These are useful tips but I think it's important to realize that they are treatments for the symptoms of reading pessimistic literature badly. They don't treat the cause of the symptoms. The ultimate and only solution for balancing depressing literature with a productive/positive lifestyle, is to read it well in the first place i.e. read them as the great works of art they are, allow them to affect you emotionally and THEN intellectualize the way they make you feel. If you jump straight in to a novel by Celine or Mishima and you go looking directly for truth, paragraph by paragraph, then you'll probably miss the point completely and get mired in the pessimism of the narrative, which almost certainly isn't what they intended. These guys were first rate talents (if not geniuses) and geniuses don't tend to waste their time just wallowing on the page (or at least, they don't tend to publish it if they do). The key is to assume they are trying to touch upon some more profound truths, that their depressing narrative or prose style is a means of expressing these truths, rather than the truth itself, and then the process of reading them not only isn't depressing, but it becomes uplifting because the deeper meanings we intuit add to our understanding of life and ourselves - which is intrinsically rewarding. And then you can read all the depressing books you like!!
This is so much more than book reviewing. This is mental health help. This is life coaching (the good type). Thank you for helping us out. Now, can you do a top 10 most depressing books you've read?
Reading all of Dostoevsky may be considered depressing but what he wants for his readers to become better individuals by showing you how harsh life can be but also what it could be. My favorite characters of his are alyosha and prince myshkin as they show who the reader can become! At the end of the day Dostoevsky WANTS his readers to become better. That’s why I love Dostoevsky and, to honor him, I want to read Alexander Solysnitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago to show myself that you bounce back from anything! Great video!
It's scary how often you hit the nail on the head on these things. The "depressing litterature junkie" moniker you just invented made me think about a group of people I associate with in a whole different way. Great stuff man!
Just found your channel and I feel so fucking happy now. You should be a life coach or write your own book. You inspire me to widen my perspective on life and the books I read. You have such knowledge and amazing insight and I feel I can learn so much from watching you! Thank you for doing what you do. You are helping more than you think you are!
I really enjoyed what you said about depressing and not-so-depressing elements coming together to make a more honest reflection of life. The books that end up being my favorite don’t tend to really favor one extreme or the other (e.g. Catch-22 and If on a winter’s night a traveler). Having said that, I value variety above all so when the books I’m reading begin to weigh on me, I take a trip to Pratchett’s Discworld series or listen to one of my favorite classic Sci-Fi books on audio. This is kind of like a “factory reset” for my reading. Great vid man! Edit: Forgot to mention that I read IT in middle school too! It definitely set a standard for future reading.
How great can a youtube video become in 2018? Well, we see records got broken here. Congratulations man, promoting literature is already such an amazing thing, but besides that you also do some incredible videos like this one. Thank you man! Brazilian fan here by the way. PS: Read Thomas Pynchon for god's sake! hahahahaha
Yeah, I actually remember that, but you can't blame me for keep trying. hahahaha A review of Against the Day or GR would be awesome. And I believe A wild sheep chasin and Wind up bird chronicle, both by Murakami would as well.
After reading Celine’s Journey, which isn’t really that depressing, I admit, I felt fine, I enjoyed it a lot, it was funny, dark and sad, I wasn’t expecting anything other than a state of introspection for a couple of days over Bardamu’s character and his fucked up journey... but after 1 or 2 weeks of finishing it, a deep profound sense of sorrow and lack of motivation struck me hard, It took me a whole month to get out of that state, and that whole process was hard, but mesmerising. Same happened when I read Kerouac some years ago, a sort of lag between the moment of reading and the period after that, and the pessimism that it instilled in me, I think it destroys if you stay too long in it. But I have to say it, taking it rationally and standing strong, enjoying it as a human experience, it has made me become more of an optimism, I see it as a part of our emotional bag, destructive if in abundance but very stimulating in small quantities, it grips a part of reality most people are not willing to talk about. It’s good stuff.
That's interesting. Kerouac never had that effect on me, not even Big Sur. I believe he had a genuine mystic-like, very unique perception of something terrible in the world, in the world itself as nature or creation (that ruined him in the end). But despite all the chaos in his life he never lost faith and his deep sympathy and love for others. That is what i feel in his writing and it always did me good.
I think it all comes down to finding balance. The thing I enjoy the most about getting at the end of my twenties is this. Knowing yourself better. What are your patterns. When you’re ok to enjoy that book, author or that band. And when you shouldn’t, because nothing good or helpful would come from that. We don’t need to make life shitier. You’ve made some good points. And I agree that is quite easy to just keep taking someone’s opinions and world because they are comfortable to you, to a point that your critical thinking is not playing it’s part anymore.
For me the biggest thing is to be critical about the worldview expressed in the book and by the author and not accept anything at face value. Great art can come from most fucked up world views with which you don't agree at all and it can be seductively beautiful. Nobody can claim that Nabokov's Lolita ain't a piece of beauty yet nobody would be, hopefully, willing to accept the views expressed in it at face value. That is something I think is best applied to all books and all media. Now, I love most of all depressing books about dejection and human abjection, works by genet and mccarthy and faulkner and bernhard and all the rest. I find beauty in those books, both aesthetic but also otherwise but I also know the lives expressed in those are nothing to aim for. I've seen people self-destroy and gone through depression and anxiety and all that and I know that shit ain't no fun in real life. As far as I am concerned, those things and the beauty they can hold are best expirienced through art and through certain distance to them and that through them one can find empathy and understanding about different aspects of life and learn from them but being able to keep that distance and keep yourself seperate from the art is paramount. I don't have no easy answers on how to achieve this. I've just learned through my own expirience to ignore all that stupid depressed, anxious shit that my head might get into and push through it. I can't tell how. And I guess this is the part where this whole rambling comment kind of falls apart since there ain't no moneyshot in the end, just quiet withering with no real conclusion. Well, maybe someone gains some insight about this. Maybe I'll learn to actually think through what I am typing before typing. Fat chance.
Whenever I read depressing books, I try to use it more as an opportunity to learn valuable lesson, or develop sympathy for the characters, or come away with an interesting perspective etc..... I also usually follow up a depressing book with something more light hearted or funny. After recently finishing the Grapes of Wrath, I am now following it up by reading Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins.
What a great video and definitely things I needed to hear. Balance in our media is very important. You never want to feel stuck reading or even watching depressing media because it has a tendency to stay in your head way longer than you need it to. And that is especially true if you are going through or are struggling with depression. The last few books i read I would consider "heavy" reads. They weren't over long or anything but the subject matter would be considered depressing. After those books I needed to rest my head a bit and turn to my collection of manga that was either funny or relatively light-hearted. Movies I treat the same way. After a hard watch, I'll either take a break or watch a comedy right after to "cleanse the palate". This method has worked for me for a while now. I would never say to someone to avoid depressive literature but I will say that if someone ran across something that they wanted to read but wasn't sure about it, do as much research about the book or film that you can, see if the content described in reviews or critiques make it sound like it's something you can handle. If not, pass it by and find something else. I find doing research on things that you run across that you find interesting will save you from the shock of reading something that you find out you can't handle. And if you are feeling in particularly bad way mentally, the last thing you want to do is read or engage with depressing media, because sometimes depending on what it is, it will only make you worse. There's a lot of truly horrific and pessimistic literature that to me serves to only function as "trauma porn" and from someone who is already dealing with mental health issues, no one needs that type of media in their lives.
"Nothing matters" can motivate as well you know. We don't really matter in this huge universe so why not try to create our own meaning, to value things that matter to us personally. People do it differently: religion, family, art, work...yes, nothing matters in the end but it doesn't have to make us unhappy. We can try to be happy despite it all being pointless. Even if it kills us. And it will one day but maybe not today.
Inventing your own meaning can't ultimately be fulfilling because you know it's arbitrary and therefor without value. I believe there is intrinsic meaning and that that is why we seem to have the desire for meaning hardwired into us. Happiness is often mistaken for meaning but I don't think that's true. Responsibility, difficulty, a quest for greater strength, I think there is intrinsic, objective meaning in those things and that as long as you're growing you're fulfilling something primordial in yourself. The hard part is figuring out how to grow.
Maybe create was the wrong word. We just find meaning in things that we know. Someone finds meaning of their life in their family (and from the point of view of evolution it's the only true meaning of life, to have offspring and care for them). Some people choose God because that's how they were raised or that's what they found in time of need. But the key point is we don't really know. Some like to pretend they do and if that's makes their life worth living for them then it's fine. Ultimately life's meaning is to exist and reproduce. Sounds cold but true. The rest is what we make of it.
Reading something like Jesus' Son, a novel in stories about an unrepentant drug addict may seem like a challenge in dark reading but the prose is so dazzling and the black humor so funny that the darkness disappears in a vapor cloud of literary excellence and the character's redemption. A novel may seem like a depressing work and actually turn into a reading experience one will never forget for the pure writing so don't shy away from depressing literature because the end result of the book may actually be uplifting and hopeful without being too saccharine to tolerate. Read. Read. Read.
From 06:39 you start summarizing my current state nearly precise, this wake-up call was what I needed. LOL. (Coming from someone who has read Houellebecq & Pessoa's entire oeuvre within two months)
Some people consider 'any' literature or content that is serious or complex as being depressing, they recoil in dread or fear from such things - scared it will bring them down or affect their mind. It's really bizarre. Love your reviews, keep it going.
I'm a girl who likes to read books that's that are dark and depressed. The fun part is that they don't affect me that much. They are just fun to read and I know they are not meant to be "fun". Thanks for the awesome, interesting and honest video. Keep it up.
Yes - it's very interesting how some fans of True Detective s1 were annoyed at that final episode of season 1 because (spoilers) Rust didn't die and he retrieved a sense of meaning from his years and years of nihilism - people still remember that character as this biting nihilist, which he was, but they seem to like to forget that poignant sliver of light that he mentions at the end of the season. It shows you how little we as a society understand the balance between tragedy, suffering, and meaning that when meaning is drawn from the former circumstances we find it dissatisfying, incongruous, trite, or even unrealistic. One of the truly phenomenal things about human nature is how people retrieve meaning even in the midst of their deepest suffering, and that we as society are so disconnected from that concept is to me a very dire sign of the degradation of our collective psyche.
This was actually quite helpful. I read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment at a time when I wasn't mentally prepared for how depressing it would be for me. I stopped and didn't read the last third and figured I'd re-visit the book when I feel like I can deal with it better. My flat mate agreed with me that the book was hella depressing and he also contemplated not finishing it. I read some happier stuff after that and it definitely had a positive impact on me.
I studied literature and philosophy and religion in college during the mid-to-late '90s. At that time, in the academic environment of the Humanities at my university (and, apparently, in many other American universities too), "incredulity towards metanarratives" (i.e. postmodernism, the concept of "the death of the author," etc.) was taught to us as an important part of critical theory. I never *fully* bought into it, but I did take it very seriously, and it did influence my thinking. When I followed it out logically (because I wanted to be ruthlessly consistent in my thinking), over time, it led me to some fairly dark places, both philosophically, and in my actual, everyday life. Now, I realize that some people will see this as a cop-out and will ridicule it, but one of the things that kept me from falling into nihilism and ultimate despair was a genuine, intellectual, philosophical, spiritual, and everyday life conversion to Christian faith. To be clear, I didn't throw away my mind upon becoming a Christian. I still read and thought and listened widely. I also didn't proceed to shove my faith down the throats of people. (I was happy and willing to discuss it, with people who were happy and willing to talk about it with me, but I didn't force it on people.) Anyway, a thoughtful, philosophical Christianity helped to lead me out of an increasingly dark and despairing place many years ago. I have long been a fan of dark-themed literature and movies and music, from Dostoevsky to "The Exorcist" to Ingmar Bergman films. If I had completely embraced postmodernism in college, it would probably not be mentally and emotionally healthy for me to continue to take in very much of those kinds of art. As a Christian though, the dark realities of this world don't lead me to nihilism and/or despair. I used to be an atheist, so I do understand that religious faith is not something that everyone can believe and embrace. For me, though, it has, quite literally, saved my life more than once or twice.
I laughed thru Journey to the end of the night. Now I feel like Frank Drebbin coming out of Platoon in Naked Gun. Funny, I read IT in 6th grade, too. Your advice feels right and is without a doubt sincere. I would add also to temper your anger in the dark times, not withholding your feelings, rather choose where you focus your anger. "Is this something done wrong or am I just not.going.to be happy with ANYTHING?" I always think of Waterboy. Opposing player says a rude comment about Sandler's MOM! He notes the guy's number "#42" and then no matter the actual play or where the ball was he absolutely clobbers the guy wearing #42. I check, "Am I just picking a # to focus my anger or am I actually upset with that person or situation." Oh and Tom is always good, dark days or light... Ligotti or Waits
This is pretty much how I see things as well! I love both happy and depressing literature as long as it moves me. This talk made me think of Purple Hibiscus by Ngozi Adichie... it's very sad and the sadness you feel is important to understand social injustice you may not be aware of. I think depressing literature can be a powerful tool to increase awareness as well. Personally, I like to alternate dark/sad real world issues with magical fantasy or XVIIth century romance.
(And now for something completely different: if you don’t mind, I’d also like to make two reading sugestions. First, I know you’ve read the Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa, which is one of my favorite books, and I’d like to recommend to you his short story “The Anarchist Banker”. Pessoa is not known for his short stories, and even less so for his sense of humor, but this is a small gem of humor and subversion, and I think you’d like it. The second one: have you read anything else by Julio Cortázar, other than “Hopscotch” (another favorite)? I’ve read two anthologies of dispersed texts (“Around the Day in Eighty Worlds” and “Unexpected Papers” and I was surprised by how different they are from Rayuela. Cortázar is highly unpretentious even when he’s highly intellectual, he has a killer sense of humour especially attuned to the surreal and to weird characters, and his short stories are just amazing. If you don’t want to invest too much to begin with, try to find the short story “Manuscrito hallado en un bolsillo” (“Manuscript Found in a Pocket”, first published in the book “Octaedro”, I think). It’s freakin’ great, and I'd bet it'll make you want to read more.)
Ok, I've just realized that the Cortázar short story I'm talking about is not "Manuscrito Hallado en un Bolsillo" (Manuscript found in a pocket) , but the very similar-named "Manuscrito Hallado junto a una mano" (Manuscript found near a hand), which can be found in "Unexpected Papers" and not "Octaedro", sorry about that!
As a person going through a depressing time and wanting to pick up reading, I've now realized that I would have picked up a depressing book to validate how I feel. Today's trip to the library will be one focusing on trying to find a feel-good story to cheer me up. Thank you so much for that.
I prefer mixing the kind of themes, genre and media so I don't keep the sad cycle going. I do like sad books and I've had depressive episodes throughout my life, so what I have found it helps is: 1) If I feel hopeless and lost, having suicide thoughts, I ask for help, take medication, go to therapy, work on meditation and mindfulness or all the above. 2) If I feel I'm having very sad thoughts I try to stay away from depressive stuff for a while, books are always going to be there and I can go back when I feel emotionally healthy or ready. 3) I try to mix the kind of materials I read, watch and listen, I can be reading very sad books and later watch a silly film or listen to music I find energizing. 4) Sometimes I wait for a couple of weeks to start another sad book because I'm too full (I've set my own limit) and when I feel ready, I start again.
It’s so true. I hate the state where we moved, having a horrible time making a living here, but have to be here till my husband finishes his degree and we sell our house. I noticed I loved connecting with people who also hate this state, but I became a depressing person for those who loved it here. Working on it everyday to be more optimistic in my speech.
Yo Cliff, this was a great video, honestly one of my favorites so far. Its solid book advice, which can be used for great life advice too. Keep up the videos man! Loved the mug btw, just ordered one.
Wow! So many things you said are highly relatable. The "me-against-the-world victimhood," "nothings matters" and the heroin analogy. Months ago, during the final semester of my masters in English literature, I completely developed this stuff in my mind. Now that I am doing MPhil in this I feel it even more. My question is how should I balance reading Sartre, Kafka and Schopenhauer when it is a part of my study? Existentialism and Nihilism are Postmodern. I even find it depressing to read classics like Shakespeare, Sophocles and Aeschylus. Normal people enjoy Classics. Moreover I don't have a friend to share a single poem with. This makes it twice hard to contain your destructive thoughts in your head. I am both addicted to reading and I have to do it for my studies as well. Kindly suggest something. This is the first time I comment on a UA-cam video. Thanks.
I needed to hear this, reading the Metamorphosis fucked me up. I was then interested to go into more dark literature, but then my friend warned me about getting into darker literature. I'm glad I found this.
To clarify, I don't got it down. At all. I got into a rip-roaring argument with one of my best friends of NINE YEARS today over the need for cynicism in identity politics. I'm pretty sure I've lost her. Maybe. I don't know. But seeing as how this was a random click, for the most part - you're just what I needed. I'm probably gonna go away for a while, bum around in Boston, Philly, Baltimore, who knows. Not to run away, but to get back to people. Strangers, mostly. People I don't have much common ground with. But it's - probably necessary, even if I have to be in and out of hostels or out on the street every night to do it. Fuck it. It's that important now.
Right on, man. A lot of good stuff here. I'd like to watch it once or twice more to really absorb, filter, and respond to everything you're saying, but this is a great video.
one needs to make a distinction between depressing books and books which make you depressed: even if you read some cheesy feel good romance novel right after a break-up, it would probably be depressing as fuck. Some people consider science books depressing because they are popping their ideological bubbles, their moral or religious or aesthetic beliefs, and others find it elevating and awe-inducing. Also dealing with the depressing topic does not have to be heart-wrenching in itself, it can be part of working through the grief instead of letting it consume you - when I read Didion's The year of magical thinking, I bawled my eyes out, but it was exactly what I needed, I was trying to understand loss and what stays behind; death of someone close to you and all the guilt or regret you might have harbored and that book spoke honestly and profoundly about it - it helped me much more than some cheerful little distraction of a book ever could. And regarding the things which people find depressing - there are narratives which move with slowness and grip you with a hunting atmosphere and nostalgia (like Buzzati or Baudelaire or Rimbaud or Poe), and they might suffocate someone for sure, but people prone to such moods will enjoy them. On top of that, some people need to translate some heavy topics into worlds which help them deal with it: why can't one have some fun discussing Camus or Cioran, and find some glimpses of comedy and hope amidst the terror of one's failures, mortality and mistakes, and not as escapism, but as translation of these things into abstract notions where it's easier to grasp them? And yeah, if something feels depressing, then it's probably useful to find out why. I don't enjoy Houellebecq, not because I find him depressing, but vulgar. There was more frustration and sex than sadness in it. Maybe with his type of lit you also build some propensity and immunity for it, like reading Dostoevsky early in life: if you find something beautiful in it, despite the masochistic tendencies or pessimistic outlooks, it sticks with you, and you don't immediately judge or run away from every ugly, miserable philosophy, sometimes you find something substantial and elegant in it, something refined, uplifting and compassionate.
14:02 onwards was so on point and relatable for me, thanks man, damn friendly advice! :D Have gotten back into reading and stumbled across your channel, love your reviews, read Pedro Paramo after your review! Cheers man :)
Love your videos man. An author i recently first heard of described as making Kafka seem like a jolly fellow - Hermann Ungar, it would be interesting if you did a review for him. Thanks for the topic on this video, exactly why you're my favorite book reviewer on youtube. 👍
Hi there Cliff Sargent! Thank you for the ideas that you put forward in this video. I would love to sit down and chat about this because, as I kept listening to you, a swirl of ideas just came rushing in. I would like to say a couple of things. Talking about this kind of balance is a very subtle thing because how one knows what amount is enough for one's well-being? Engaging with literature as you have very well said posits a great risk and if we fall short of it maybe we run the risk not coming to terms with it, of not meeting its real challenge. I believe it's more like a matter of reading well than of balance and that requires a little bit attention, patience and education. Critical thinking is very important and in my personal life I usually can't stress that enough, and for that one has to educate the mind, which surely takes its time. And I think that this is not the strong of most depressive literature junkies as you named them, and it really makes them bad readers. I mean not people who have been through major depressive states but just people who use pessimistic literature with the purpose to support their views and use it as a vantage point to shock everyone else's sensibilities and beliefs. I know a bunch of haters who use pessimistic literature as a mask of positive assertions of themselves, which is oxymoronic. Honestly if one reads Cioran or something like the Conspiracy Against the Human Race this should give you pause and not the comfort that suddenly one acquires some hidden truth about life. It is supposed to challenge the reader, not to create a league of narcissistic haters, which would be something these authors would surely disprove of. I would like to recommend an interview with E. M. Cioran published in Salmagundi magazine in 1994 which is pretty revealing of the man behind the most unrelentless pessimistic writtings in the 20th Century. At the end I was moved for the compassion and understanding he shown of people in pain that often sought him. The link's below. coronzon.com/pdf/cioran/Wakefulness_and_Obsession_An_Interview_with_E-M-Cioran.pdf
What are some of the most depressing books people have read? Im loooking to indulge in sad stories, more on the side of individual depression rather than some tragic event of war or something like that (if that makes sense). Just read Osamu Dazai, no longer human...and lvoed that....any other recomendations would be much appreciated...more on the well kown older titles rather than contemporary 21st century stuff
Might it be that one read Manga after Zama, or Mick Herron after Celine? Just mix it up a little. Jose Ortega Y Gasset, and then Punpun. Or The Stranger, and then Mark Burnell. Harriet The Spy and then Cara Black or any odd number of things. It's 1 book at a time, still at 58 years of age. Handke and then some Korean or Japanese or American comics. Something in the morning before work and then something before bed. The phone etc usually off 2 or more hours before bed. And that on constant Blue Blocker.
I was very young when true detective season 1 came out, totally could have used some critical thinking before I totally adapted Rustin Cohles worldview lol
Just got done watching Blood Meridian Analysis videos that put me in a spiritual existential crisis. I need this. A walk and taking the stairs are good steps.
Great video! I would like to add (as a French lit student who reads so much depressing stuff) that nihilism is very fashionable today. If an author is a nihilist their book is more likely to be considered great postmodern literary fiction. But some of it is just plain pretentious. Consider the context and the intent of the author (sorry Barthes). Critical thinking must not take a back seat when reading difficult literature because as you say it can reinforce destructive behavior and thinking.
Speaking of depressing literature, have you read Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil? Very grim but beautiful stuff. I highly recommend it. Some of it reminds me of Bolaño and Denis Johnson.
A better question is why is the majority of literature depressing? As a matter of fact is there any literature that tells a heroic story of the protagonist overcoming adversity? For me reading depressing literature helped me cope it didn't create some negative feedback loop. Realizing that people have been wrestling with the same problems since forever is comforting and grounding and connecting not depressing.
I had a problem with hernia which kept me in bed for almost a year. Most of the time I didn't know what was my problem, so I kept in my without knowing the origin of those pains that I thought would kill me. The time that I spent in bed I spent reading books too, one of them was Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilich. A bad idea to read that book, I think. My situation was quite similar as him, I got worse every day and saw people staring at me with disproval in the eyes. Besides being sick I was a hindrance to everyone and they deeply wanted that shit to end soon. I think I got depressed by that book and life at that time. But, happily I found treatment on medicine and now I don't feel so much pain. The lesson I extract from this is that you have to think more in what book you should or shouldn't read in a present state of your life, a wrong book in an wrong situation could happen to kill you.
I'm not alone to face it. Save myself and my folks from those type of folks, situation and environment maybe. And sometimes use some so called negative Traits to get things done but not to hurt folks physically at least.
I’m a bit late to this video, but I got the answer to this question: balance depressive literature with going to a therapist. The fact that you are seeking this type of view of the world on literature can be worked and looked into with a psychologist, try it.
This is a brilliant video man. I went through a phase of exactly what you said, reading dark literature for affirmation during years of very intense depression. I made the conscious effort after one point to read either stuff that had more of a balance or have a heavy and light book on the go. Murakami is perfect for the former, personally. Anyways, you nailed it. Thank you.
Motivational youtube videos? Now you've got me seriously depressed. Thanks pal. I remember your Logotti review lol. Actually I find guys like Schopenhauer and Logitti, Bukowski, etc. consoling. I was and am always less depressed after reading so called depressing literature. I didn't feel so alone because everyone I knew and know was/is pretending life was/is much better than it actually is and I don't care for fakery of that kind. Depression is meditation on what is important as you so aptly said. What I have to minimize is actual accounts of the horrific things that humans actually physically and emotionally do to each other. That makes me suicidal. Having been a dog trainer before retirement I have dogs that put most of humanity to shame. They keep me cheered as much as one can in this hell hole. That's my number one tactic for dealing with depression and along with that goes isolating from most of humanity and taking long lonely hikes in the mountains around my home with my dogs off leash for at least two hours daily. Without that I'd be looking for a cliff or sturdy tree branch. Cheers!
4. Understand the author. his background and his intent. All writing is an expression of thought and value and an illustration of the world as it is and as it ought to be. It's up to you, the reader, to decide if the author is correct, ethical and if the author is steering you in a direction you want to go. This is contrary to the view taken in literature and humanities classes where we are taught to separate the text from the author and make the critic [hopefully, with the correct academic qualifications and the correct social/psychological/political viewpoints] the sole arbiter of the text. Ughm ... know when you're reading riveting and influential bullshit. Yeah, take a moment to think about what you just read. Even if you get swept by the words, think back and reflect with a sober mind.
Reading bleak literature made me breakthrough and I had a revelation that led me to find god and the darkness of the world only gives rise to the light. Thanks The Tunnel and Gravity’s Rainbow! It was worth the panic attacks.
Cormac McCarthy's take on the issue of darkness and pain in literature (methinks he knows better about this shit) is that the core of classical literature is the idea of tragedy. "You don't really learn much from the good things that happen to you", he says - I think that's about right. The point is to *learn*, not to fall into the abyss.
“Weak”, “fat”, “pathetic”. Not your best look. Strength is the extent to which you are a source of support and love for other people, living in harmony with your highest values.
a fan from Moroco here. but related to the topic yeah i once was there. as i can remember when i finished crime and punishment by dostoevsky i went through black period.
Some uplifting literature that I can recommend that is great for balancing out the darker stuff: Walt Whitman: song of myself. The spiritual poetry of Rumi, kabir, Havez, Mira. The Darmha Bums by Jack Kerouac. Plato's Socratic dialogues. Osho. I haven't read Victor Hugo's Le mis (it's a big bastard of a book 😁), but it's apparently an ultimately uplifting book. Same goes for 100 years of solitude by GGM. I do think that there's a difference thou, in dark but spiritual books like say, Dostoevsky or Hubert Selby Jr, which are teaching us something and the outright nihilistic auto-fiction stuff from depressed, somewhat adolescent adult men 🙂. For me there's courageously dark, beautiful literature like blood meridian from Cormac McCarthy, and then there's weak shit like EM Corin, stay with MCCARTHY!
These are useful tips but I think it's important to realize that they are treatments for the symptoms of reading pessimistic literature badly. They don't treat the cause of the symptoms.
The ultimate and only solution for balancing depressing literature with a productive/positive lifestyle, is to read it well in the first place i.e. read them as the great works of art they are, allow them to affect you emotionally and THEN intellectualize the way they make you feel.
If you jump straight in to a novel by Celine or Mishima and you go looking directly for truth, paragraph by paragraph, then you'll probably miss the point completely and get mired in the pessimism of the narrative, which almost certainly isn't what they intended.
These guys were first rate talents (if not geniuses) and geniuses don't tend to waste their time just wallowing on the page (or at least, they don't tend to publish it if they do).
The key is to assume they are trying to touch upon some more profound truths, that their depressing narrative or prose style is a means of expressing these truths, rather than the truth itself, and then the process of reading them not only isn't depressing, but it becomes uplifting because the deeper meanings we intuit add to our understanding of life and ourselves - which is intrinsically rewarding.
And then you can read all the depressing books you like!!
Matt Clark You don't make any fucking sense.
You not taking in consideration that humans have emotions and art can affect a person on an emotional level
You make lots of sense
@@geminikid609 This was the key thing which I was taking into consideration.
"Don't read depressing books to try and validate negative behavior"
Thank you for this. I needed to hear that.
This is so much more than book reviewing. This is mental health help. This is life coaching (the good type). Thank you for helping us out. Now, can you do a top 10 most depressing books you've read?
great idea!
1984 most depressing for me
"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. "
Marcus Aurelius
It totaly summarizes the main point of this video ;)
Reading all of Dostoevsky may be considered depressing but what he wants for his readers to become better individuals by showing you how harsh life can be but also what it could be. My favorite characters of his are alyosha and prince myshkin as they show who the reader can become! At the end of the day Dostoevsky WANTS his readers to become better. That’s why I love Dostoevsky and, to honor him, I want to read Alexander Solysnitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago to show myself that you bounce back from anything! Great video!
MisterAwestasia Solysnitsyn is a big fucking hypocrite tho...
Diogenes the drunk how so?
MisterAwestasia He actually supports the regime of Putin
Diogenes the drunk I would like proof of this my man.
MisterAwestasia I can send you an article but I don't think you could understand it since it's in my native language.
It's scary how often you hit the nail on the head on these things. The "depressing litterature junkie" moniker you just invented made me think about a group of people I associate with in a whole different way. Great stuff man!
Just found your channel and I feel so fucking happy now. You should be a life coach or write your own book. You inspire me to widen my perspective on life and the books I read. You have such knowledge and amazing insight and I feel I can learn so much from watching you! Thank you for doing what you do. You are helping more than you think you are!
I really enjoyed what you said about depressing and not-so-depressing elements coming together to make a more honest reflection of life. The books that end up being my favorite don’t tend to really favor one extreme or the other (e.g. Catch-22 and If on a winter’s night a traveler). Having said that, I value variety above all so when the books I’m reading begin to weigh on me, I take a trip to Pratchett’s Discworld series or listen to one of my favorite classic Sci-Fi books on audio. This is kind of like a “factory reset” for my reading. Great vid man!
Edit: Forgot to mention that I read IT in middle school too! It definitely set a standard for future reading.
Yes! Discworld is my go-to whenever I feel that I've been reading too much heavy stuff in a row.
How great can a youtube video become in 2018? Well, we see records got broken here.
Congratulations man, promoting literature is already such an amazing thing, but besides that you also do some incredible videos like this one. Thank you man! Brazilian fan here by the way.
PS: Read Thomas Pynchon for god's sake! hahahahaha
Ulisses Brandão He’s said before that he doesn’t much care for Pynchon.
Yeah, I actually remember that, but you can't blame me for keep trying. hahahaha A review of Against the Day or GR would be awesome. And I believe A wild sheep chasin and Wind up bird chronicle, both by Murakami would as well.
4. Remember that your life isn't as bad as the character(s) in the depressing novel you are reading.
After reading Celine’s Journey, which isn’t really that depressing, I admit, I felt fine, I enjoyed it a lot, it was funny, dark and sad, I wasn’t expecting anything other than a state of introspection for a couple of days over Bardamu’s character and his fucked up journey... but after 1 or 2 weeks of finishing it, a deep profound sense of sorrow and lack of motivation struck me hard, It took me a whole month to get out of that state, and that whole process was hard, but mesmerising. Same happened when I read Kerouac some years ago, a sort of lag between the moment of reading and the period after that, and the pessimism that it instilled in me, I think it destroys if you stay too long in it. But I have to say it, taking it rationally and standing strong, enjoying it as a human experience, it has made me become more of an optimism, I see it as a part of our emotional bag, destructive if in abundance but very stimulating in small quantities, it grips a part of reality most people are not willing to talk about. It’s good stuff.
That's interesting. Kerouac never had that effect on me, not even Big Sur. I believe he had a genuine mystic-like, very unique perception of something terrible in the world, in the world itself as nature or creation (that ruined him in the end). But despite all the chaos in his life he never lost faith and his deep sympathy and love for others. That is what i feel in his writing and it always did me good.
You should post more philosophical talks like this! Also could you please review some Henry Miller? Love your channel!
I think it all comes down to finding balance. The thing I enjoy the most about getting at the end of my twenties is this. Knowing yourself better. What are your patterns. When you’re ok to enjoy that book, author or that band. And when you shouldn’t, because nothing good or helpful would come from that. We don’t need to make life shitier. You’ve made some good points. And I agree that is quite easy to just keep taking someone’s opinions and world because they are comfortable to you, to a point that your critical thinking is not playing it’s part anymore.
For me the biggest thing is to be critical about the worldview expressed in the book and by the author and not accept anything at face value. Great art can come from most fucked up world views with which you don't agree at all and it can be seductively beautiful. Nobody can claim that Nabokov's Lolita ain't a piece of beauty yet nobody would be, hopefully, willing to accept the views expressed in it at face value. That is something I think is best applied to all books and all media. Now, I love most of all depressing books about dejection and human abjection, works by genet and mccarthy and faulkner and bernhard and all the rest. I find beauty in those books, both aesthetic but also otherwise but I also know the lives expressed in those are nothing to aim for. I've seen people self-destroy and gone through depression and anxiety and all that and I know that shit ain't no fun in real life. As far as I am concerned, those things and the beauty they can hold are best expirienced through art and through certain distance to them and that through them one can find empathy and understanding about different aspects of life and learn from them but being able to keep that distance and keep yourself seperate from the art is paramount. I don't have no easy answers on how to achieve this. I've just learned through my own expirience to ignore all that stupid depressed, anxious shit that my head might get into and push through it. I can't tell how. And I guess this is the part where this whole rambling comment kind of falls apart since there ain't no moneyshot in the end, just quiet withering with no real conclusion. Well, maybe someone gains some insight about this. Maybe I'll learn to actually think through what I am typing before typing. Fat chance.
Whenever I read depressing books, I try to use it more as an opportunity to learn valuable lesson, or develop sympathy for the characters, or come away with an interesting perspective etc..... I also usually follow up a depressing book with something more light hearted or funny. After recently finishing the Grapes of Wrath, I am now following it up by reading Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins.
Needed to re-watch this video after reading 30 pages of Cioran’s A short history of decay. Thank you sir.
What a great video and definitely things I needed to hear. Balance in our media is very important. You never want to feel stuck reading or even watching depressing media because it has a tendency to stay in your head way longer than you need it to. And that is especially true if you are going through or are struggling with depression. The last few books i read I would consider "heavy" reads. They weren't over long or anything but the subject matter would be considered depressing. After those books I needed to rest my head a bit and turn to my collection of manga that was either funny or relatively light-hearted. Movies I treat the same way. After a hard watch, I'll either take a break or watch a comedy right after to "cleanse the palate". This method has worked for me for a while now. I would never say to someone to avoid depressive literature but I will say that if someone ran across something that they wanted to read but wasn't sure about it, do as much research about the book or film that you can, see if the content described in reviews or critiques make it sound like it's something you can handle. If not, pass it by and find something else. I find doing research on things that you run across that you find interesting will save you from the shock of reading something that you find out you can't handle. And if you are feeling in particularly bad way mentally, the last thing you want to do is read or engage with depressing media, because sometimes depending on what it is, it will only make you worse. There's a lot of truly horrific and pessimistic literature that to me serves to only function as "trauma porn" and from someone who is already dealing with mental health issues, no one needs that type of media in their lives.
"Nothing matters" can motivate as well you know. We don't really matter in this huge universe so why not try to create our own meaning, to value things that matter to us personally. People do it differently: religion, family, art, work...yes, nothing matters in the end but it doesn't have to make us unhappy. We can try to be happy despite it all being pointless. Even if it kills us. And it will one day but maybe not today.
Maria B. So right!
That's the way I look at it too. Nihilism isn't all bad.
Inventing your own meaning can't ultimately be fulfilling because you know it's arbitrary and therefor without value. I believe there is intrinsic meaning and that that is why we seem to have the desire for meaning hardwired into us. Happiness is often mistaken for meaning but I don't think that's true. Responsibility, difficulty, a quest for greater strength, I think there is intrinsic, objective meaning in those things and that as long as you're growing you're fulfilling something primordial in yourself. The hard part is figuring out how to grow.
Maybe create was the wrong word. We just find meaning in things that we know. Someone finds meaning of their life in their family (and from the point of view of evolution it's the only true meaning of life, to have offspring and care for them). Some people choose God because that's how they were raised or that's what they found in time of need. But the key point is we don't really know. Some like to pretend they do and if that's makes their life worth living for them then it's fine.
Ultimately life's meaning is to exist and reproduce. Sounds cold but true. The rest is what we make of it.
That's existential nihilism
Reading something like Jesus' Son, a novel in stories about an unrepentant drug addict may seem like a challenge in dark reading but the prose is so dazzling and the black humor so funny that the darkness disappears in a vapor cloud of literary excellence and the character's redemption. A novel may seem like a depressing work and actually turn into a reading experience one will never forget for the pure writing so don't shy away from depressing literature because the end result of the book may actually be uplifting and hopeful without being too saccharine to tolerate. Read. Read. Read.
From 06:39 you start summarizing my current state nearly precise, this wake-up call was what I needed. LOL. (Coming from someone who has read Houellebecq & Pessoa's entire oeuvre within two months)
Some people consider 'any' literature or content that is serious or complex as being depressing, they recoil in dread or fear from such things - scared it will bring them down or affect their mind. It's really bizarre. Love your reviews, keep it going.
I'm a girl who likes to read books that's that are dark and depressed. The fun part is that they don't affect me that much. They are just fun to read and I know they are not meant to be "fun". Thanks for the awesome, interesting and honest video. Keep it up.
From Crime and Punishment to True Detective (s.1) good depressing art always offer hope and meaning at the end.
Yes - it's very interesting how some fans of True Detective s1 were annoyed at that final episode of season 1 because (spoilers) Rust didn't die and he retrieved a sense of meaning from his years and years of nihilism - people still remember that character as this biting nihilist, which he was, but they seem to like to forget that poignant sliver of light that he mentions at the end of the season.
It shows you how little we as a society understand the balance between tragedy, suffering, and meaning that when meaning is drawn from the former circumstances we find it dissatisfying, incongruous, trite, or even unrealistic. One of the truly phenomenal things about human nature is how people retrieve meaning even in the midst of their deepest suffering, and that we as society are so disconnected from that concept is to me a very dire sign of the degradation of our collective psyche.
This video was what made me dig deeper into this channel. Really well said... thank you
I alternate literature with life. That way dark literature doesn't seem as dark anymore in comparison.
Wow...just came across your channel. So glad I did! You have great content! Looking forward to watching through your book reviews!!
This was actually quite helpful. I read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment at a time when I wasn't mentally prepared for how depressing it would be for me. I stopped and didn't read the last third and figured I'd re-visit the book when I feel like I can deal with it better. My flat mate agreed with me that the book was hella depressing and he also contemplated not finishing it. I read some happier stuff after that and it definitely had a positive impact on me.
I studied literature and philosophy and religion in college during the mid-to-late '90s. At that time, in the academic environment of the Humanities at my university (and, apparently, in many other American universities too), "incredulity towards metanarratives" (i.e. postmodernism, the concept of "the death of the author," etc.) was taught to us as an important part of critical theory. I never *fully* bought into it, but I did take it very seriously, and it did influence my thinking. When I followed it out logically (because I wanted to be ruthlessly consistent in my thinking), over time, it led me to some fairly dark places, both philosophically, and in my actual, everyday life.
Now, I realize that some people will see this as a cop-out and will ridicule it, but one of the things that kept me from falling into nihilism and ultimate despair was a genuine, intellectual, philosophical, spiritual, and everyday life conversion to Christian faith. To be clear, I didn't throw away my mind upon becoming a Christian. I still read and thought and listened widely. I also didn't proceed to shove my faith down the throats of people. (I was happy and willing to discuss it, with people who were happy and willing to talk about it with me, but I didn't force it on people.) Anyway, a thoughtful, philosophical Christianity helped to lead me out of an increasingly dark and despairing place many years ago.
I have long been a fan of dark-themed literature and movies and music, from Dostoevsky to "The Exorcist" to Ingmar Bergman films. If I had completely embraced postmodernism in college, it would probably not be mentally and emotionally healthy for me to continue to take in very much of those kinds of art. As a Christian though, the dark realities of this world don't lead me to nihilism and/or despair. I used to be an atheist, so I do understand that religious faith is not something that everyone can believe and embrace. For me, though, it has, quite literally, saved my life more than once or twice.
I laughed thru Journey to the end of the night. Now I feel like Frank Drebbin coming out of Platoon in Naked Gun.
Funny, I read IT in 6th grade, too.
Your advice feels right and is without a doubt sincere. I would add also to temper your anger in the dark times, not withholding your feelings, rather choose where you focus your anger. "Is this something done wrong or am I just not.going.to be happy with ANYTHING?"
I always think of Waterboy. Opposing player says a rude comment about Sandler's MOM! He notes the guy's number "#42" and then no matter the actual play or where the ball was he absolutely clobbers the guy wearing #42.
I check, "Am I just picking a # to focus my anger or am I actually upset with that person or situation."
Oh and Tom is always good, dark days or light...
Ligotti or Waits
This is pretty much how I see things as well! I love both happy and depressing literature as long as it moves me. This talk made me think of Purple Hibiscus by Ngozi Adichie... it's very sad and the sadness you feel is important to understand social injustice you may not be aware of. I think depressing literature can be a powerful tool to increase awareness as well.
Personally, I like to alternate dark/sad real world issues with magical fantasy or XVIIth century romance.
(And now for something completely different: if you don’t mind, I’d also like to make two reading sugestions. First, I know you’ve read the Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa, which is one of my favorite books, and I’d like to recommend to you his short story “The Anarchist Banker”. Pessoa is not known for his short stories, and even less so for his sense of humor, but this is a small gem of humor and subversion, and I think you’d like it.
The second one: have you read anything else by Julio Cortázar, other than “Hopscotch” (another favorite)? I’ve read two anthologies of dispersed texts (“Around the Day in Eighty Worlds” and “Unexpected Papers” and I was surprised by how different they are from Rayuela. Cortázar is highly unpretentious even when he’s highly intellectual, he has a killer sense of humour especially attuned to the surreal and to weird characters, and his short stories are just amazing. If you don’t want to invest too much to begin with, try to find the short story “Manuscrito hallado en un bolsillo” (“Manuscript Found in a Pocket”, first published in the book “Octaedro”, I think). It’s freakin’ great, and I'd bet it'll make you want to read more.)
Ok, I've just realized that the Cortázar short story I'm talking about is not "Manuscrito Hallado en un Bolsillo" (Manuscript found in a pocket) , but the very similar-named "Manuscrito Hallado junto a una mano" (Manuscript found near a hand), which can be found in "Unexpected Papers" and not "Octaedro", sorry about that!
Thanks for spending time , and being honest !
As a person going through a depressing time and wanting to pick up reading, I've now realized that I would have picked up a depressing book to validate how I feel. Today's trip to the library will be one focusing on trying to find a feel-good story to cheer me up. Thank you so much for that.
This was incredibly helpful, and very timely for me. Thanks!
I recently let House of Leaves grab my heart and throw me around *sigh* I like walks in the fields and woods with my animals to lift me up
I prefer mixing the kind of themes, genre and media so I don't keep the sad cycle going. I do like sad books and I've had depressive episodes throughout my life, so what I have found it helps is: 1) If I feel hopeless and lost, having suicide thoughts, I ask for help, take medication, go to therapy, work on meditation and mindfulness or all the above. 2) If I feel I'm having very sad thoughts I try to stay away from depressive stuff for a while, books are always going to be there and I can go back when I feel emotionally healthy or ready. 3) I try to mix the kind of materials I read, watch and listen, I can be reading very sad books and later watch a silly film or listen to music I find energizing. 4) Sometimes I wait for a couple of weeks to start another sad book because I'm too full (I've set my own limit) and when I feel ready, I start again.
It’s so true. I hate the state where we moved, having a horrible time making a living here, but have to be here till my husband finishes his degree and we sell our house. I noticed I loved connecting with people who also hate this state, but I became a depressing person for those who loved it here. Working on it everyday to be more optimistic in my speech.
Yo Cliff, this was a great video, honestly one of my favorites so far. Its solid book advice, which can be used for great life advice too. Keep up the videos man! Loved the mug btw, just ordered one.
You are such an important part of the youtube community... the entire literature community for that matter
I needed to see this video ♥ thank you for doing what you do.
Wow! So many things you said are highly relatable. The "me-against-the-world victimhood," "nothings matters" and the heroin analogy. Months ago, during the final semester of my masters in English literature, I completely developed this stuff in my mind. Now that I am doing MPhil in this I feel it even more. My question is how should I balance reading Sartre, Kafka and Schopenhauer when it is a part of my study? Existentialism and Nihilism are Postmodern. I even find it depressing to read classics like Shakespeare, Sophocles and Aeschylus. Normal people enjoy Classics. Moreover I don't have a friend to share a single poem with. This makes it twice hard to contain your destructive thoughts in your head. I am both addicted to reading and I have to do it for my studies as well. Kindly suggest something. This is the first time I comment on a UA-cam video. Thanks.
Good advice. Reading Vollmann's "The Royal Family" during the first month of quarantine almost killed me.
I needed to hear this, reading the Metamorphosis fucked me up. I was then interested to go into more dark literature, but then my friend warned me about getting into darker literature. I'm glad I found this.
"People don't deserve to be hurt, just because you don't have your sh*t together" So true.
Damn, Clifford. These are things I've been trying to tell people for a long time.
Thank you.
Damn. I needed this. Subscribed. And I've lurked for a while, especially on the Houellebecq reviews, but yo. You've got it down.
To clarify, I don't got it down. At all. I got into a rip-roaring argument with one of my best friends of NINE YEARS today over the need for cynicism in identity politics. I'm pretty sure I've lost her. Maybe. I don't know. But seeing as how this was a random click, for the most part - you're just what I needed. I'm probably gonna go away for a while, bum around in Boston, Philly, Baltimore, who knows. Not to run away, but to get back to people. Strangers, mostly. People I don't have much common ground with. But it's - probably necessary, even if I have to be in and out of hostels or out on the street every night to do it. Fuck it. It's that important now.
Jeez that video was awesome.. Thank you!
Right on, man. A lot of good stuff here. I'd like to watch it once or twice more to really absorb, filter, and respond to everything you're saying, but this is a great video.
You are my favorite booktuber thank you so much I’ve found my answer in your video and that means a lot to me you deserve all the best man 🌟
one needs to make a distinction between depressing books and books which make you depressed: even if you read some cheesy feel good romance novel right after a break-up, it would probably be depressing as fuck. Some people consider science books depressing because they are popping their ideological bubbles, their moral or religious or aesthetic beliefs, and others find it elevating and awe-inducing. Also dealing with the depressing topic does not have to be heart-wrenching in itself, it can be part of working through the grief instead of letting it consume you - when I read Didion's The year of magical thinking, I bawled my eyes out, but it was exactly what I needed, I was trying to understand loss and what stays behind; death of someone close to you and all the guilt or regret you might have harbored and that book spoke honestly and profoundly about it - it helped me much more than some cheerful little distraction of a book ever could. And regarding the things which people find depressing - there are narratives which move with slowness and grip you with a hunting atmosphere and nostalgia (like Buzzati or Baudelaire or Rimbaud or Poe), and they might suffocate someone for sure, but people prone to such moods will enjoy them. On top of that, some people need to translate some heavy topics into worlds which help them deal with it: why can't one have some fun discussing Camus or Cioran, and find some glimpses of comedy and hope amidst the terror of one's failures, mortality and mistakes, and not as escapism, but as translation of these things into abstract notions where it's easier to grasp them? And yeah, if something feels depressing, then it's probably useful to find out why. I don't enjoy Houellebecq, not because I find him depressing, but vulgar. There was more frustration and sex than sadness in it. Maybe with his type of lit you also build some propensity and immunity for it, like reading Dostoevsky early in life: if you find something beautiful in it, despite the masochistic tendencies or pessimistic outlooks, it sticks with you, and you don't immediately judge or run away from every ugly, miserable philosophy, sometimes you find something substantial and elegant in it, something refined, uplifting and compassionate.
I have a book recommendation for you: "How Not To Die" by Dr. Greger
Great book !!!!!!
You talking about the danger of books is like the neverending story book store owner…. Now I want to dive into a book!😊
14:02 onwards was so on point and relatable for me, thanks man, damn friendly advice! :D Have gotten back into reading and stumbled across your channel, love your reviews, read Pedro Paramo after your review! Cheers man :)
Love your videos man. An author i recently first heard of described as making Kafka seem like a jolly fellow - Hermann Ungar, it would be interesting if you did a review for him. Thanks for the topic on this video, exactly why you're my favorite book reviewer on youtube. 👍
I am new on your channel because of Kafka.. Love this video. Thanks.
Hi there Cliff Sargent! Thank you for the ideas that you put forward in this video. I would love to sit down and chat about this because, as I kept listening to you, a swirl of ideas just came rushing in. I would like to say a couple of things.
Talking about this kind of balance is a very subtle thing because how one knows what amount is enough for one's well-being? Engaging with literature as you have very well said posits a great risk and if we fall short of it maybe we run the risk not coming to terms with it, of not meeting its real challenge. I believe it's more like a matter of reading well than of balance and that requires a little bit attention, patience and education.
Critical thinking is very important and in my personal life I usually can't stress that enough, and for that one has to educate the mind, which surely takes its time. And I think that this is not the strong of most depressive literature junkies as you named them, and it really makes them bad readers. I mean not people who have been through major depressive states but just people who use pessimistic literature with the purpose to support their views and use it as a vantage point to shock everyone else's sensibilities and beliefs. I know a bunch of haters who use pessimistic literature as a mask of positive assertions of themselves, which is oxymoronic. Honestly if one reads Cioran or something like the Conspiracy Against the Human Race this should give you pause and not the comfort that suddenly one acquires some hidden truth about life. It is supposed to challenge the reader, not to create a league of narcissistic haters, which would be something these authors would surely disprove of.
I would like to recommend an interview with E. M. Cioran published in Salmagundi magazine in 1994 which is pretty revealing of the man behind the most unrelentless pessimistic writtings in the 20th Century. At the end I was moved for the compassion and understanding he shown of people in pain that often sought him. The link's below.
coronzon.com/pdf/cioran/Wakefulness_and_Obsession_An_Interview_with_E-M-Cioran.pdf
What are some of the most depressing books people have read? Im loooking to indulge in sad stories, more on the side of individual depression rather than some tragic event of war or something like that (if that makes sense). Just read Osamu Dazai, no longer human...and lvoed that....any other recomendations would be much appreciated...more on the well kown older titles rather than contemporary 21st century stuff
Might it be that one read Manga after Zama, or Mick Herron after Celine? Just mix it up a little. Jose Ortega Y Gasset, and then Punpun. Or The Stranger, and then Mark Burnell. Harriet The Spy and then Cara Black or any odd number of things. It's 1 book at a time, still at 58 years of age. Handke and then some Korean or Japanese or American comics. Something in the morning before work and then something before bed. The phone etc usually off 2 or more hours before bed. And that on constant Blue Blocker.
I was very young when true detective season 1 came out, totally could have used some critical thinking before I totally adapted Rustin Cohles worldview lol
Just got done watching Blood Meridian Analysis videos that put me in a spiritual existential crisis. I need this. A walk and taking the stairs are good steps.
Great video! I would like to add (as a French lit student who reads so much depressing stuff) that nihilism is very fashionable today. If an author is a nihilist their book is more likely to be considered great postmodern literary fiction. But some of it is just plain pretentious. Consider the context and the intent of the author (sorry Barthes). Critical thinking must not take a back seat when reading difficult literature because as you say it can reinforce destructive behavior and thinking.
The Medieval Reader you’re such a literature student 🙄
Speaking of depressing literature, have you read Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil? Very grim but beautiful stuff. I highly recommend it. Some of it reminds me of Bolaño and Denis Johnson.
I would like to know if you have recently revisited this video and what are your thoughts on this now.
Holy hell... Thank you. I loved this video.
As for Italian literature, try Giacomo Leopardi - the most pessimistic in Italian history!
A better question is why is the majority of literature depressing? As a matter of fact is there any literature that tells a heroic story of the protagonist overcoming adversity?
For me reading depressing literature helped me cope it didn't create some negative feedback loop. Realizing that people have been wrestling with the same problems since forever is comforting and grounding and connecting not depressing.
I am diagnosed with clinical depression and 80% of my books are depressing. I feel like I go and search for such books on purpose.
Your looking for answers
thank you dad
I had a problem with hernia which kept me in bed for almost a year. Most of the time I didn't know what was my problem, so I kept in my without knowing the origin of those pains that I thought would kill me. The time that I spent in bed I spent reading books too, one of them was Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilich. A bad idea to read that book, I think. My situation was quite similar as him, I got worse every day and saw people staring at me with disproval in the eyes. Besides being sick I was a hindrance to everyone and they deeply wanted that shit to end soon. I think I got depressed by that book and life at that time. But, happily I found treatment on medicine and now I don't feel so much pain. The lesson I extract from this is that you have to think more in what book you should or shouldn't read in a present state of your life, a wrong book in an wrong situation could happen to kill you.
I'm not alone to face it.
Save myself and my folks from those type of folks, situation and environment maybe.
And sometimes use some so called negative Traits to get things done but not to hurt folks physically at least.
I’m a bit late to this video, but I got the answer to this question: balance depressive literature with going to a therapist. The fact that you are seeking this type of view of the world on literature can be worked and looked into with a psychologist, try it.
Where can I find his social média links?
Die Reading. Love it. Need that on a sticker please.
This is a brilliant video man. I went through a phase of exactly what you said, reading dark literature for affirmation during years of very intense depression. I made the conscious effort after one point to read either stuff that had more of a balance or have a heavy and light book on the go. Murakami is perfect for the former, personally.
Anyways, you nailed it. Thank you.
This is pure gold
Motivational youtube videos? Now you've got me seriously depressed. Thanks pal. I remember your Logotti review lol. Actually I find guys like Schopenhauer and Logitti, Bukowski, etc. consoling. I was and am always less depressed after reading so called depressing literature. I didn't feel so alone because everyone I knew and know was/is pretending life was/is much better than it actually is and I don't care for fakery of that kind. Depression is meditation on what is important as you so aptly said. What I have to minimize is actual accounts of the horrific things that humans actually physically and emotionally do to each other. That makes me suicidal.
Having been a dog trainer before retirement I have dogs that put most of humanity to shame. They keep me cheered as much as one can in this hell hole. That's my number one tactic for dealing with depression and along with that goes isolating from most of humanity and taking long lonely hikes in the mountains around my home with my dogs off leash for at least two hours daily. Without that I'd be looking for a cliff or sturdy tree branch. Cheers!
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Aristotle
Man, the more I view your videos, the more I want to be friends with you. That was very insightful.
13:34 Clearly Better Than Food has never been seriously depressed
I'm interested to hear about your thoughts on social media.
4. Understand the author. his background and his intent. All writing is an expression of thought and value and an illustration of the world as it is and as it ought to be. It's up to you, the reader, to decide if the author is correct, ethical and if the author is steering you in a direction you want to go.
This is contrary to the view taken in literature and humanities classes where we are taught to separate the text from the author and make the critic [hopefully, with the correct academic qualifications and the correct social/psychological/political viewpoints] the sole arbiter of the text. Ughm ... know when you're reading riveting and influential bullshit. Yeah, take a moment to think about what you just read. Even if you get swept by the words, think back and reflect with a sober mind.
Beautiful. Thank you.
Reading bleak literature made me breakthrough and I had a revelation that led me to find god and the darkness of the world only gives rise to the light. Thanks The Tunnel and Gravity’s Rainbow! It was worth the panic attacks.
This video is so fucking wise I cannot express! Thanks so much!!! ❤️
"Do we really need to be convinced that life's a bitch more than we have been by simply living it?" (8:21)
That's a really good question. Thankss!
Cormac McCarthy's take on the issue of darkness and pain in literature (methinks he knows better about this shit) is that the core of classical literature is the idea of tragedy. "You don't really learn much from the good things that happen to you", he says - I think that's about right. The point is to *learn*, not to fall into the abyss.
So glad i found you!
“Weak”, “fat”, “pathetic”. Not your best look. Strength is the extent to which you are a source of support and love for other people, living in harmony with your highest values.
Books will change you. They have the power.
📖🖤
What do you think about hard determinism?
a fan from Moroco here. but related to the topic yeah i once was there. as i can remember when i finished crime and punishment by dostoevsky i went through black period.
Finished crime and punishment about a week ago, currently going through that black period, how did you get out of it?
Thank you.
You are great man, love you.
Always thought I could handle reading everything. Picked up the conspiracy against the human race and it broke me.
Some uplifting literature that I can recommend that is great for balancing out the darker stuff:
Walt Whitman: song of myself.
The spiritual poetry of Rumi, kabir, Havez, Mira.
The Darmha Bums by Jack Kerouac.
Plato's Socratic dialogues.
Osho.
I haven't read Victor Hugo's Le mis (it's a big bastard of a book 😁), but it's apparently an ultimately uplifting book. Same goes for 100 years of solitude by GGM.
I do think that there's a difference thou, in dark but spiritual books like say, Dostoevsky or Hubert Selby Jr, which are teaching us something and the outright nihilistic auto-fiction stuff from depressed, somewhat adolescent adult men 🙂. For me there's courageously dark, beautiful literature like blood meridian from Cormac McCarthy, and then there's weak shit like EM Corin, stay with MCCARTHY!
The birth of tragedy. Balance is both - Depression and Blissfulness
"Consciousness - Parent of all horrors."
Thomas Ligotti
You put in words everything I wanted to say
THIS IS THE BEST VIDEO ON UA-cam
So, they fell in love. NOW, IT'S A MISSION