Reading some Self-Help

The Last Self-Help Book you'll ever need : repress your anger, think negatively, be a good blamer and throttle your inner child / Paul Pearsall
New York : Basic Books, 2006.


Now how could I resist a subtitle like that? Even though I read my share of self-help books, I've always been a bit suspicious of the whole movement. The proliferation of the pathologizing of every human behaviour bothers me. Most recently, an idea proposed by "The Secret" raised my ire; the idea that if you just think the right thoughts you will have everything you want. The logical corollary of this is that if you are poor, ill, or unhappy it is all your own fault, as you must be thinking the wrong thoughts. This book deals with those very issues, among others, and points out the lazy thinking and weak science behind most tenets of the self-help gospel.

The book discusses some broad subject areas, such as Health, Youth & Old Age, Livelihood, Family and Relationship. Pearsall describes what the self-help, or human potential, movement takes for granted in each area, then points out flaws with these assumptions. This is frequently done by elucidating the shortcomings of the studies these assumptions are based on, or by pointing out dissenting studies. Sometimes he just makes a flat statement: in regard to old age, he says "most of the self-help gurus of 'healthy aging' are relatively young. Their fear of what comes naturally with advancing years is evident in their recommendations about how to live longer yet avoid looking or feeling older...We need to reject the notion of an 'ageless body and a timeless mind'. "


I like some of his conclusions. He suggests that research shows repressing and dealing with your anger is better for you than venting, which just weakens your immune system, not to mention aggravating those around you. He also quotes a study which shows that some of the longest living people on earth were distinguishable by their pessimistic outlook; he disagrees with what he calls the "happiology" of the self-help movement, showing that it can slow healing during a health crisis by diverting energy from healing to the mental effort required to try to be relentlessly positive. I find the focus on "happiology" oppressive myself, it's one of the most irritating things for me in the self-help reading I've done. As Pearsall says here, sometimes "there isn't anything wrong with being depressed. Life and its transitions can be sad. Crying, moping and feeling sorry for ourselves when we're any age is not being 'dysfunctional'. It's being human."

His arguments are convincing, although at times they skirt a little close to feeling very personal. His awakening to the flaws in the self-help movement came when he was very ill and found that all the well-meaning self-help platitudes that people offered him were unhelpful and even distressing. Still, his focus on needing solid scientific support for these pop psychology ideas is necessary and certainly welcome for me.

Of course, he is not suggesting that all the psychology and self-help of our culture is useless; he merely advocates thinking deeply and critically about all propositions, including his own, rather than accepting them all unquestioningly as truth. His two primary points are 1) that we need to be mindful in our daily life - this mindfulness will improve our lives in itself and help with our ability to evaluate self-help topics, and 2) that community - interrelatedness - is more vital to a meaningful life than self-actualization. I agree with this to a point, and understand his concerns about Western society developing into a mass of narcissistic individualists. However, his discussion of the topic, especially in regard to the family, veers too close to a Stepford Wives scenario for me to feel comfortable with. I'm sure he does not advocate a return to the condition of female subjugation, but that is how I can imagine his words being seized upon by those unhappy with feminism.

Nevertheless, this was a thought provoking read that put into words some of my inchoate discomfort with pop psychology and the pathologizing of everyday life. I'll have to stop quoting him now, before I rewrite his entire book. But if this subject is of any interest to you, this book is worth reading.

Artistic ponderings

The second book I read for the Non-Fiction Five challenge was Jeanette Winterson's essay collection, Art Objects. There is so much in it! I found it quite wonderful; she makes you work for the insights she provides, which are plentiful. I'm so glad that this challenge encouraged me to finally get around to reading this; it's been on my shelf for a couple of years now. It is one I'm going to reread in order to marinate myself in all the brilliance I only sampled the first time through.


One general comment on the entire book -- throughout her essays Winterson uses "she" to refer to the artist under discussion. That affected me greatly, more than I thought it would. The use of "he" as a generic pronoun is not gender neutral. The casual assumption from this female author that the artist she is in dialogue with is also female was, for me, quite dazzling.


The title essay is the longest, and deals with Winterson's discovery that paintings can be as rewarding as writing, if you give them the attention they deserve, not just a glance as you dash through a gallery. The attention given to a piece of art is what makes it speak -- if we say blithely that 'it says nothing to me', she suggests we are really saying we have nothing to say to it. Art is vital to a conscious life, and she makes it clear that the title is a verb, not a noun. "...the tragic paradigm of human life is lack, loss, finality, a primitive doomsaying that has not been repealed by technology or medical science. The arts stand in the way of this doomsaying. Art objects."

In the very intriguing essay "Writer, Reader, Words ", there are insights that could apply to novel readers like ourselves: "The Greek myths warn us of the dangers of recognising no reality but our own. Art is a way into other realities, other personalities. When I let myself be affected by a book, I let into myself new customs and new desires. The book does not reproduce me, it re-defines me, pushes at my boundaries, shatters the palings that guard my heart."

Included also are two related essays about Virginia Woolf, both lovely and erudite and inspiring. I'm encouraged to reread The Waves (one of Winterson's favourites) which I first read about ten years ago, and see what I make of it now. I loved it the first time, simply as poetry, and wonder if I'll appreciate it even more now.

There are so many thought provoking lines in this book; I can hardly choose which ones to share. One that I really liked, though, was in the piece "Imagination and Reality". In discussing the value of art she states "the world is not flat and neither is reality. Reality is continuous, multiple, simultaneous, complex, abundant and partly invisible. The imagination alone can fathom this and it reveals its fathomings through art."

I feel as if I should follow Stefanie's Emersonian example and examine each essay minutely for all the depth of intelligence contained in each one. But then I would probably never (or very belatedly) produce any kind of reflection, and I just want to share the wonder of this book, and hope that anyone else with a copy laying about will pick it up and finally read it. It repays close reading tenfold. I loved it.

Mr. Albert & Dr. Harvey & Michael & Me

I've finished the second book for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge, and have suddenly realized I never recorded my first. So, here is my take on Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti, my non-fiction read for May.

This is the story of a young slacker of a journalist who ends up driving Dr. Thomas Harvey cross country on a special mission. Dr. Harvey is the pathologist who autopsied Einstein, and who removed Einstein's brain and then took it home. Now, years later, he wishes to meet Evelyn Einstein, granddaughter of the great man. Paterniti volunteers to drive him from the East Coast to California where Evelyn is, and they are off on a strange road trip in which you will learn more about both of them than you ever wished to know.

I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about this one. Though I love the Einstein stories, and the utter oddness of them transporting his brain in a Tupperware container stashed in the trunk, I was not enamoured with either man. Dr. Harvey seems very eccentric and sad, really, with his three ex-wives and self-destructive career path. Paterniti provides much information about his own problems with his girlfriend Sara and his lack of purpose in life. I just saw parallels that I'm not sure flattered him. I see the appeal of this story; parts were quite entertaining, such as the description of their visit to Lucas, Kansas and the cement Garden of Eden -- an unusual sculpture garden and mausoleum built by local oddball Samuel Perry Dinsmoor in the early 2oth century. The historical anecdotes that Dr. Harvey was actually a player in were also of interest.

Ultimately, I was just not fully drawn in by the narrative voice or the revealed characters. It felt like it was a bit too long; a lot of stuff thrown in that wasn't necessary except to bring it to the proper book length.

I've discovered I'm more interested in Einstein's thoughts than his actual brain. I'll stick to physics books, I think. I'm a little sad that I can't give this a more enthusiastic recommendation, but I am sure if the narrator appeals to you it would be a much better read.