“For over seventy-five years the word has slithered
innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its
intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its very insipidity, a general
awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control.”
So we pulled memoirs for book club this month. I knew immediately which kind of memoir I
didn’t want to read. I wanted to avoid
the memoir that is a rant of self-serving, narcissistic (practically
masturbatory), overly exaggerated praises and adventures that probably never
really happened. Think along the lines
of Anthony Kiedis’ Scar Tissue or
something similar to that. Too many
people write memoirs like this. In fact,
I think too many people write memoirs, period.
Contrary to what an exceptionally over-exercised ego (the type usually
possessed by the so-called “famous”) might contend, most of the world probably
does not want or need to read about your life and all of the great adventures
you had. It’s like drunk stories. The only time drunk stories are good are when
you are on an even playing field because you are both swapping them and are both
drunk. Reading a memoir can be a lot
like having middle aged uncle tell you all about that time he got smashed and
had so much fun, when you’re like twelve years old. Hearing all about his awesome inebriated fun
time is completely unrelateable, and also somewhat doubtable in terms of whether
or not the tale is in fact non-fiction.
So in selecting my memoir I steered clear of the Keith
Richards and Chelsea Handlers. I
searched instead for a memoir on a subject I wanted to know more about. In this case, I wanted to know what it’s like
to be living with depression. With my
husband being subject to the disease, I’ve been reading many self-help works
trying to get a handle not only on what is going on in his head most of the
time, but also a better understanding of my own reactions to it.
So I selected what is considered to be one of the most
well-written memoirs on the subject, Darkness
Visible: A Memoir of Madness by
William Styron (famous as the author of Sophie’s
Choice).
At a mere 84 pages, Darkness
Visible recounts Styron’s fall into depression and culminates with the
night he nearly took his life before he was hospitalized and eventually
recovered. There are no unnecessary words in this eloquent and short volume,
Styron does not boast or make light of the situation, but presents his story
with a brutal realism and an honest description of his experience with the
disease. There are awkward moments that
make the reader squirm, such as when Styron describes an attempt to skip an
awards luncheon in his honor, forcing him to explain that he is mentally ill to
a room of intellectuals. I found
Styron’s brutal honesty in describing his feelings and actions to be
simultaneously horrifying and fascinating.
The memoir is written not only as a tale of how he survived the disease,
but also as a point of advocacy for people who suffer with this terrible
condition in a world that still stigmatizes people with mental illnesses.
“For in virtually any other sickness, a patient who felt
similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up
to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a
posture of repose and in an isolated setting.
His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no
such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust
into the most intolerable social and family situations."
For myself, I feel that I have benefited greatly from
William Styron’s Memoir, and that it is certainly one worth reading. It has given me a glimpse into a condition to
which I can’t relate, but need to understand as I experience it part of my
day-to-day family life. And that is one
heck of a gift for a book to give.
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