William Styron: Darkness Visible
Topic and/or Event
The book that I read was Darkness
Visible by: William Styron. This book is a really good read. It talks about his
depression and others around him that also suffer from depression. Also this
book has quit a wide vocabulary. You may need a dictionary if you want to
understand half of the words in it. The book is very descriptive in its way of
describing how William Styron suffered through his depression. And how all his
close friends had their own forms of depression whether it be losing a loved
one or being unhappy and just trying to do what’s best for your child. It is
pretty accurate on how depression feels and it gives you a sense of what he is
feeling. This is a very descriptive book and I am very happy with how the
author portrayed everything. It also mentions a lot about suicide and that it
is a way out but you shouldn’t go straight to that answer. Life is your choice
though.
Just
for clarity. This book is a description on how the author suffered through
depression and how he saw people around him suffering through different types
of depression.
I feel
that William Styron wrote this book because he felt that everyone is probably
going through the same things I am. But he wrote not only about himself but the
people around him.
So how I
came across this book was in the library (ps. Its overdue). I just kind of came
across it and when I started reading it I was kind of feeling depressed so when
I started reading it I kind of felt a connection and that’s when I felt that it
was a pretty good book for this project.
To me,
this book is very realistic. Depression is very big in today’s society and it
is actually becoming a problem. He talks about life in the 1960’s and so on. Times
really haven’t changed in the way that depression is still big and might be
even more of a concern. Depression wasn’t that big of a thing back then either.
They used the word melancholia. It actually was said that word was created as
far back as the 1300’s. That is quite some time. I have had family members who
have also gone through depression. Not quite in the ways that the people in the
book did but they have been through the same type of feelings as the people in
the book.
People
So I feel
that he chose the people in the book because of the backstory’s they had. Each one
had different back stories but still suffered from depression. Some of them
were rich and they still suffered from depression. So it goes to show that you
can still suffer through depression even if you are rich. Depression can get
anyone that it wants. I feel that the author just wanted to let people know
that everyone goes through depression. It is just about how you handle it. Whether
it be a good way of handling it or a bad way.
One character
was Simone del Duca, a large dark-haired woman of queenly manor. She kind of
acts a little high class. It doesn’t really go into character emotions or
anything so I can’t get a really good read on her. (Maybe it’s just because it
is a bit of a hard read) I would have written them as a direct character. Give a
little bit of background and maybe show her giving off some emotions that would
give you a real understanding of the type of person she is. Another character that
pops up a few times through the story is Romain Gary. Romain Gary was described as a man in his
mid-sixties. And his voice that of an old man. Also very wheezy and possibly had
the voice of depression. He acts very shaky. On the fact that his wife had died
and that is why he is suffering through the stages of depression. For this
character I would probably just leave it as a direct characterization. It captures
the description of him pretty accurately.
Simone
del Deca is pretty interesting on the fact that she is rich and actually
awarded William with an award of 25,000 dollars. I am kind of positive that she
was hitting on William Styron. So that’s why I put her in as one of the
characters. Romain Gary was picked because he is mentioned quite a bit and I thought
his depression was very sad. He lost his wife. That is a pretty big depression
starter. So that’s why I put him as one of the characters. He is very relatable.
Style
The type
of style William used was, I want to say a journalism type of style. It kind of
carried on and some of the time I didn’t know what was going on. I had to
reread a few times. But it was a good read. I enjoyed the way he descripted the
story. It was very realistic. I enjoyed it.
William
Styron did describe a few places. He described Paris, Connecticut, a farmhouse
that he owned, a friends vineyard that he visited often, etc… but he didn’t go
into very much detail. More of just telling you the location. Not very much
landscape description or occurrences that were going on around him. His main focus for the book was the characters
and their depression.
William
Styron mostly used a philosophical point of view. He made you feel like
everything doesn’t make sense. Kind of like you get confused in his words and
you have to focus even harder to try to get an understanding of what it meant. His
tone was really eerie. Pretty creepy and kind of psychotic but this was meant
to give you the feel of depression as the disease that it is.
William
Styron had a very eerie attitude towards the audience of his book. In the sense
that he just wrote it how it is. How he feels and how his friends feel. Quite honestly
I think it was pretty brilliant in how he wrote every thing.
Enduring memory
Some of
the things I will remember is how he describes being depressed and not feeling
he is worth anything or deserving of anything. “I believe in the reality of the
accidents we subconsciously perpetrate on ourselves, and so how easy it was for
this loss to be not loss but a form of repudiation, offshoot of the
self-loathing (depression’s premier badge) by which I was persuaded that I could
not be worthy of the prize that I was in fact not worthy of any of the recognition
that had come my way in the past few years”. It is pretty descriptive in how
you could feel so unworthy of an accomplishment.
The other
passage that I found very true was about suicide and philosophical problems. “there
is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging
whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental
question of philosophy”. This is a passage from the book The Myth of Sisyphus. That
is a pretty powerful passage. And I am thinking of reading that book next. Thanks
for reading.
