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Melanie's Reviews > Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
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Maybe I'm being needlessly harsh in my one-star rating, but there was something about Styron's memoir that really distressed me. I read it during one of my own periods of depression, and for whatever reason I decided to pair it with The Bell Jar, and instead of feeling any sort of comfort or recognition in Styron's words, I just felt sort of angry. I became so hung up on the ways we (women, men, Americans, depressed people, etc.) talk about depression, and on what it means when we call it by different names, that even the very title of the work became grating: "A Memoir of Madness." I started (probably unfairly) projecting onto Styron, grumbling to myself that, sure, when fancy male writers are depressed it becomes madness, like they all think they're King Lear or something. (This is the point at which a simultaneous re-reading of Sylvia Plath became not so helpful, but provided an interesting contrast.)
It was also around the time--and this was in a total fit of unabashed Crazy--that I decided to reclaim the phrase "mental illness." Man, that was a bad week.
But I guess what I really struggled with, in reading this memoir, was the notion of finding anything noble in suffering from depression. I've never felt especially noble or touched by a strange, dark power or whatever--I've spent almost fifteen years of my life thinking that I'm broken and that I should cheer up already. I know that there's no such thing as capital-D Depression, and that we all experience it differently (and maybe even differently throughout our own lives), but there was just something about Styron's tone that really irked me.
It was also around the time--and this was in a total fit of unabashed Crazy--that I decided to reclaim the phrase "mental illness." Man, that was a bad week.
But I guess what I really struggled with, in reading this memoir, was the notion of finding anything noble in suffering from depression. I've never felt especially noble or touched by a strange, dark power or whatever--I've spent almost fifteen years of my life thinking that I'm broken and that I should cheer up already. I know that there's no such thing as capital-D Depression, and that we all experience it differently (and maybe even differently throughout our own lives), but there was just something about Styron's tone that really irked me.
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Started Reading
January 1, 2007
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Finished Reading
August 2, 2007
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August 2, 2007
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2007
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How right you are to find Styron irksome! He plays into the dominant myth that depression is somehow ennobling, when it often strips us of everything.
Men aren't the only ones who think of their depression as "madness." I am female and suffered from depression for about ten years -- at times so severe that I probably qualified as psychotic. I think being convinced that the strangers driving by in their cars as you walk to Wal-Mart are all saying nasty horrible things about you and would run you over if they got a chance, qualifies as madness.In my depressed state I sometimes tried to pretend there was something noble about my suffering and it made me purer or better than other people. In my well state I realized this was a lie, an attempt to try to make myself feel better.
Thanks for this review - this is exactly what I found troubling about Darkness Visible.
They're Celebrating Styron Over at the Fresno Bee:Serialized novella, too!
With all due respect, a few thoughts: 1. The grand tome of women's gender-driven revaluation of crazy is called The Madwoman in the Attic, not the Nondescript Abyss-Lady in the Attic.
2. From my perspective, it's a bit less than decent to be critical of the way someone frames his or her depression, for fuck's sake. As though the person drowning in mud at the bottom of the well ought to adjust his tie.
3. King Lear might sound to some ears like just another scoop of high-culture patriarchy, but (King or no) it's about a pathetic old man who is totally wrong about life and love, and gets utterly destroyed. He's grandiose because he's an a-hole. To be irate at grandiose narcissistic guys (who are admitting to madness) because they act like a-holes seems sort of silly. A bit like saying, I hate those fat people; they go around thinking they weigh so much. Well, (1) they do; (2) that sucks for them; and (3) someone who says such a thing probably hates fat people because they're fat, not because of the word choices they make when they complain of their very real weight problems.
This analogy is not very good; the point is not that someone taking your position might resent Styron for being a man, but that she might resent him for (a) sharing her ugly weakness, while (b) being different from her and (c) being the beneficiary of male privilege and wanting to die anyway.
You did admit that you thought your resentment of Styron was unfair, and I'm probably being unfair to you, too.
I'm sorry to have to say this to the original poster, but I concur wholeheartedly with Jamey's remarks above. I frequently refer to my illness (which, like Styron's, is medically resistant) as either "madness" or "melancholia" (the latter description is far more accurate to me.Styron describes the experience of depression perfectly, and I did not feel angered at him for it -- I felt comforted by the fact that I am *not* alone in an illness which pharmacopeia has failed to even make bearable (anyone who doesn't know that psychotropic medication is an absolute crapshoot in terms of efficacy should talk to more people ...).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the book; I just happen to feel 180 degrees differently about it than you do.
I'm with Meaghan, Jamey and Sharon on this one. As a female who has read a fair amount of autobiographical literature on mental illness, I found William Styron's work the most incisive in grasping the essentials of my own emotional state when in the depths of The Void. As for the use of his the word "Madness" - as Kay Redfield-Jamison does, I think there is an element of reclaiming the word from being a pejorative throwaway and using it in the form of a literary, if not medical, metaphor.My initial diagnosis enabled me to take stock and live with myself in a practical way, and to realize that simply cheering up/snapping out of it/turning that frown upside down, as I had so often tried, was not going to work in my case. My diagnosis was not so much ennobling, but something which grounded me.
I admit to finding it a little jarring to read the way you viewed his story through a gendered lens, but different stokes, etc. For what it is worth, I'm a huge fan of Sylvia Plath - Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams is in my Desert Island pantheon! In spite of our differences, this is a truly interesting and personal review, and I thank you.
I've just finished this book, and I have to demur. There is absolutely nothing in this novella which "enobles" depression. Nothing. It is a challenge he overcame and a search for the reason for his own, while juxtaposing his survival against the loss of others - many of whom were his friends. It's quite a sad book, but it ends on a form of "high" - considering the topic. I found much of it hard going, and much riveting. But in no way does he ennoble or celebrate in any way.
I was at the other end of the star rating where the book was concerned, having given it 5 stars, but I really liked your review, Melanie. It was thoughtful and sincere.
Well. what did you expect?Just because he's an author doesn't mean his duty is to cheer you up certainly not in a story that is about his depression. An author is there to tell his story, nothing more.
The fact that it irked you...I'll just say that this is the sort of things that tend to depress people...
Melanie -- though your perspective was kind of direct a quick to cut. You articulated your reasoning well. I enjoyed that more than anything. Never read the book and doesn't seem hardcore enough for me. But I did enjoy your review.
Y'know, I was going to comment that the "ennobling" thing is totally projected...but I think both Jamey *and* Melanie are right.I don't think Styron was being the Nobly Mad Patriarch here at all (his early comment on that French humanism prize never having gone to a woman made it clear to me that he's sensitive to gender issues--let alone the fact that much of his fiction is from a female POV).
But I do think Melanie makes a good point about how white male (academic, monied) privilege is often used to elevate mental illness to some kind of noble artistic affliction. When a homeless PoC has it, it's ugly (if we even acknowledge it at all). When a white male artist has it, it's tragically beautiful.
You've all made good points. This deserves more discussion. Privilege absolutely does extend into illness, and this is a very contentious topic with the DSM-V coming out recently and the weird way that privilege is crossing over into psychiatry and pharmacology (the "worried well," etc.).
Yes, unfair. Men are criticised for portraying the "madness" of women (hysteria etc.), but when he labels his own madness, you see it as masculine empowerment. This is a reflection of you, not the writer.
This is the truest account in our language of the deep end of depression. Capital-D depression does exist, is a disease and can be treated. Andrew Solomon's Noon Day Demon is another (far longer and more exhaustive) personal, brave attempt to transform suffering into explication in the hopes it can help others. His naming or trying to name depression 'brainstorm' was to me the most revelatory bit of renaming I'd ever encountered. If you've never experienced what's tritely called 'depression' as near-paralytic whitenoiseness in your brain coupled with pyschotic delusions of nonexistence and valuelessness, you do not know what the disease is.
Wow, you gave it one-star? I respect your opinion for your reasons stated...but his beautiful elegant prose alone....I'd give ten stars if I could.
� and yet ironically you described yourself, at one point in your own review, as being more or less exactly as the title you abhor suggests: ~~~> "� And this was in a total fit of unabashed Crazy �" <~~~
In this instance I believe the difference between the words "Crazy" & "Madness" to be basically only semantics; their definitions here allow them to be virtually interchangeable, grammar & best correct usage not withstanding.
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I've just scrolled through these fascinating comments, directed to this book as one that may have potential interest for a person like me. This app has me Sussed pretty well. I haven't yet read Styron or Darkness Visible so I'm in no position to comment. But I can say that as a long term depressive (my whole life probably - 53 useless years), my reading of the Bell Jar about 30 years ago during an attempt to pull my socks up and go to Uni still irritates me for the same reasons as the current reviewer - basically I felt so detached, alienated and annoyed by Plath's experience of depression and the way it manifested in her behaviour. Hiding under the house, oh that frustrated me, yet I hide constantly. Luckily some good therapy (which for me turns out to be talk, on top of the anti-depressant scattergun method) has let me develop empathy and compassion so I can now understand another viewpoint even if I can't embrace it.
I'm not sure I've succeeded in making my point but I will now read Styron and reread Plath and see what happens.
Next time read something lighthearted that makes you laugh...if you are already depressed then don't read about someone elses depression...don't do that!
You are lucky to have read it in a time when there are a high volume of books on mental health. This, and one other book co-written by Spike Milligan, was the only book available to me when I was unexpectedly hit with the illness in 1991. The internet had only come to light. There was nothing to help me understand what the hell was happening to me. This book was a god send for me and for that reason I hold it up with much respect.
You mean like in Girl, Interrupted? Making horrible illness seem like something positive? So, how long have you hated men?
he deserves credit for writing so openly about something that people still don't talk about...about how there is no shame in getting help. There is a time that one will overcome depression and keeping that in mind when we're going through the worst can save lives! (less)
I think we read different books: there is nothing in Darkness Visible which suggests in the least bit that depression is ennobling. Just the opposite, really.
Poor Mr. Styron.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have you as an irked reader!