Sunday, November 26, 2006

Proof of my shallowness ...

... I cam upon this link to Lewis Wolpert's Malignant Sadness .
The opening paragraph simply stunned me. For me, depression has meant being down in dumps, the blues, what have you. Nothing like what Wolpert describes.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:40 AM

    Frank, you are the last person I would call "shallow".
    Depression is a generally unappreciated territory. I have come to realise this only relatively recently myself.
    As I mentioned in my earlier comment about this book, I did not agree with all or perhaps even much of it. But I thought the description of depression was spot-on, and the review of what is known about it biologically a very comprehensible summary.
    St John's Wort, which Wolpert swears by, has come in for quite a bit of stick since then.
    Lewis Wolpert is a bit of a media guru over here nowadays, and I know many people find him irritating. So do I, sometimes. But like a lot of these science popularisers (eg Dawkins), there is some excellent writing to be found among other less appealing aspects.
    Another science populiser I have a lot of time for, and about whom people are rude, is Melvyn Bragg. (He goes far outside sciece, of course). And Frank, I am sure you will agree because M. B. comes from the Lake District -- his official title is Lord Bragg of Wigton, an admirable town.

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  2. Anonymous8:19 AM

    Frank, this link does not work for me: I click it and what I get is "Blogger Site Not Found." Am I the only one for whom it is corrupted? No se.

    I still say a wonderful book about depression and one of the first of its kind is the memoir by the late writer, William Styron: _Darkness Visible_.

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