Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.32 (519 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0394588886 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 84 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-04-01 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into a crippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.From the Trade Paperback edition.
That he manages to convey its tortuous progression and his eventual recovery with such candor and precision makes Darkness Visible a rare feat of literature, a book that will arouse a shock of recognition even in those readers who have been spared the suffering it describes. . That Styron survived his descent into madness is something of a miracle. In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and almost suicidal depression, the same illness that took the lives of Randall Jarrell, Primo Levi and Virginia Woolf
A useful intro Sam Clemens Disappointingly short. Basically a magazine article with a chapter added on. Very good about the sheer pain of depression and its effect on the ability to act, think, taste, feel pleasure of any kind. Surprisingly uninformative about what depression does to your thought processes -- you would think that, as a writer, the author would say more about that. Or maybe his experience was just different. For example, I found depression like trying to debate with the Devil: one reason that you don't feel you'd cause your loved ones pain if you killed yourself is that you've become convinced, in your convoluted reasoning, that they w. Fascinating & Honest An amazing work, from a writer who obviously suffered the tortures of the damned while he was depressed. Reading what William Styron went through was actually heartbreaking. He did not understand it himself, as so many others who have this condition also don't understand WHY it is happening to them. What I loved about this work was that for those who DO want to understand, it is a must-read. Painful in parts, but also honest and straight-forward. Some of the details about those AROUND Styron who did not "get" what was going on brought me to tears. This book is just more proof that so many do not understand depression, or how. Dan Baxter said A Letter from the Cavern of Depression. William Styron, as so many authors, fought depression throughout his life. This book originally was a lecture. It is a letter from within the cavern of depression told by a brilliant writer who wants all of us to understand the land in which he dwells. I have read it twice--both times at a single sitting. It is the best description of depression I have read. I found myself on most of the pages (to a lesser degree than Styron) and followed his lantern toward the exit from the darkness. Prozac came on the market about the time this book was published. It would have been interesting to read his report on the effects of the new