Mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl From B&N:
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
Not a terribly cheerful sounding synopsis. But it does sound incredibly interesting. Happy reading.
I think I love you all. This is another one I've wanted to read for years.
ReplyDeleteReally looking forward to reading this!
ReplyDeleteOh, I have some catching up to do! I still haven't finished Middlesex. The end of the school year is killing me. I will be doing double time once school lets out. Will anyone still talk about Middlesex with me in a few weeks? lol
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to read this one. I haven't heard of it before, but I'm very interested. It might be another good one for some of my advanced students.
Ok- I starting reading this book a few days ago, and so far I really like it. It is a lot easier to read than I expected it to be. However, I do have a couple of issues. 1)I feel like the author thinks he is super sweet..a la "I saved these peoples lives" "I single-handedly taught this man how to laugh" "I invented sunshine" and 2)His writing style seems a little 4th grade. Specifically the way he introduces these incidents, i.e. "I will now tell you about a time when...blah blah blah" and "I recall an episode when I ate some bread. I will now elaborate on this..."
ReplyDeleteOverall however, I do really enjoy this book. I like how the content is broken up into digestible segments, and I am fascinated by these incidents and the examination of them from this guy's psychological standpoint.
On a semi-related note, every night that I have read this book before bed, I have had vivid and violent scary dreams. Very strange.
So... after a few weeks of effort, I finally finished the first half of this book. While, I hesitantly (b/c I haven't read the logotherapy section) agree with his principle... this book is really, really boring. It's like reading a textbook... all work, for no/little reward. I don't feel like I've learned anything so far, or gained any extra insight.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep working toward completion, but unwillingly.
Im almost done w/ Middlesex. Only a few pages left which I will finish tonight and I leave for vacation tomorrow... so I will be ready for anthor book but Im not sure I wanna get into this new one since considering Brandons post, plus I am so far behind. Hummm...
ReplyDeleteYeah... I started reading the second part... and promptly gave up. Very boring book. Did not enjoy this one at all. My horizons might be more limited for it.. but I have no regrets.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little embarrassed to admit that I'm still not finished with Middlesex. I have just stalled out on it and can't pick it back up. I will though and I'll be ready for book four. Book three may have to go on a back burner for me. Sorry!!! : (
ReplyDeleteGretta - why did you choose this book? Brandon has given it a beating. haha I just wanted to hear your thoughts on it.
wow. brandon beat this one into submission. i actually agree with the comments, and especially Natalie's comments about the writing style. i guess i just feel like sometimes its good to read a book that makes me feel one with others. not that i have had similar situations, but maybe similar feelings? i like philosophy, and i thought this book might provide some simplistic philosophies on life and how to live in a meaningful way, while providing a historically interesting backdrop.
ReplyDeletesorry to disappoint, good effort everyone (minus joanna and drama mama of course :) and maybe i will pick something more whimsical on my next turn.
He makes many generalizations about people, which I think sell us a bit short. He often discounts our ability to choose, to perceive and understand without having the wise direction of someone like himself. Throughout the book, I picked up on an undercurrent of self congratulation about his ability to help others see their “meaning”. It was telling, when he talked of imagining a happy scenario as an escape from the camp’s realities, he chose a lecture hall full of attentive students.
ReplyDeleteAs he begins to form the basic concepts of logotherapy, I missed his point badly on my first read. I took his message to be essentially; stay busy, get a hobby, find someone to love and you’ll be happy. I got hung up on his examples of the unemployed and other groups who had little structure in their lives and made the mistake that he was saying that structure and goals were equivalent to meaning! This time, after getting my hackles up (again) about this, I found myself seeing that he was describing symptoms and individualities and that his message was broader. I wanted to cheer at the line “no man and no destiny can be compared to each other”! He even goes on to say there are “no right answers”, that our actions, based on our own values determine the “right“ answer for each of us. After I understood this was his message, and that his own story was as much about how he came to his own conclusions as it was about direction to his readers, I had a much greater value for the book. I also understood better the place in modern existential writing this book is said to have. I still find some of the dogmatism in his thoughts and perceptions of us a species and individuals confusing, but I ended up getting some very positive and concrete thoughts about how this can be applied to my own life.
Entertainment value = 5, Interesting value = 8. I’m glad this was a choice. Anything that makes you think like this and be able to state clearly your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing is a win in my opinion.
Gregg
I’ll begin by stating that I enjoy reading these types of books; in fact, this book was on my Christmas list just this past year. I read it in January and again over the past 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteReading it the 2nd time, I began with a predisposition to disagree with Frankl, but ended up understanding his message much better on the 2nd pass.
First, it is easy to get hung up on his writing style. I kept telling myself that he is a psychiatrist who is writing, not a writer discussing psychiatry, so not to focus too much on the way he communicates. That being said, I felt that some of the significance of his message was diluted by the constant child like stories he uses for examples. His discussion of logotherapy in the 2nd part of the book is more straightforward. He still uses examples, but they seem more of case history recounts vs. trying to teach by use of parable. That aside, he does in his rambling narrative make the point that the suffering was as much or more psychological than physiological.
To offer any opinion about (the context) of a book of this nature is difficult. None of us can relate to his experiences, so even when we disagree there was in my case some amount of hesitancy. I consider an ingrown toenail a pretty lousy day, so when Frankl speaks of “suffering”, I can understand him clearly, but I simply can’t relate. We only have the filter of our own experiences, so what follows is not criticism in so much as I am saying he is “wrong”, but these are topics I’d like to discuss further if Frankl and I had the opportunity to have a drink together.
The uniqueness and sheer severity of his experiences cause me to question the validity of his insights. How many of the concepts that a barely surviving concentration camp prisoner would cling to are applicable to the soft, easy world we live in? He makes the point himself that it was only normal that abnormal behavior was a direct effect of such abnormal conditions. Of course a memory of his loved one gave him an anchor in his situation, but does that translate into love being the highest or ultimate experience for all people? The greatest goal we can achieve? I don’t want to be the guy who downplays the greatness of love, but that seems rather dogmatic for someone who is allegedly selling existentialism. Any small light in this amount of darkness would have seemed to be a great beacon of salvation. That seems so self evident, I’m afraid that I’m missing something.
The concept of apathy, its consequences and the fight against it was prevalent in the narrative portion of the book. He often seems to rationalize his apathy; he makes the point that life was so horrible that “no one could care”, he asks he reader not to judge at several points in the book, asks “would you not do the same” after describing favoritism/substitutions, but then describes apathy as a mechanism of self defense. All of these different directions, condemning and justifying what appears to the same basic concept and its effects was confusing to me. I kept looking for something to tie it together over the course of the book, but I could not find it……………..I eventually just stopping caring.
2nd half of comment to follow
Gregg