Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
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- ISBN13: 9780679643524
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A work of fantastic personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron’s right account of his descent into a crippling and nearly 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.Amazon.com Review
In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and nearly suicidal depression, the same illness that took the lives of Randall Jarrell, Primo Levi and Virginia Woolf. That Styron survived his descent into madness is something of a miracle. 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 persons readers who have been spared the suffering it describes.
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William Styron suffered a clinical depression in 1985, after he finished 40 years of alcohol abuse. He subsequently turned that experience into a address, a Vanity Honest article and this extremely slight (84 pages) memoir. The process of explaining his mental illness seems to have rendered him schizophrenic, if he was not already.
When I reviewed Sophie’s Choice (see Orrin’s review; Grade: C), I noted, lacking knowing of his depression, that Styron seemed to have some psychological problems. I based my belief on his choice to write his novels from non-white, female or additional ethnic perspectives; he seemed like a man who was so very much uncomfortable with himself and consumed by White Liberal guilt, as to be unbalanced. It can hardly have come as a surprise to anyone that he descended into a nearly suicidal spiral of depression. But, lo and behold, it surprised him and this is symptomatic of the problems with the book. On the one hand, Styron seems to want to bare his soul and win our sympathy for others like him, but on the additional hand he is so dishonest and/or obtuse, that he offers small of value to his audience.
I’ll just point out two additional areas where his analysis fails the reader. He labors mightily to exonerate the depressed from moral judgment and described them as mere victims of an organic condition, but as he notes, the compound changes in the brain that exacerbate depression are preceded by some prior, purely psychological, condition–stress, guilt, what have you. Now, I do not mean to suggest that susceptibility to Depression is automatically indicative of moral weakness, surely we can all know and sympathize with the bereaved parent or spouse who falls prey to depression after losing a child or partner. But I am suggesting that in many cases, the mindset and moral philosophy of the sufferer seems to be a contributing factor in the development of depression.
This seems especially clear, and is annoyingly ignored, when Styron discusses the additional legendary sufferers of depression, most of whom committed suicide–Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath, etc. It escapes his notice that these are all facts of the Left, plagued by the same tormented liberal guilt as he. The two friends and fellow victims who he discusses are Art Buchwald and Mike Wallace; the three of them have moped through the past forty years, attacking their country, their society and the inequities they perceive. Of course, they are depressed, they despise themselves and the world they live in. Significantly, the two fantastic conservative sufferers, Churchill and Lincoln, both fantastic believers in the essential goodness of man and democracy and their countries, were able to overcome their black moods lacking psychiatry or pharmacology. It seems logical to suppose that the group of catterwauling suicidal wretches that Styron associates himself with are predisposed to self-destructive depression by their political pessimism and moral anxiety, but this issue is not addressed, so we’ll place it for another day.
This is a mildly appealing trifle about a unique manifestation of depression. It in no way belongs on this list.
GRADE: C
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
If you want to read a fantastic book on personal illness by a fine writer, read Reynolds Fee’ “A Whole New Life.” The prose is authentic and there is not a touch of pretense in it.
Styron’s lack of insight into his illness is topped only by his lack of knowledge of abnormal psychology. His declaration that depression is caused by a compound imbalance is disturbing, because it mixes cause and effect. His assertion is tantamount to attributing global warming to melting glaciers. Mixing cause and effect is not something one would attribte to a writer of his honor, as it is the essence of clear thought.
Yes, the intensity and distribution of various neuro-chemicals have been establish to be compromised among persons suffering depression who have been tested. But how are they compromised? Contrary to the leader’s belief that “the madness results from an aberrant biochemical process,” and that “such madness is chemically induced,” it is the commonly-held view today that psychology plays the decisive causitive role in mental illness, as that psychology is formulated and developed throughout life, and is influenced by situations, including loss, misuse of drugs and alcochol, and unconscious dilemmas, among others.
That an organic etiology has been surmised in many cases of schizophrenia and additional psychosis, as well as in profound obsessions, certainly “rules in” brain hurt, whether it is evident at birth, or the result of additional physical and emotional trauma later in life; but it does not rule out psychology and the privileged order mental functions we attribute to consciousness.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
As I read this book, what became evident was that his tale was an eloquent rendering of deep stage alcoholism and drug addiction and that his depression was not the cause of persons things, but a result of persons things. Pity that the leader doesn’t arrive at this understanding, as it may have helped him.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Styron is a master of the written word…although he does at times get a triffle long winded in this novel. This novel definetely offers some insight into the world of William Styron, and if you bother to read any of his works of fiction, read this book first…you may come to realize what drove him to make some of his most passionate characters. The language in this book is gorgeous; I wish that he had touched upon more external subjects in his life. It is a excellent 80+ page read, just be prepared to read it all the way through in one sitting, it a hard book to pick up again once it is place down. Lacks in the essential dramatic essence of a excellent autobiography. Although I am most certainly glad he didn’t include (any known) fake information. He didn’t lie, and silent frankly, the only way this book could have been more appealing was if Stryon would have added a few untruths to keep the plot of the book from apt tedious. But this book is Styron’s life, and I am glad he described it in an honest manner.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
It’s been said already in additional reviews, but Styron clearly romanticizes his depression and applies a kind of artistic elitism to depression that exlcudes persons who don’t live a so-called “creative” life. (Styron regularly appears on television with additional “artists” and Mike Wallace, the journalist, a kind of unspoken code: this is about “creative types.”) This is a very tiny book with very small to offer. He talks a lot about his alcoholism but fails to connect his many years of drinking with his depression. Of course, it is known that alcohol is a depressant and, like additional drugs, kills brain cells and diminishes the brain, in all-purpose. There’s a part of Styron at work that embraces his depression. He identifies with it and, I judge, his writing this slight essay was his way of keeping it. I establish the book redundant, slow, at times unclear, and offering, reasonably frankly, nothing of value.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5