Thursday, January 24, 2019

Shakespeare and Depression

I cannot say for certain if William Shakespeare ever suffered
from depression, but I am certain he understood it and he
instilled some of his characters with the disease.


In the opening scene from The Merchant of Venice, the merchant
Antonio confides to some friends:
In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.


Most of us who suffer from depression do not always know
why we do or where it comes. What we do know is that it
wearies us; we feel tired from it and it can also be tiresome
to the ones closest to us.

That I have much ado to know
myself is true to those who know that the way we act and
feel sometimes is not our true selves.


Antonio’s friends try to diagnose his problem, but the merchant
denies he is sad because of business or love.


Salarino simply sums up Antonio’s problem:
Then let us say you are sad,
Because you are not merry


In Scene II Portia reflects Antonio’s mood.
By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of
this great world.


Nerissa tells Portia she has no right to be sad since her
good fortune outweighs any misery. I am sure this is the
advice some people give their friends suffering from
depression. But for those suffering from depression it is
not simply a matter of counting our blessings when all
we can do is focus on our problems.


In Hamlet, the melancholy Dane confides in his two school friends:
I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises;


Depression is of course the opposite of mirth or happiness,
and when we are depressed we are prone not to take care
of ourselves because we simply do not care about our wellbeing.


Hamlet sees things in a negative light.
... this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.


This negative attitude naturally leads Hamlet to
contemplate suicide.
To be, or not to be…


In Macbeth the new king’s depression is brought on
by his sinful acts. Macbeth echoes the sentiments
the depressed often feel:
...I am sick at heart...
...I have lived long enough…


At one point Macbeth asks a doctor if he cannot
cure this disease.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
The doctor replies:
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.


This is only partially correct. The oness for our depression is
mainly on us. The Catch 22 is that the depressed person may
not have the wherewithal to minister themselves.
When Macbeth says:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-- it signifies that the depressed mind sees life as meaningless
or as a cruel joke.


In Act 3, scene 4, Macbeth reflects on the uselessness
of trying to recover from his state:
… I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:


Many often feel that is just as easy (or difficult) to stay in our
depression than to try to get out of it, and so some do not try.

World Mental Health Day is October 10. Here is a link for
World Health Organization.


In Canada Mental Health Awareness Week is October 6-12


In Canada, Mental Health Week is May 6-12. Here is the link
to the Canadian Mental Health Assoication.
https://mentalhealthweek.ca/


In the United States, Mental Health Month has been held in
May since 1949. This is the link for Mental Health America
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Raymond Chandler & A Piece of Work

While writing my latest novel, A Piece of Work, one of the writers from who I sought inspiration was Raymond Chandler. For me Chandler is one of the great  detective/fiction authors of the hard boiled and noir style. Chandler is famous for his detective Philip Marlowe who appeared in seven novels.

I love Marlowe's commentaries on people and things, especially the ones that were tinged with derision.

“She’s a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tire, rim and all.” 

“There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.” 

“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” 

These somewhat cynical comments suited my drug-addicted protagonist Lee Linville. Chandler inspired me to write lines like:

"The dark-haired woman who sat behind the dirty glass was young, but looked all washed out. Her makeup, that should have enhanced her looks, only made her look grotesque. Her face was pale and looked like a slice of stale bread."

"On his head sat a grey Porkpie hat with a pale blue band. From the corner of his mouth hung a smouldering Robert Burns cigar. He looked like a respectable bum.

"She looked at Lee with tired eyes that said her life had not turned out the way she'd hoped. Hell, who's life ever does?"

In The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler wrote of his detective:  "But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this type of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. . . .  He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."

Where as Chandler's Marlowe is the archetype detective; tough, brave and honest. Marlowe is brutally honest about American society in the 1940s and 50s. 

“Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itself damn lucky. Without Hollywood it would be a mail order city"

“Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.” 


My anti-hero Lee Linville is not tough or brave or even that honest. Lee is deep into drugs and depression due to his past. In 1959 Lee is living in New York City and is contemptuous of modern society. 

"Linville watched Fullerton walk away and out of the diner. The lawyer joined the teaming masses on the street and blended into them, becoming one with them. One big mass like some giant organism that pulsated and moved along, picking some up and dropping some off, like any living thing that took in food and shitted it out. The thought of it made Lee sick."

"Traffic on the street was heavier now. Street lights told people when to stop and when to move. Pedestrians choked the street and traffic choked the pedestrians. Soon it would be unbearable: the crowds, the noise, the deadpan expressions, the soulless eyes that took in nothing and gave nothing back. Lee knew that look. It was the look of a junkie."



 Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon









Friday, January 11, 2019

A Piece of Work on Kindle!

A Piece of Work by [Gaspar, Stephen]My latest detective novel, A Piece of Work, is a 1950s noir-style story that has just been released on Kindle. 

By 1959 Lee Linville is a junkie living on the streets of New York. He has turned away from the life as an investigator for his lawyer friend, William Fullerton, and has embraced the counterculture way of life. Fullerton comes to Lee with a job only he could do. Fullerton wants Lee to find a sixteen-year-old runaway from an affluent family who has also turned to drugs and is lost in the concrete jungle of New York.

Lee must fight against his addiction and his personal demons as his search takes him to the subways of Manhattan, the blues clubs of Harlem, the beatnik scene in Greenwich Village, and the rundown tenements of the Lower East Side. Along the way Lee encounters cops, drug dealers, pimps and a colorful assortment of fellow addicts. 
If this is a simple runaway case, why is someone trying to kill Lee before he can find the missing girl? 
As well as being a fast-paced detective story, A Piece of Work is a thought-provoking, sometimes moody look at life in 1950s America where the marginalized struggle with life on a daily basis.

Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon!