[A] terrific new philosophical investigation . . . The great appeal to me of Wilson's view and this book [is] he is brave enough to admit that the work of trying to be a good person requires you to think very hard—yes, very honestly—about how you actually interact with others.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Wilson has ultimately written a deeply personal book, almost a lifeline . . . An elliptical, provocative meditation that reads as much like a catharsis as a manifesto.” —Kirkus
“A gifted, candid raconteur, [Wilson] serves up pithy and often playful writing… Readers should be left entertained and enlightened by Wilson's vast knowledge, immediacy, and honesty.” —Publishers Weekly
“A leisurely, light-footed overview of our cultural obsession with doom, gloom, and gore.” —Josh Rothman, The Boston Globe on Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck
“In the teeming ranks of the American Professoriat, you could argue that Eric G. Wilson is among those most palpably needed by the world at large.” —Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News on Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck
“[Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck] reassures: enjoying grotesque, horrible, frightening images is a natural impulse. From fairy tales to crime dramas, they hit us where we are most human.” —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe on Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck
“Mr. Wilson's case for the dark night of the soul brings a much needed corrective to today's mania for cheerfulness. One would almost say that, in its eloquent contrarianism and earnest search for meaning, Against Happiness lifts the spirits.” —Colin McGinn, The Wall Street Journal on Against Happiness
“An impassioned, compelling, dare I say poetic, argument on behalf of those who ‘labor in the fields of sadness'. . .” —Minneapolis Star Tribune on Against Happiness
“[Wilson has] the passionate soul of a nineteenth-century romantic who, made wise by encounters with his own personal darkness, invites readers to share his reverence for nature and exuberance for life. Providing a powerful literary complement to recent psychological discussions of melancholy . . . this selection is variously gloomy and ecstatic, infuriating and even inspiring.” —Brendan Driscoll, Booklist on Against Happiness
2015-02-03
The counterargument to the cliché of "keep it real."Wilson (English/Wake Forest Univ.) extends his contrarian streak (Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, 2008, etc.) with an inquiry into what is really real and whether it really matters. As he crosses disciplines—philosophy, psychology, literary and film criticism, pop-culture analysis—and genres (alternating discussions of Barthes and Nietzsche with revelatory reveries of memoir), Wilson has ultimately written a deeply personal book, almost a lifeline, though readers might find it a challenge to connect the dots between the short chapters. The author explores a central paradox: "to believe you're authentic in a world where nothing is authentic but performed is inauthentic; to know that you're inauthentic in a world in which nothing is not performed is authentic. So if you believe as if you're actually authentic, then you're a liar, and if you comport yourself with an awareness of your inauthenticity, you are as real as it gets." The academic in Wilson draws from semiotics and Dadaist aesthetics; the pop-culture maven revels in the glories of Bill Murray's work (particularly in Meatballs) and almost everything by David Lynch (particularly Blue Velvet). However, it's his chronicles of the author's personal experiences as a suicidal depressive where the work transcends postmodern irony and wordplay. In a world of media bombardment and technological rewiring, where death and gravity are real and everything else is up for grabs, Wilson discovered through therapy that he could construct a new narrative rather than accept the ones handed down to him or the ones that weighted him down. "Depression whipped me into grace," he writes, bringing his book to a close with the conclusion that fakery is relative, that some serves a greater morality and higher purpose than others, and that some might, in a sense, be true. An elliptical, provocative meditation that reads as much like a catharsis as a manifesto.
