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  Depression & Fiction

  What is the role of depression and writing? Why do so many great authors suffer from it (Plath, Styron, Andersen, Balzac, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad (SA), Charles Dickens, Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, etc.)? Indeed is there a higher incidence of depression among writers/artists? And what is it about the mental illness that aids in creating literature while sometimes destroying the life of the writer?

  mmolino54 started this discussion 6 months ago. ( reply )

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  apokalypsis 

  The preacher of Ecclesiastes said something to the effect of "There is more wisdom to be found in the house of the dying than in the place of feasting." (Most readers of that portion of the Hebrew scriptures find it terribly depressing. It's one of my favorites.)
  
  I think writing serious literature requires questioning the status quo. Questioning the status quo tends to put you at odds with people, and for many of us -- who really want to be loved more than anything -- being at odds with people can be depressing. Or perhaps starting out at odds with people by no choice of one's own causes a person to question the status quo. Either way, you won't communicate a different perspective on life if you're just going along with everyone's assumptions.
  
  Perhaps some people gravitate toward writing because they didn't accede to power any other way (e.g. by being a football star or movie star or CEO).
  
  I don't know, just rambling here. Any other ideas?
  How about: People who think about life find a lot to be sad about.

  posted 4 months ago. ( reply )

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    mmolino54 

    I'm often drawn to the writers who seek out "the house of the dying" or have been there themselves. I'm thinking Nelson Algren, Bukowski, Burroughs, Vollman, Rimbaud, etc. I do think depression may provide a window into a more honest look at reality, though it tends to cripple the viewer's ability to believe in a better future or hope of any kind. Perhaps it is easier to escape into fiction or writing as a means to escape depression--you run a lot faster when something is chasing you.
    
    I've never really thought of writing as a means to accede to power (which is my own shortsightedness given the weight I give to books in my own life). I think writing and art can often be very isolating activities that are tough on the ego, as well.
    
    -marc

    posted 3 months ago. ( reply )

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  NighEve (edited)

  I think artists generally are just more emotionally sensitive and aware. They are hyper-sensitive. That hyper-sensitivity works in one way to allow them to be able to notice and describe the finest details of life exquisitely, in whatever medium of art is theirs. But being hyper-sensitive works in another way that leaves the person more vulnerable and defenseless to the pain and suffering in their lives and in the world.
  
  I have a story that I think is related (but then I am hyper-sensitive when it comes to the connectivity of stuff. I see connections when everyone else is goin "HUH???" LOL!)
  
  On one of my rare visits to church not long ago, the minister told a story. She said that a group of scientists was studying these monkeys in the wild (maybe they were gorillas, so they were primates of some sort). They noticed that some of the animals seemed "depressed." They decided to see what would happen if they took away the animals that seemed depressed and let the other animals live without these sad sacks for a while. They wanted to see what effect, if any, having no depressed members of the group would have on the rest of the group.
  
  What they discovered was that after a while, all the animals left behind were dead.
  
  Maybe this is connected to the points apokalypsis made about, "being at odds with people can be depressing." Maybe it is not being at odds with other people, so much as it is being able to perceive all that is wrong with the status quo, or be able to feel all that is wrong in the world generally. We need depressed writers and other miserable artist types because they warn us that something isn't right. We need to pay attention lest we perish?
  

  posted 4 months ago. ( reply )

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    mmolino54 

    In my undergrad psych. courses I remember reading about how those who are depressed actually have a more accurate perception of reality (i.e., they have a more accurate sense of what others think of them and where they rank in terms of "success", "beauty", and opportunity; as well as accurately viewing others in these respects). So, in a sense, to be happy, one must be willing to distort reality or be detached from it (e.g. zen/buddhism).
    
    I think there is something about writing itself that lends itself to those whose views of reality are unvarnished or for those who wish to peel away the illusory layers. A friend of mine who suffers from depression once recommended William Styron's "Darkness Visible"-- a book about his ordeals with depression--it's been quite a few years since I read it, but it was a fascinating look on a writer dealing with depression.
    
    Nigh, you bring up the notion of hyper-sensitivity which I feel keeps coming up lately (Octavia Butler, social/emotional intelligence, etc.)... I suppose all life is a balance, but can you think of any writers or leaders who seem particularly sensitive/empathetic, but still able to protect themselves?
    -marc

    posted 3 months ago. ( reply )

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    NighEve 

    "I suppose all life is a balance, but can you think of any writers or leaders who seem particularly sensitive/empathetic, but still able to protect themselves?"
    
    As far as I can tell Langston Hughes never suffred from depression, nor does Toni Morrison. Morrison might be on the opposite end. I've heard she is a diva of sorts. My guy Ben Okri seems to be flying with all sails wide open and free. . .let's see. . .?
    
    My inability to think of more folk right now is only a reflection of my ignorance. I'm sure you guys can think a many more.
    

    posted 3 months ago. ( reply )

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    NighEve 

    Been reading Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the following s passage made me think of this thread:
    
    "My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression," Iran said.
    
    "What? Why did you schedule that?" It defeated the whole purpose of the mood organ. "I didn't know you could set it for that," he said gloomily.
    
    "I was sitting here one afternoon," I ran said, "and naturally I had turned on 'Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends' and he was talking about a big news item he's about to break and then that awful commercial came on, the one I hate;. . .And so for a minute I shut off the sound. And I heard the building, this building; I heard the __" she gestured.
    
    "Empty apartments," Rick said. Sometimes he heard them at night when he was supposed to be asleep. And yet, for this day and age a one-half occupied conapt building rated high in the scheme of population density; out in what had been before the war suburbs, one could find buildings entirely empty. . .or so he had heard. He had let the information remain secondhand; like most people he did not care to experience it directly.
    
    "At that moment," I ran said, "when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood. I had just dialed t. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting---do you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair."
    
    PKD is wickedly funny, but think about all that is implied in this one passage. Anybody in here a PKD fan? Apparently, he fit in well with the other authors listed at the beginning of this thread.

    posted 1 month ago. ( reply )

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    apokalypsis 

    I recently discovered PKD for myself via the audiobook of A Scanner Darkly (read by Paul Giamatti). It was brilliant, tragic, and hilarious. Previously, I had seen Bladerunner (which I didn't like) and Minority Report (which I did), but I have a feeling that there's something about his writing that's hard to capture onscreen. Judging by other shelfarians' comments, I think I'll have to pick up The Man in the High Tower before too long.

    posted 1 month ago. ( reply )

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    uplandpoet 

    PKD is great! I especailly liked the manin the high castle, i have not read electric dreams, and might not...
    
    as to the bigger question. i think depression effects about 20% of the population on a regular basis and most of us occasionally. I think if you look at the fgreat writers, there may be a few more than 20% of them that battle chronic depression, but i think the main thing is that a writer's life is more on display. if a coal miner or a mid level sales manager battles depression, it is usually done out of the public eye.
    
    it could be that being more reflective tends one towards depression, but i dont think so, i have a large circle of poets and pretty good circle of writers in general, i find a few are depressed, but most are not.
    
    i think another is the writing itself. i tend to look at the gritty side of life and write about it, as i find real beauty in life without the luxeries many of us take for granted, but i am not personally depressed more than an occasional afternoon....

    posted 1 month ago. ( reply )

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    mmolino54 

    I'm a big PK Dick fan. I second Upland's recommendation of The Man in the High Castle. I also like Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, and Time Out of Joint. I've heard good things about The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich and Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. Sometimes his prose is out of control and you can just see him typing his stories out in amphetamine-laced fit, but his ideas and his sense of a future dominated by a sort of surveillance state are priceless. He really taps into the modern day individual adrift and at the mercy of the state and/or big business. He's funny and dark and has some wonderfully out there novels as well like Dr. Bloodmoney.
    
    Apparently, his personal life was an absolute wreck. I guess the question as it pertains to this thread is whether depression or misfortune breeds good writing or whether good writing is the only escape such individuals have? And whether there's any difference between those ideas...

    posted 1 month ago. ( reply )

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