Eugenides describes death with a vivaciousness and voyeurism both shameless and candid. He approaches life in ways utterly macabre. The novel is a comEugenides describes death with a vivaciousness and voyeurism both shameless and candid. He approaches life in ways utterly macabre. The novel is a compilation of gossip from dozens of different sources, which gives a pervasive sense of the all too natural, unkind and uncaring human indiscretion in the face of personal tragedy. There is something heartless about the storytelling, a detached complacency in reports of what is known clinically, sterilely as 'child abuse.' The whole world watches the girls waste away as though it is they who are freaks of nature, as though their misery is elicited teleologically to quench the curiosity of bored people, to entertain neighbors with nothing better to do. "Inside their house they were prisoners; outside, lepers." The style is gripping, icy cold yet beautiful, periodically delivering an effective punch in the gut. In the end, The Virgin Suicides is an inexplicable, pointless story--just like suicide itself.
"We just want to live. If anyone would let us."...more
It is intriguing and almost comical that PTSD has become such an urgent and central concern in the wake of any tragedy worldwide (perhaps the ‘greatesIt is intriguing and almost comical that PTSD has become such an urgent and central concern in the wake of any tragedy worldwide (perhaps the ‘greatest success story of globalization’, according to Ethan Watters), when its official inclusion in the DSM is less than fifty years old. But PTSD is not merely a collection of symptoms or diagnostic criteria. It is the expression of a new form of compassion in politics: one that flaunts its humanitarianism but nonetheless privileges counseling over hunger relief, psychiatric intervention over political reform. More than a disorder, it describes a worldview. Trauma seamlessly, even carelessly shifts in public discourses from its literal meaning as psychological shock to its metaphorical use as social drama. Through this dialectic, it becomes the one intelligible way to express and denounce political violence; at the same time, it reveals undeniable political impotence, as testimony and counseling become stand-ins for true sociopolitical change....more
Ehrenberg attributes the rise of the diagnosis of depression to a shift in governance practices after World War II, and a transition from politically Ehrenberg attributes the rise of the diagnosis of depression to a shift in governance practices after World War II, and a transition from politically imposed restrictions on personal freedom to the social urge for personal initiative and the cult of individual entrepreneurialism. He calls depression an ‘illness of responsibility’ which is both the manifestation and embodiment of feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. The medicalization of individual failure as a diversion from systemic failure, so to speak, acts as a powerful pacifier in the face of political injustice....more
Dana Cloud analyzes the therapeutic rhetoric’s ability (and indeed function) to transform public grievances into individual deficiencies which are refDana Cloud analyzes the therapeutic rhetoric’s ability (and indeed function) to transform public grievances into individual deficiencies which are reframed as focal points of ‘healing’, ‘coping’, and general self-growth. Dissent is ‘domesticated’ as the masses are consoled with a sense of ‘national emotional unity’ articulated in the language of therapy, which precludes critical awareness or political activism in response to external events. Different parts and chapters are hit or miss, but the book is generally enjoyable. ...more
This was a lot of fun. Stephen King seems to preach more than practice his own advice - for example, he used adverbial dialogue tags probably as many This was a lot of fun. Stephen King seems to preach more than practice his own advice - for example, he used adverbial dialogue tags probably as many times as he told us not to, and I doubt that he omitted needless words like he promised he would. But there are many gems in here that you won't find in every single book about writing, like 'tell the truth' and 'write what you love'....more
I found a note on my phone that's supposed to be a draft review of Flowers for Algernon. I'm too tired to edit it, so I'm posting it as is for now.
*clI found a note on my phone that's supposed to be a draft review of Flowers for Algernon. I'm too tired to edit it, so I'm posting it as is for now.
*clears throat*
"This book sickened me. To my stomach from reading about friends, laughter, friendly laughter. To my heart from reading about Mother, love, motherly love. I'm usually low on emotional empathy and have to rely on my rational thinking to relate to others. Charlie Gordon gave me a visceral reaction like a prolonged kick in the gut. Cramps in my belly. Malaise. Emotional empathy.
This book sickened me. I mean it as a compliment."...more
This book covers too much ground and seems to lose its focus from time to time, but it's still well worth reading. The central message - that new capiThis book covers too much ground and seems to lose its focus from time to time, but it's still well worth reading. The central message - that new capitalism both generates and exploits the current 'mental health crisis' - is well illustrated and deserves more recognition....more
The first chapter was lovely, the rest of the book less so. Pinker writes that this book is "designed for people who know how to write and want to wriThe first chapter was lovely, the rest of the book less so. Pinker writes that this book is "designed for people who know how to write and want to write better." As someone who knows how to write, I thought the content was, for the most part, neither new nor useful....more
While reading this book, I looked up Byung-Chul Han and found a commencement speech he's given which is available on YouTube. At the beginning of the While reading this book, I looked up Byung-Chul Han and found a commencement speech he's given which is available on YouTube. At the beginning of the speech, he said jokingly that he strives to write books in which every sentence is worth underlining. This is true enough, but I found that it wasn't always for the best. This book is very short (under 100 pages), and almost every sentence does make you stop and think. But something crucial is lacking, namely more 'diluted' sentences to both 'unpack' ideas (as Americans like to say) and connect sections together. It felt like sentences and paragraphs were competing against each other (which one is the most meaningful? which one is the most striking?) rather than working toward coherence together. I would say the book was epistemically rich but stylistically weak....more
This book was entertaining to read, but unfortunately as a Lebanese researcher I cannot agree with a lot of its claims and inferences. To put it very,This book was entertaining to read, but unfortunately as a Lebanese researcher I cannot agree with a lot of its claims and inferences. To put it very, very briefly, the fact that psychiatric hegemony was halted or changed after the Lebanese civil war (I can't speak for Syria at this point) does not necessarily mean that it has failed. I'm sure the author's heart was in the right place, and can't imagine how complicated it must be for an American scholar to claim expertise over a region of the world to which they have no connection other than scholarly. Tsacoyianis lacked the lived experience which would have given her the intuition that her analysis often missed the mark. While this was to me, again, more fun to read that Abi-Rached's book Asfuriyyeh: A History of Madness, Modernity, and War in the Middle East, I can't but recommend the latter over this one....more
Just a quick note to say that the one-star review over here is completely unrelated to the book: Abi-Rached uses neither a strictly constructivist norJust a quick note to say that the one-star review over here is completely unrelated to the book: Abi-Rached uses neither a strictly constructivist nor a Foucauldian approach. I don't think the reviewer even bothered to read the preface (let alone the rest of the book), otherwise they would have known that Abi-Rached describes mental illness as:
"a complex product that is both biological and epiphenomenal, both social and neural, both personal and political, both societal and institutional, both constructed and experienced, and both lived and performed;" "ranging from the very biological (for example, the general paresis of the insane, or “syphilitic insanity”) to the very political (for example, “protest psychosis,” a form of schizophrenia invented by American psychiatrists in the 1960s to describe and medicalize the ways in which black Americans behaved during the civil rights protests), with a gray zone in between containing neuro-socio-politico-psychiatric conditions such as major depression, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder" (pp.xxii-xxiii).
Also, the introduction explains how "the very few works that have tackled ʿAsfūriyyeh are still stuck in the Foucauldian and postcolonial frameworks" (p.18), and describes how this book tries to go beyond these.
So, one-star reviewer: try to review books you've already read....more
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