Anthony Lane has been a film critic for the New Yorker for almost 30 years. His film reviews are invariably funny and well written. But for me, the defining characteristic of his reviews is that I can almost never tell if he’s recommending that I see the movie or not. No stars, no thumbs up or down, nothing to definitively point the way, not even the general tenor of the review.
No such problem, though, with his recent review of Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, a new book by Arthur C. Brooks, who teaches a class on happiness at Harvard and writes a happiness column for the Atlantic, and Oprah Winfrey, who needs no introduction. Well, nominally by both of them anyway, as Oprah is apparently responsible for only about 14 pages of a 240-page book. One of Oprah’s contributions: “I was curious about so many things [on the Oprah Winfrey Show], from the intricacies of the digestive system to the meaning of life, to which Lane responds that “[h]ad she been French, of course, those two items would have been the same.”
Oprah says she appreciates Brooks’s “science-y” approach to the subject matter. As, for example, when Brooks cites a study finding, I kid you not, that “among great composers like Beethoven, a 37 percent increase in sadness led to, on average, one extra major composition.” Lane, bless his heart, says “[t]hat sentence makes be 24 percent less sad, and 81 percent more inclined to giggle, than anything I have read this year.” (Seriously, how the fuck could they possibly measure that with so much accuracy?)
Lane also takes issue with Brooks’s imperatives. In addition to the title “Build the Life You Want," there are, among others, “Start by working on your toughness,” “Rebel against your shame,” “Treat your walks, prayer time, and gym sessions as if they were meetings with the president” (“Which President?” Lane asks), and, my favorite, “Remember: You are your own CEO,” which leads Lane to question “Do I have to wear a suit to brush my teeth? Is my dog a shareholder?”
For once, Lane’s thoughts on the subject matter being reviewed are readily apparent. This is one happiness book I’ll skip.
No such problem, though, with his recent review of Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, a new book by Arthur C. Brooks, who teaches a class on happiness at Harvard and writes a happiness column for the Atlantic, and Oprah Winfrey, who needs no introduction. Well, nominally by both of them anyway, as Oprah is apparently responsible for only about 14 pages of a 240-page book. One of Oprah’s contributions: “I was curious about so many things [on the Oprah Winfrey Show], from the intricacies of the digestive system to the meaning of life, to which Lane responds that “[h]ad she been French, of course, those two items would have been the same.”
Oprah says she appreciates Brooks’s “science-y” approach to the subject matter. As, for example, when Brooks cites a study finding, I kid you not, that “among great composers like Beethoven, a 37 percent increase in sadness led to, on average, one extra major composition.” Lane, bless his heart, says “[t]hat sentence makes be 24 percent less sad, and 81 percent more inclined to giggle, than anything I have read this year.” (Seriously, how the fuck could they possibly measure that with so much accuracy?)
Lane also takes issue with Brooks’s imperatives. In addition to the title “Build the Life You Want," there are, among others, “Start by working on your toughness,” “Rebel against your shame,” “Treat your walks, prayer time, and gym sessions as if they were meetings with the president” (“Which President?” Lane asks), and, my favorite, “Remember: You are your own CEO,” which leads Lane to question “Do I have to wear a suit to brush my teeth? Is my dog a shareholder?”
For once, Lane’s thoughts on the subject matter being reviewed are readily apparent. This is one happiness book I’ll skip.
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