What If This Were Enough?

This is a nice book of short essays talking about the excesses of modern life, particularly the ways we are overwhelmed by our surroundings and the ways we overwhelm ourselves. Most of the essays have their basis either in some bit of pop culture Havrilesky takes issue with or some unsettling quirk of modern culture that's made itself evident through her family and children.

If you take a look at the core of each essay, they're pointing out important issues with the way we behave and the ways that we're encouraged to behave. We don't need as much as we think we do, and we certainly don't need as much as society makes us want to think we do. And her writing style manages to maintain enough irreverence for the bullshit we deal with on a daily basis that most of these essays are pretty entertaining.

My major problem is that a lot of them, in the end, seem weirdly meandering or seem to loop back to some sort of unresolved hypocrisy. Yeah, Disneyland is a conglomeration of all sorts of things wrong with the world, and I can understand how that's upsetting and worth writing about, but when you take your family there anyways and enjoy yourself and still write the exact same essay it rings a little hollow. Like there was some extra minor point needed to fill the whole argument in that didn't quite make it into the essay.

A lot of the essays do this; start making a great point, but fail to bring it all the way home. It's not a huge issue, as that final stretch isn't too hard to think through on your own, but it is annoying that so many of the essays seem to have this issue. Still, the core themes this book is prodding at are generally well addressed and Havrilesky writes well enough to carry you through the odd pain point, so I'd recommend this book if it jumps out at you at all.

What do Timothy Ferris and Heather Havrilesky have in common? Not that long ago, I hadn't heard of either of them. That's not the answer, just a reflection which it turns out will lead to the answer. It's not even a true statement. I had forgotten who both were but had heard of them. I had reviewed a book in this space (I always wanted to use that phrase!) by chess master and martial arts champion [a:Josh Waitzkin|48788|Josh Waitzkin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1318137826p2/48788.jpg] in which Mr. Ferris made an appearance, and I had put one of Ms. Havrilesky's earlier books on my "to read" list. That's because they are both sort of famous people and both became that way by telling us how to live. That's what they have in common.

To be fair, Ms. H does so with much more self-reflection personal disclosure and with occasional insecurity which she wishes she didn't have to feel, imagining in the moment that men, e.g. Timothy Ferris, never harbor self-doubt. A second difference is that, outside of a doctor's waiting room, I'd never knowingly choose to read Mr. Ferris, while I actually finished H.H.'s book (though it was touch and go at times.) To be even fairer, in my weaker moments, I have found myself telling people how to live, thus I have a certain sympathy for Ms. Havrilesky's doing so and I imagine that, like me, she also knows better.

I also want to review the actual book at hand and not turn this into a vote for or against her philosophies. It's too easy and not useful to simply oppose consumerism and Trumpism along with the author and rate this book accordingly. It's enjoyable to read the well-composed screeds of those you agree with and mistake that feeling for literary greatness. (If you're the kind of reader who looks for that in choosing a book, I recommend this one to you.)

I'm not being sadistic when I say I found this book at its best when the author was suffering. Not suffering in the masochistic sense, and I don't mean that she suffered through, not just one, but three [a:E. L. James|18109798|E. L. James|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] books so that she could deconstruct them for us--going the extra mile for her readers. The suffering I refer to occurred when she found herself swept up in Disney enthusiasm and suddenly realized what had happened, or when she found herself in a bad relationship. In these moments, she joins the rest of us, which is where "her best self" (quoted for irony) wanted to be all along. Her last essay asserts this appreciation for our common humanity as a "way to live" and it feels like she's talking to herself as much as to the reader, reminding us that this is enough. It was the book's title that drew me to it in the first place. I think she blunts this philosophy a bit by bringing in Mozart, as if, though she is careful to deny it, his genius is what makes it enough but I credit that to her own ambivalence which actually adds a certain poignancy as we realize that it's not enough to be told it's enough, even when you're telling your own self and it's the title of your book.