One British critic described it as a book one reads slowly to fully consider Dillon's writing and to postpone finishing the book: Each sentence is crafted masterfully and depicts the affect of hypochondria on the lives and creativity of the subjects.
Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives by Brian Dillon
I've been fascinated with medical history for more than 20 years, and this book is engaging beyond belief, especially if the reader is particularl Currently reading: I've been fascinated with medical history for more than 20 years, and this book is engaging beyond belief, especially if the reader is particularly interested in one of the hypochondriacs Charlotte Bronte, Andy Warhol, Florence Nightingale, Glenn Gould, etc.
Nov 10, Ainsley rated it really liked it Shelves: I am surprised that this book has such a relatively low rating. I respectfully suggest that any reader who wonders why some of these individuals were included in this book would do well to read it again and reflect on the changing conceptions of hypochondria. Aug 29, Pris rated it liked it.
Tormented Hope by Brian Dillon
This book is a brief biography of 9 artists, most of them writers, and how they survived and coped with their supposed hypochondria. It is not a book about hypochondria, but more of the lives of the 9 artists chosen by the author to illustrate the degree of their hypochondria as evident in their memoirs, letters, diaries, essays, novels, autobiographies, and others' writings "testimonies" about them. The author's purpose in writing the book was to illustrate the "history of hypochondria", thou This book is a brief biography of 9 artists, most of them writers, and how they survived and coped with their supposed hypochondria.
The author then "attempts to write the biography of a body, where 'biography' is to be understood in its etymological sense: This becomes obvious to anyone reading the chapter on James Boswell: Charles Darwin had migraines with IBS and probable amoebiasis. Charlotte Bronte, the misunderstood hypochondriac, is actually a classic introvert based on the author's descriptions of her life. Florence Nightingale has PTSD which the author also mentions with possible manic-depressive disorder and polymyalgia rheumatica.
Alice James had what we would call now a nervous breakdown that never got cured, with classic racing thoughts as the hallmark of her disease. Daniel Schreber, aware of his "mental illness" probably had schizoaffective disorder due to inner conflict with his homosexuality. Marcel Proust is the asthmatic who became agoraphobic as a result of it because there was no preventive medication for asthma during his time. Glenn Gould, the Monk-like OCD pianist with multiple phobias but who, under today's medical definition of hypochondria, is probably the only true hypochondriac in the whole book.
Andy Warhol, whose illnesses are real and not imagined, the most serious being chorea, and whose only claim to hypochondria is his fear of contracting AIDS, which was the fear of almost everyone in the arts and gay community during the early '80s. So if you're looking to read this book to find out more about hyponchondria, you will be disappointed, because it is a biography of 9 people's illnesses, real or imagined, and not hypochondria per se.
Tormented Hope , which was on the shortlist for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, is a history of hypochondria, as told through the lives of nine noted people who were diagnosed with the disorder in their lifetimes: The author uses written personal accounts of these individuals and biographies about them, along with past and current medical litera Tormented Hope , which was on the shortlist for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, is a history of hypochondria, as told through the lives of nine noted people who were diagnosed with the disorder in their lifetimes: The author uses written personal accounts of these individuals and biographies about them, along with past and current medical literature on hypochondria and the effect of the mind on illness, to elucidate the disease process in the person, and how their illnesses were perceived by themselves and those close to them.
The nine people were chosen by the author because they had written extensively about their illnesses. Although this concept of this book was interesting to me, I did not enjoy it, and stopped reading it about halfway through. I found the discussions tedious and drawn out, and the lives of the people as portrayed by Dillon had little or no interest to me.
I think that this book would be much more interesting to readers who have a strong interest in these individuals, rather than someone looking for a medical history of hypochondria. Nov 19, Jenny Brown rated it did not like it. The author's ignorance of medicine and psychiatry makes his heavy handed attempts to force his subjects into the diagnosis "hypochondriac" annoying and unconvincing and turns into a show case for his eclectic study of the use of the term through history without teaching us anything about the effect of imaginary illness or the people he victimizes.
Many of his "hypochondriacs" like Boswell are going through normal periods of depression. Others are psychotic or like Glen Gould sound autistic.
Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives by Brian Dillon: review - Telegraph
Quite The author's ignorance of medicine and psychiatry makes his heavy handed attempts to force his subjects into the diagnosis "hypochondriac" annoying and unconvincing and turns into a show case for his eclectic study of the use of the term through history without teaching us anything about the effect of imaginary illness or the people he victimizes. Quite a few of them died young of their maladies in a day when diagnosis was crude enough that it is very likely their feelings of having something seriously wrong were true. Charlotte Bronte, for example. There's too much junk psychology including a lot of outmoded simplistic Freudian thinking.
My impression is that the author was not equipped to write the book he sold, probably on a proposal, but wrote it anyway. The subject--a fascinating one--still awaits a study by someone better able to write it. Nov 07, Christina rated it it was ok Shelves: You know how sometimes there is a book that does a great job of telling a story, in an easy to follow manner? This is not that book. Even though the content was really interesting, his way of telling it was so uncomfortable that I found myself dreading to pick it up to read it.
I persevered for two chapters but still couldn't find any pleasure in reading it.
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This is a very insightful account of 9 hypochondriac lives - Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale and Andy Warhol featuring among them. I found Andy Warhol's story particularly sad as was the afterword on Michael Jackson, although the author manages to write about these people in an incredibly respectful way.
May 02, Theresa rated it liked it. Not too bad, interesting profiles. Unfortunately the people were really sick characters, if not always physically sick. Apr 20, Justin Smith rated it liked it. I thought every story would read like a textbook; I was pleased to discover the author managed to make it more story-like. After finishing I'm left wondering whether I really wanted to know more about those lives. As a kind-of-self-proclaimed hypochondriac I was drawn to this book for some consolation. Reading about people struggeling with amongst other things fear for their health, wouldn't that be nice?
And with 'deserved' I'm referring to leading quite secluded lives which they seemed to create for themselves or maybe were forced into because of their fears and circumstances , and for me I sometimes wish for just that. 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, although clearly Daniel Paul Schreber — who experienced "divine miracles" and was convinced that he was turning into a woman — was insane.
As Dillon observes, there is something rather impressive about Schreber's delusions and "the prodigious unreality of the mental world he inhabited", although in his classic case study, Sigmund Freud saw only a paranoiac who could not admit his homosexuality.
In Tormented Hope Dillon looks beyond the comic stereotype of the hypochondriac to the tragicomic reality. Dillon is a self-confessed hypochondriac and his conclusion that "the power of imagination. A major theme here is seclusion or, more accurately, reclusion.
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Darwin was a semi-invalid for much of his adult life, although the nature of his malady remains a mystery. Add to this the fallibility of doctors, from when they knew they had little to offer the sick except platitudes, when medical knowledge progressed one funeral at a time. Today the medical profession seems hardly any better trusted, despite the extraordinary advances, occasionally because of them. The Mosuo, a culturally isolated community in south-western China, are as close as we can get to a matriarchal society.
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We are supported by our members. This book is very heaven for those of us captivated by the peculiar workings of our bodies, who secretly read the medical dictionary when we were kids. I was fascinated by ours, terrified and enlightened by it. A paperback crackling with fragility, rescued from a fire on Liverpool Street Station, its cover barely discernible, the page-edges blood-brown. It looked sick, smelled bad, and personified and confirmed my worst fears about human vulnerability.