Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness

If there was a "Society for Frustrated English Majors & Other Liberal Arts Graduates" --folks who feel that college educations and subsequent daily existences rarely mesh in meaningful ways--then Willard Spiegelman could be the group's guru and his book, Seven Pleasures, Essays on Ordinary Happiness, its holy writ. This book is not a self-help program that will ever be summarized with bullets in the glossy Sunday supplement. Instead, the delicious volume is a demonstration of how the wisdom of the "liberal arts" (especially my favorite, poetry) can permeate simple activities and heighten awareness of their pleasures. While discussing each of seven activities, he uses examples from literature, music, visual arts, his travels, and his life experiences from childhood forward. This book offers hope to poetry lovers who lament the demise of poetry as a popular genre. Poems are used repeatedly and effectively to inform and illustrate aspects of ordinary, contemporary life, demonstrating a vital didactic role for poetry. In discussing John Stuart Mills' description of his recovery from mental collapse through Wordsworth's poetry, Spiegelman states that Mills "blurs the line between literary criticism, memoir, and psychotherapy." This description applies equally well to Seven Pleasures. Of the seven activities discussed, Spiegelman's "bookends," "Reading" and "Writing," are essential pleasures. Without some proficiency in these, one will not develop the awareness or poetic sensibility that enhances the pleasure of any chosen ordinary activity. In these two key essays, Spiegelman is not shy about direct advice. For example, he urges more mature readers to reread what gave them pleasure earlier in life--much has been forgotten about the works, and much has been learned through life experiences to make the rereading more meaningful and pleasurable. Spiegelman is bluntly honest about writing for one's inner satisfaction rather than for public recognition or money. It often seems there are now more writers (and bloggers!) than readers. The pleasure of writing is most often involved with "the achieve of, the mastery of the thing," to quote Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poems were published only posthumously. Also, the struggle to write well helps one better appreciate the good writings of others. A reader wishing to increase happiness in life (and who doesn't?) may simultaneously love this book and doubt its "mass appeal." Spiegelman does not tackle major life issues like careers, interpersonal relations, ethics, or health crises. Yet if his book inspires one to do "best reading" and to develop a poetic sensibility performing pleasurable activities, one's happiness will blossom and dance for having read Seven Pleasures. Like a contemporary poet, whose relatively small audience consists mostly of other, rival "contemporary poets," Spiegelman appealing to a diminishing pool of "better readers" may be like "preaching to the choir."

Fun reading, but I'll start with the small negatives. Willard Spiegelman's essays recount a serendipitous life experience and only hint at challenges and crisis (or even tragedy)I'm sure he faced along the way. He reveals only small islands of discomfort and pain scattered in a vast sea of joyful possibilities derived from pursuit and contemplation of simple pleasures. But his mission appears to be: blend light memories with practical advice on realizing happiness, but with effort that threatens no one else. He places the seven pleasures in the context of a cornucopia of references to mostly literary and artistic notables, both the famous and less so famous. Spiegelman's blend reeks of spontaneity (notwithstanding that he seems to know nearly all there is to know about every nook of Western culture), and the alluding method employed never approaches pedantry. More imitative is he of Ovid and Vergil than the modern popularized philosophers of the possible. Some images are especially funny, one for instance: Spiegelman swimming laps in the Harvard pool and realizing he has the 8 foot giant and world-famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith in the lane on his left, and word-famous psychologist Erik Erikson on his right, and in the middle ". . I the world-ignored nobody." This book has much serious and useful advice, but in small palatable doses and with lots of light and self-deprecating revelations about the very talented author, who has learned how to structure prose with no waste and in a relentless striving to enrich and inspire the reader, mind and body.

Spiegelman's essays are intelligent, classical, and highly literary. Read the book and you'll learn a new word or two. But the essays are also funny, poignant, cheerful, and simply pleasurable. Spiegelman argues that watching people engage in a pleasurable activity, such as dancing, can make you feel happy. It turns out that reading a writer in a good mood can have the same effect.

I simply loved this book. The prose is elegant, witty, and, most importantly, lively. From seemingly simple activities (swimming, reading, dancing, etc.) the author extracts hilarity, memory, cultural commentary, personal anecdotes, and that thing we call literature. The book is learned without being snooty. It is complicated, nuanced, and rich with quotation. Arm yourself with a giant cup of tea and dig in.

Reading Spiegelman's essays on the elements of pleasure is its own pleasure. His writing befriends the reader as he leads them to discover that true happiness lies in the ordinary rather than the extraordinary moments in life.