The Noonday Demon
Jan. 18th, 2005 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
create_destinyI've been reading the highly acclaimed The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon. I'm going to attempt to write a letter to this author without resorting to the use of profanity.
Oh Andrew, Andrew, Andrew Solomon;
What a spoiled, misguided, little man you are. I wanted to like you. I wanted to learn something about myself from your book. I tried not to judge you when you spoke of disagreements with pony riding instructors as precursors to depression. I tried not to judge you when you told me about the "splendid" time you had after your senior year in college when you went to Italy, France, Morocco, Vienna and Budapest. After all, it's not your fault you were born into money. I even reserved judgment when you told me about how you became so depressed that you had fifteen unprotected, homosexual encounters in an attempt to contract HIV and therefore have a legitimate excuse to kill yourself.
But all things, my dear, dear Andrew, must come to an end. And the end of my tolerance for you came when you told me about going to Africa to receive an alternative, voo-doo type treatment for your depression in which you "spooned" with a bound ram under a pile of blankets while natives danced around and beat you and the ram with a live chicken and then the ram was slaughtered and it's warm blood was rubbed all over your naked body which you described as "peculiarly pleasurable" and then you drank a Coke.
I am utterly horrified and disgusted. How you got the 2001 National Book Award for this whiny, putrid pile of crap is beyond me! You sir, depress the hell out of me! May God save you!
Oh Andrew, Andrew, Andrew Solomon;
What a spoiled, misguided, little man you are. I wanted to like you. I wanted to learn something about myself from your book. I tried not to judge you when you spoke of disagreements with pony riding instructors as precursors to depression. I tried not to judge you when you told me about the "splendid" time you had after your senior year in college when you went to Italy, France, Morocco, Vienna and Budapest. After all, it's not your fault you were born into money. I even reserved judgment when you told me about how you became so depressed that you had fifteen unprotected, homosexual encounters in an attempt to contract HIV and therefore have a legitimate excuse to kill yourself.
But all things, my dear, dear Andrew, must come to an end. And the end of my tolerance for you came when you told me about going to Africa to receive an alternative, voo-doo type treatment for your depression in which you "spooned" with a bound ram under a pile of blankets while natives danced around and beat you and the ram with a live chicken and then the ram was slaughtered and it's warm blood was rubbed all over your naked body which you described as "peculiarly pleasurable" and then you drank a Coke.
I am utterly horrified and disgusted. How you got the 2001 National Book Award for this whiny, putrid pile of crap is beyond me! You sir, depress the hell out of me! May God save you!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
See, I get to use the profanity for you!
Date: 2005-01-19 12:44 am (UTC)(You're right though. Don't know anything about the man, but, geez. What an asshole.)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 02:46 am (UTC)I don't think most of us would be able to relate to that man. He sounds positively insane. Now we see how dangerous it is to allow insane people to have large amounts of money...
(So did you put quotes around "spooned" for a reason?)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-21 02:45 am (UTC)