Book 54 - Brian Dillon "Tormented Hope"

[jazzy_dave]

Brian Dillon "Tormented Hope" (Penguin)





Brian Dillon's book tells the stories of nine famous people and the role their hypochondria played in their lives. The subjects range from the historical (Charles Darwin & Emily Bronte) to the modern (Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol), and Dillon respectfully delves into their medical and psychological histories.


Hypochondriasis, Brian Dillon tells us in this ingenious and intriguing book, is characterized by an intense scrutiny of the body. We should all listen to our bodies, of course, but the nine people examined here were hypersensitive, possessing a heightened awareness of having a body and of being embodied in the world.

Dillon accepts that hypochondria is to some extent a chimerical illness, but there are enough similarities and convergences to just about string these disparate lives together.

In Tormented Hope Dillon looks beyond the comic stereotype of the hypochondriac to the tragicomic reality. He also makes a strong case for there being a link between "health anxiety" and creativity, following the philosopher Gilles Deleuze's observation that many great artists have frail health, the idea of the writer or artist being simultaneously the médecin and the malade of a civilisation. Charlotte Brontë's hypochondria, he shows, was displaced on to Lucy Snowe or Jane Eyre, and Proust's was an essential aspect of his art. Dillon is a self-confessed hypochondriac and his conclusion that "the power of imagination . . . is in itself a kind of pathology" has profound implications for literature.

A morbid fear of illness often conceals a fear of death. "A Hypochondriack fancies himself at different times suffering death in all the various ways in which it has been observed," wrote James Boswell, "and thus he dies many times before his death." An exception to this is Alice James (Henry James's sister), who was perversely happy at being told she had breast cancer because her "career as an invalid" had reached its apotheosis.

Dillon quotes from a 17th-century thesis which observes that hypochondriacs can suffer spasms as a result of "sudden Outcry, or the very opening of a Door". When Andy Warhol's silver wig was snatched from his head at a book signing, he complained that "It hurt. Physically." A more extreme example is Gould's response to being patted on the shoulder by a Steinway employee in 1959. He recoiled, muttering: "Don't do that; I don't like to be touched," and later claimed that this incident had resulted in a problem with his left hand. It was the excuse he needed to withdraw from public performances, and his recording studio, like Proust's bedroom, became a refuge, "a technological cocoon that finally satisfied his urge to separate himself physically from his public".


This is a fascinating book that informs and entertains as it explores hypochondria's effects not only on these subjects' lives but also their art.

Comments

[robby.livejournal.com]

Another example might be Howard Hughes. He was fabulously wealthy, but spent his final years in self imposed isolation, guided by bizarre fears of illness.

[thespian15.livejournal.com]

Florence Nightingale was a hypochondriac? Go figure. :o
Hugs, Jon

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Huh...interesting...

*HUGS*