Tuesday, 19 August 2014

Hector and the search for Happiness

I don't think I've ever read a book where one minute I am quite enjoying it and the next loathing it, but Hector and the search for Happiness caused such extremes during its short read.
Hector is an American psychiatrist, who becomes disillusioned at his practice, where he mainly sees prosperous, middle-class citizens who complain and are never happy. He decides to seek out the true meaning of happiness by going on a trip around the world to see how different cultures view contentment.


 Its written by Francois Lelord, also a psychiatrist, who's aim is to put forward the means to true happiness in a format other than a psychology textbook. He does this through the various tales and adventures that Hector has and Hector gradually compiles a list eg. Lesson 1: Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.



Sometimes the fables can seem a bit trite or forced situations to illustrate the author's point, but what makes this even more frustrating and indeed patronising is the tone that the author takes in telling the fables. It is written in a simplistic way as if you were explaining things to a child eg. "When he was a child, people from another country had occupied Hector's country and had decided to put to death all the people with surnames they didn't like. In order to do this they put them on trains and took them very far away, to places where nobody could see them doing this terrible thing."

Thursday, 14 August 2014

The Double

 The Book

First published in 1846, The Double is a short story by Dostoevsky that follows the mental breakdown of civil servant Golyadkin in St Petersberg.
It takes perseverance to read to the end of this tale - the main character is so meek and passive, he is difficult to like. The text is full of dialogue and whether talking to others or talking to himself, Golyadkin is so subservient that it crawls along, interspersed with "sir" and hesitant attempts to put forward his protestations. It becomes very frustrating. No wonder, you feel, that his inner conscience decides to split and create a more confident and out going version of himself. At first it is not clear whether Golyadkin junior is real, or part of our "hero's" paranoia. He interacts with shopkeepers, fellow office workers and his servant.
As the psychosis grows and everyone around him becomes his enemy, the feeling of disorientation for the reader is more pronounced and the ending came as something of a relief.




Sunday, 3 August 2014

A Long Way Down

The Book

Nick Hornby's tale is told through four different voices - Martin, a TV presenter, who cheated on his wife with an underage girl and went to prison; Jess, a politician's daughter who's pampered since her sister vanished; JJ, an American wannabe rock star stuck delivering pizza and Maureen, a single mother left caring for her severely brain damaged son. They are brought together one New Year's Eve as they all decide they want to end it all by jumping from Topper's House, a renowned suicide spot. Instead of jumping, they support each other and vow to help each other through.
None of the characters are immediately likeable, as they all have their own clashing points of view and experiences, but through their interaction and over time, the reader gets to better understand them. Maureen is the one you feel most sympathy for, and get a real sense of the problems for a carer with a child that you can never grow up with - choosing his posters, toys, clothes etc at different ages that you hope he would like but never knowing.

Despite hints to tell you that there would be no Friends-type "happy ending", the finish was a bit surprising and an anti-climax, but I think realistic - everyone has the potential to be in a depression at various times in their life and it is not something you can easily switch off. You just make the best of each day and look forward to the next, finding things to keep you going.