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Exploring recesses of our greatest minds fine but flawed
27 September 2009 Reviewed by Dermod Moore
Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives, By Brian Dillon, Penguin Ireland, €22.80
I n Tormented Hope, Dubliner Brian Dillon examines the lives of nine people over three centuries, from Marcel Proust and Andy Warhol to Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale, and studies the degree to which hypochondria was a feature of their lives.
A definition of hypochondria would, perhaps, be helpful for the reader at this point, but to merely supply the latest diagnostic definition would be reductive and would miss the point of this intriguing book.
An academic history of psychopathology could, arguably, cover the same ground, but Dillon writes with elegance, empathy and respect for his subjects, qualities that are rarely present in psychiatric research. This is not a catalogue or analysis of a mental illness, with the biographical details of sufferers as footnotes.
Rather, he presents us with various maps ‘‘of what it was possible to believe at the time about body and mind’’. He has a wonderful, compassionate understanding of the mind’s more arcane, convoluted eddies and the blessings and curses that accompany them. Symbolism of a particular kind abounds throughout this scholarly, beautifully written work. It is a tender treatise on the ancient astrological Saturn, the archetype of the reality principle: the symbol of matter, time, boundaries, structure, convention, the body, labour, ageing, loneliness and death itself.
The human spirit - as embodied by the nine lives Dillon has presented here - rails against these constraints, is sensitised to them, drawn to and yet inflamed by them. James Boswell, for example, ‘‘resolved to suffer everything as a martyr to humanity’’ and ‘‘looked upon the whole race with horror’’. Charlotte Brontéwas anguished by ‘‘preternatural horrors which seem to clothe existence and nature, and which made life a continual waking nightmare’’.
Dillon suggests that hypochondria is ‘‘a form of heightened sensibility, a kind of allergy to the physical world’’. He wonders if it is a ‘‘way of controlling time’’. Indeed, control and manipulation feature a great deal in each of these studies. Nightingale, for example, retreated from the world, ‘‘the better to engage and control it’’. Reclusion, for her, ‘‘was a way of insinuating one’s influence far beyond the confines of a room of one’s own’’.
Alice James, the sister of Henry and William, seems to have timed her illnesses precisely to ensure that her beloved Katherine could not spend time apart from her. But Dillon manages to avoid painting these characteristics as monstrous - he gently alludes to their psychological payoffs, and leaves us to speculate.
In particular, he manfully avoids the most tempting pitfall: he does not poke fun at his benighted subjects. This is made easier by his choice of sufferers. Invariably, a study of the psyches of historical figures can only be made of those who left a mark on society, who either wrote about their travails, or were written about. He has, therefore, compiled a portrait of hypochondriacs who have also, to varying degrees, drawn attention to themselves beyond their immediate family circle. This places a particular kind of creative, perhaps narcissistic sensibility under Dillon’s spotlight.
It is obvious that he has an enormous respect for those who manage to produce any lasting body of work and, indeed, is evidently fond of many of his subjects, no matter how grotesque and self-pitying it may seem to be in ‘‘a state of being in love with one’s own illness’’.
Even his most unsympathetic characters are drawn like living butterflies, pinned to a wall. Dillon’s technique is almost akin to an anatomy lesson, in which he deftly exposes the psychic structure of each of his subjects and, especially, how it served them, consciously or unconsciously, to be creative.
Boswell’s writing, for example: ‘‘As long as he was busy, his hypochondria might be kept at bay." On Bronte¨, he suggests that ‘‘only by falling ill . . . she can find for herself the right kind of solitude’’ in order to write. Proust, who was ‘‘told time and time again that he lacked willpower . . . seems to have embraced weakness as the only strength he possessed’’.
While writing this, his second book, Dillon came to the anecdotal conclusion that ‘‘we all know at least one’’ hypochondriac. If that is true, then perhaps the best way to judge whether or not you will enjoy this work is how you react to your hypochondriac acquaintance.
If you just want to give them a good shake and tell them to snap out of it, then this book is not for you. If, however, you are like me, and are fascinated with how the mind works and how it can tie itself up in convoluted, painful knots, this is a delight. Tormented Hope is like a carefully-crafted literary orrery with nine planets, nine lives. As he tells his stories, like oiled clockwork, we marvel at how they move through time and space. We learn not only about the human condition itself, but also how it, and our understanding of it, has evolved - and is still evolving.
Dermod Moore is a psychotherapist and Hot Press columnist
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