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Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into a crippling and almost 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.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Hardcover, 96 pages
Published
January 23rd 2007
by Modern Library
(first published 1990)
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It was August in the year 2000. I was about to enter the room for my final exam. This was the introduction to Unix and it was coming to an end.
So was I.
Tears flowing copiously, leaning over the second floor balcony, I was overcome with darkness, the likes of which I had never experienced before.
I finished the exam and could not gather myself. I had no reason for living. In my grief I recalled an earlier experience of incredible bliss following a near death...more
So was I.
Tears flowing copiously, leaning over the second floor balcony, I was overcome with darkness, the likes of which I had never experienced before.
I finished the exam and could not gather myself. I had no reason for living. In my grief I recalled an earlier experience of incredible bliss following a near death...more
Melanie
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
depressed people who aren't me?
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2007
Maybe I'm being needlessly harsh in my one-star rating, but there was something about Styron's memoir that really distressed me. I read it during one of my own periods of depression, and for whatever reason I decided to pair it with The Bell Jar, and instead of feeling any sort of comfort or recognition in Styron's words, I just felt sort of angry. I became so hung up on the ways we (women, men, Americans, depressed people, etc.) talk about depression, and on what it means when we call it by d...more
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Like me, best-selling author William Styron ("Sophie's Choice," "The Confessions of Nat Turner") suffers from medically resistant clinical depression. "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" is a brief but compelling autobiographical journey through what Chaucer described as "melancholia" in the first literary reference made to what is now called a "mood disorder."
Styron writes plainly about his experience with depression, including ...more
Styron writes plainly about his experience with depression, including ...more
An account of an episode of suicidal depression that nearly ended the writer's life.
Good points:
+This is still one of the best descriptions of what an episode of major depression actually feels like. Styron completely nails the overwhelming sense that your life is coming to an end and you are powerless to stop it. He describes how every object in his house - kitchen knives, attic rafters, the garden hose, the bathtub - suddenly acquired a dual identity as the possible instrumen...more
Good points:
+This is still one of the best descriptions of what an episode of major depression actually feels like. Styron completely nails the overwhelming sense that your life is coming to an end and you are powerless to stop it. He describes how every object in his house - kitchen knives, attic rafters, the garden hose, the bathtub - suddenly acquired a dual identity as the possible instrumen...more
At a recent tenure party, a friend of mine leaned over to our small group sitting on the couch and revealed that she had just come from the campus bookstore where she had been perusing a colleague’s recent memoir. “I would never expose myself like that!” she exclaimed. When writers choose to invade their own privacy, as Styron puts it, by sharing a personal struggle, is that what they’re doing—exposing themselves? Certainly, on some level, when Styron sets his struggle with suicidal depressio...more
One of my professors, and mentor really, bought me this over the summer and gave this to me today.
It's strange because I am both... intensely touched and horrified to read the book. Reading about depression tends to, well, depress me. The fear it drudges up is so palpable that it is almost as paralyzing as depression itself.
Still, I am very touched that he did this, aiming to help me feel better understood with the events of last year. As summer fades I stand on its ed...more
It's strange because I am both... intensely touched and horrified to read the book. Reading about depression tends to, well, depress me. The fear it drudges up is so palpable that it is almost as paralyzing as depression itself.
Still, I am very touched that he did this, aiming to help me feel better understood with the events of last year. As summer fades I stand on its ed...more
This deceptively slim volume is one man's account of his descent into the depths of a major depressive episode. He has the ability to convey the monumental struggles his emotional state created in his life. He leads use through each small step towards the inevitable decision to put a stop to all the pain. Like those who see the light at the end of the tunnel, he returned to tell the tale in a raw, gut-wrenching manner. Even through it all, the reader senses that unless s/he has succumb to th...more
I guess a very good writer can find a way to be profound, annoying, interesting, tedious, whiny, in dire need of a 2 x 4 across his forehead and also make some very thoughtful references on both the history and the language -- past and present -- that surrounds the phenomenon known as depression. Styron certainly does all this, and in a mere 84 pages to boot.
Oddly, with that last bit I would submit he hoists himself upon his own petard. As in, what, exactly, is "Madness?" ...more
Oddly, with that last bit I would submit he hoists himself upon his own petard. As in, what, exactly, is "Madness?" ...more
کتاب خاطرات نویسندهشه از دورهای که مبتلا بوده به افسردگی پیشرفته. جالب که پارسال همین موقعها بود که من یه دوره افسردگی رو گذروندم. همینطور که کتاب رو میخوندم حالات خودم یادم میومد، و انقدر توصیفاتش دقیق بود و همه حسها رو خوب بیان کرده بود که فکر میکردم چطور تونسته بعد از درمان شدن باز خودش رو انقدر به اون شرایط نزدیک کنه و ازش بنویسه. کتاب در حد یه خاطره و گزارش نمونده و یه سری جملات و بخش های فوقالعاده داره به لحاظ بیان ادبی.
آنچه به شکلی مرموز و به شیوههایی دور از تجربه ی مع...more
آنچه به شکلی مرموز و به شیوههایی دور از تجربه ی مع...more
I picked read this as I'm always interested in peoples' experiences with depression and how they deal with it/emerge from it, as well as how it was for them. I think sometimes I'm depressed but having read this book I think what I have might simply be the occasional blues.
William Styron makes this distinction clear in his memoir "Darkness Visible" where he says that full on depression (a term he deplores as too weak a description - he prefers the label "brainstorm"...more
William Styron makes this distinction clear in his memoir "Darkness Visible" where he says that full on depression (a term he deplores as too weak a description - he prefers the label "brainstorm"...more
I'm a huge fan of reality-based books, particularly memoirs that detail traumatic experiences, the more harrowing the better. So I was surprised when I had trouble getting into this book. I kept picking it up, reading a few sentences, then putting it down and turning to something else instead, figuring I'd take a stab at it when I finally conjured up the wherewithal to do so. Having run out of alternatives one night, I finally committed myself to the task. At approximately 80 pages, it wasn'...more
«ظلمت آشکار» کتاب کوچکی است، یک کتاب ۷۲ صفحهای ِ قطع پالتویی. این حتمن خبر خوشی است برای وقتهای بیوقتی و حوصلههای بیحوصلهگی!
این کتاب خیلی ساده گزارشی است از سیر یک افسردهگی؛ افسردهگی در شکل بیماریاش. گزارشی است کوتاه و خواندنی که در آن ویلیام استایرن ِ نویسنده تجربهی مواجههی خودش را با این بیماری از روزهای آغازین تا آستانهی خودکشی شرح میدهد. و این سیری است بیش-و-کم آشنا برای همهی ما، چه بهعنوان تجربهی شخصی و چه بهعنوان ِ خواندهها و شنیدهها و دیدههایمان در آثار هنری مخ...more
این کتاب خیلی ساده گزارشی است از سیر یک افسردهگی؛ افسردهگی در شکل بیماریاش. گزارشی است کوتاه و خواندنی که در آن ویلیام استایرن ِ نویسنده تجربهی مواجههی خودش را با این بیماری از روزهای آغازین تا آستانهی خودکشی شرح میدهد. و این سیری است بیش-و-کم آشنا برای همهی ما، چه بهعنوان تجربهی شخصی و چه بهعنوان ِ خواندهها و شنیدهها و دیدههایمان در آثار هنری مخ...more
Given the number of great reviews this book had, I was eager to read, especially regarding a topic I feel is extremely neglected in good literature. Having experienced this 'darkness' without remittance for most of my life, I had high hopes for this book- which he did deliver, and evident in his descriptions of feeling like a 'husk', and the fragile moments following a near-suicide attempt-
"this sound, which like all music- indeed like all pleasure- I had been numbly unresponsive...more
"this sound, which like all music- indeed like all pleasure- I had been numbly unresponsive...more
"Then, after dinner, sitting in the living room, I experienced a curious inner convulsion that I can describe only as despair beyond despair. It cam out of the cold night; I did not think such anguish possible."
"William James, who battled depression for many years, gave up the search for an adequate portrayal, implying its near-impossibility when he wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience: 'It is a positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly ...more
"William James, who battled depression for many years, gave up the search for an adequate portrayal, implying its near-impossibility when he wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience: 'It is a positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly ...more
A haunting essay that I wished were longer (I was shocked at the length, but not at the content, having read Sophie's Choice this semester - surprise surprise that the author of the saddest book in the universe is himself clinically and certifiably sad). Incredibly, Styron's writing feels restrained as opposed to his fiction, but his lines still deliver:
From Section IV: "...I did notice that my surroundings took on a different tone at certain times: the shadows of nightfall seem...more
From Section IV: "...I did notice that my surroundings took on a different tone at certain times: the shadows of nightfall seem...more
One of my literary pet peeves: writers writing about their mental illnesses. I avoid books like this one, largely because I believe the cult of romanticism surrounding artistic despair is misguided to the point of being offensive. It reminds me of being stuck in an undergraduate seminar with that girl who wore black eyeliner and too many bracelets, lugged around conspicuous copies of Plath and Sexton, and wrote bad poems about her sex life. As both a writer and someone who suffers from chroni...more
I was a little disappointed, perhaps because I misunderstood from the beginning that this was really a lecture on Styron's experiences with depression rather than a memoir. He does a good job of bringing together three strands: writing on the philosophy of suicide, a description of the events which lead to his diagnosis, and a primer for contemporary research on depression up until the late 1980s. But it is more essay than story, and it is lacking in the emotional depths of his fiction. It ...more
William Styron's Darkness Visible has been on my TBR list for years, probably since its release. He was one of the first authors to be open about his battles with mental illness, and having written a thesis on the seemingly inextricable tie between authors and suicide for a psychology seminar I needed to cobble together a minor for graduation while in undergrad, Styron's memoir intrigued me.
While he is candid about his struggles with depression, the memoir is written in a very stream-o...more
While he is candid about his struggles with depression, the memoir is written in a very stream-o...more
Re-read it because I may cover it in presentations/discussions of memoirs that I'll be doing for my library. And because I recently read his daughter's memoir, READING MY FATHER, and I wanted to see how this held up. Much sadder on this second reading, because I now know how it all ended for him. It's hard to think that after this short book (really an extended essay), even though he thought that the worst of his depression was behind him, he was never able to produce another novel. He was a...more
Borrowed from R.
A phenomenal, perfect, exquisite description of one man's descent into extreme clinical depression. Styron eloquently puts into words the utter bleakness of what it is to be depressed and expresses a perfect sense of some sort of worth and hope at the end.
Should be read by everyone.
A phenomenal, perfect, exquisite description of one man's descent into extreme clinical depression. Styron eloquently puts into words the utter bleakness of what it is to be depressed and expresses a perfect sense of some sort of worth and hope at the end.
Should be read by everyone.
Despite the subtitle ("A Memoir of Madness"), this short book (<100 pages) doesn't seem like a real memoir to me. As the author explains, the book grew out of a speech and later an article he wrote...and it shows (this is not a criticism per se but to make it clear as to what the reader should expect). In any case, the pluses for me regarding this book are that it's written well and I think Styron does a quite good job of explaining what a depressive episode feels like. However, for...more
There is that scintillating, revelatory moment all voracious readers have come to cherish: When an author's words reverberate so deeply within the core of self-identity, when unexpectedly you see yourself mirrored on the page, like a baby discovering his or her reflection for the first time or a lonesome star first encountering its binary companion, it becomes nearly impossible to avoid an instinctual, convulsive movement in response to the feeling. Internal process of emotion overflows to the e...more
As he wrote: it really is hard to try to understand what it's like to fall into a deep depression. And because I've never, luckily, been in that dark place, I really can't imagine it. So Styron's descriptions sound almost absurd, but no doubt they are real. I have to agree with him, when it comes to art: melancholy truly can lead to masterpieces when it comes to literature or music, for example. It's so terrible that someone must go through such a torture to bring it all to life.
This...more
This...more
At several points in my life, I thought that I was depressed. After reading Darkness Visible by William Styron, I now realize that what I experienced was nothing like a true depression. In fact, Styron doesn't believe that the word depression can adequately express what the condition feels like. Rather, he liked the term "brainstorm", although he admits that specific term means something completely different than the condition that he is describing. In Darkness Visible, Styron tell...more
William Styron is an excellent writer and captures the dark spot excellently. I thought it was interesting that some prize in France triggered his depression, because what triggers mine is not getting prizes in France.
If all you are doing is sitting on the couch worrying about being hospitalized, this is not a good book to read. I went to my doctor. I don't need to be hospitalized. I need to be more accepting, which means dealing with my negative feelings, and thinking of something othe...more
If all you are doing is sitting on the couch worrying about being hospitalized, this is not a good book to read. I went to my doctor. I don't need to be hospitalized. I need to be more accepting, which means dealing with my negative feelings, and thinking of something othe...more
Although I, and most of my family, have suffered from depression for years, I had never read this memoir. I suppose I was afraid to (ditto for NOONDAY DEMON) The good news is that Styron's case had been far worse than mine. The second bit of good news is that the illness struck a man who was honest and poetic enough to put his ordeal into words with clarity and artistry. (Suicide, per Bill, claims 20% of artists who suffer from depression). The first thing Styron says is that nobody, not doc...more
This is my second read of this book and it's been a long time between. I read it in 1985 during the tail end of a long-term crash I survived and it was resonant, although painful - the latter is why I haven't read it again 'til now.
Styron suffered from a gruesome acute episode of depression, but I've always thought that crash was the culmination of years of depression kept more or less at bay by alcohol. I suffer from chronic depression and panic disorder and have my w...more
Styron suffered from a gruesome acute episode of depression, but I've always thought that crash was the culmination of years of depression kept more or less at bay by alcohol. I suffer from chronic depression and panic disorder and have my w...more
the title of this book makes it sound a harrowing, gritty look at madness and depression but it's a literature-look at the subject by a writer of literature.
the formal language he uses divides readers from his humanity and suffering in a way to make it seem like dinner-party conversation about his "dance with depression".
The only thing gleaned, and apt, was his focus on the idea that to someone whose never experienced the depths of depression, there is no lang...more
the formal language he uses divides readers from his humanity and suffering in a way to make it seem like dinner-party conversation about his "dance with depression".
The only thing gleaned, and apt, was his focus on the idea that to someone whose never experienced the depths of depression, there is no lang...more
not bad, but ends up being a little strange to me being written as a memoir of an accomplished writer. As a sufferer of major depression, Styron reveals to us his personal struggles, but also as an educated student of depression, shares many thoughts as an amateur psychologist and psychiatrist, that may still be better left up to the professionals. Also, while he is sharing his intimate thoughts and feelings, I found the writing style odd, less like he was speaking to me and more like he is in...more
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William Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.
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“In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience- one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devistation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.”
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“A phenomenon that a number of people have noted while in deep depression is the sense of being accompanied by a second self — a wraithlike observer who, not sharing the dementia of his double, is able to watch with dispassionate curiosity as his companion struggles against the oncoming disaster, or decides to embrace it. There is a theatrical quality about all this, and during the next several days, as I went about stolidly preparing for extinction, I couldn't shake off a sense of melodrama — a melodrama in which I, the victim-to-be of self-murder, was both the solitary actor and lone member of the audience.”
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