyond getting on that "little black train that's rolling down the track, the little black train that's not going to bring you back." Brilliant writing here?, yes, perceptive, insightful, and all the rest? Yes, often, but even though it doesn't chart our way to a bliss, happiness, or even a Zen chill, nor does it purport to, sometimes it left us a little.....dare we say it, sad.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5

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