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Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness

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If there was a "Society for Frustrated English Majors & Other Liberal Arts Graduates" --folks who feel that college educations and subsequent daily existences rarely mesh in meaningful ways--then Willard Spiegelman could be the group's guru and his book, Seven Pleasures, Essays on Ordinary Happiness, its holy writ.

This book is not a self-help program that will ever be summarized with bullets in the glossy Sunday supplement. Instead, the delicious volume is a demonstration of how the wisdom of the "liberal arts" (especially my favorite, poetry) can permeate simple activities and heighten awareness of their pleasures.

While discussing each of seven activities, he uses examples from literature, music, visual arts, his travels, and his life experiences from childhood forward. This book offers hope to poetry lovers who lament the demise of poetry as a popular genre. Poems are used repeatedly and effectively to inform and illustrate aspects of ordinary, contemporary life, demonstrating a vital didactic role for poetry. In discussing John Stuart Mills' description of his recovery from mental collapse through Wordsworth's poetry, Spiegelman states that Mills "blurs the line between literary criticism, memoir, and psychotherapy." This description applies equally well to Seven Pleasures.

Of the seven activities discussed, Spiegelman's "bookends," "Reading" and "Writing," are essential pleasures. Without some proficiency in these, one will not develop the awareness or poetic sensibility that enhances the pleasure of any chosen ordinary activity. In these two key essays, Spiegelman is not shy about direct advice. For example, he urges more mature readers to reread what gave them pleasure earlier in life--much has been forgotten about the works, and much has been learned through life experiences to make the rereading more meaningful and pleasurable.

Spiegelman is bluntly honest about writing for one's inner satisfaction rather than for public recognition or money. It often seems there are now more writers (and bloggers!) than readers. The pleasure of writing is most often involved with "the achieve of, the mastery of the thing," to quote Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poems were published only posthumously. Also, the struggle to write well helps one better appreciate the good writings of others.

A reader wishing to increase happiness in life (and who doesn't?) may simultaneously love this book and doubt its "mass appeal." Spiegelman does not tackle major life issues like careers, interpersonal relations, ethics, or health crises. Yet if his book inspires one to do "best reading" and to develop a poetic sensibility performing pleasurable activities, one's happiness will blossom and dance for having read Seven Pleasures.

Like a contemporary poet, whose relatively small audience consists mostly of other, rival "contemporary poets," Spiegelman appealing to a diminishing pool of "better readers" may be like "preaching to the choir." If so, his is still a genuinely entertaining and eloquent sermon.

Fun reading, but I'll start with the small negatives. Willard Spiegelman's essays recount a serendipitous life experience and only hint at challenges and crisis (or even tragedy)I'm sure he faced along the way. He reveals only small islands of discomfort and pain scattered in a vast sea of joyful possibilities derived from pursuit and contemplation of simple pleasures. But his mission appears to be: blend light memories with practical advice on realizing happiness, but with effort that threatens no one else. He places the seven pleasures in the context of a cornucopia of references to mostly literary and artistic notables, both the famous and less so famous. Spiegelman's blend reeks of spontaneity (notwithstanding that he seems to know nearly all there is to know about every nook of Western culture), and the alluding method employed never approaches pedantry. More imitative is he of Ovid and Vergil than the modern popularized philosophers of the possible. Some images are especially funny, one for instance: Spiegelman swimming laps in the Harvard pool and realizing he has the 8 foot giant and world-famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith in the lane on his left, and word-famous psychologist Erik Erikson on his right, and in the middle ". . I the world-ignored nobody." This book has much serious and useful advice, but in small palatable doses and with lots of light and self-deprecating revelations about the very talented author, who has learned how to structure prose with no waste and in a relentless striving to enrich and inspire the reader, mind and body.

Spiegelman's essays are intelligent, classical, and highly literary. Read the book and you'll learn a new word or two. But the essays are also funny, poignant, cheerful, and simply pleasurable. Spiegelman argues that watching people engage in a pleasurable activity, such as dancing, can make you feel happy. It turns out that reading a writer in a good mood can have the same effect.

This a delicious collection of occasional essays on secular spirituality--how to make the most of one's life in a world full of beauty and art, even though almost certainly devoid of divine purpose. It contains the reflections of a professor of literature who learned his craft before the profession was commandeered by what he calls "highfalutin" literary theory, when one could read a poem without feeling obliged to explore the ways in which the poem's language abused women and other afflicted constituencies. And its advice is simple and direct: Get yourself a set of gerunds (walking, dancing, swimming...) and cultivate them in tranquility.

Spiegelman and I have never met, but we share much in common. We spent our high school years in Philadelphia in the 50s, hanging out at the Free Library on Logan Square and Leary's Books (although I especially liked the Arcade Paperback Book Gallery), listening to Jean Shepherd and Phillies on the radio, and memorizing "The Windhover."Later we both earned advanced degrees in literature, swam naked in Ivy League gyms, wrote books that almost no one has read, played a bit of chamber music, wrote a poem or two... Unlike most people, we loved school and we remember what we read and learned.

Spiegelman is a gentle soul. His nastiest wisecrack is aimed at Dancing with the Stars. One might say that the book (or the man) is too comfortable, except that is its point: in the absence of urgent problems or threats, the sane way to live is to find activities--some solitary, some requiring a companion--that engage you, comfort you, and please you. Activities that challenge you without much stress (except for the temporary embarrassment of being a novice learner).

In the pilot episode of NBC's "Community," the administrator of the community college describes the various types who enroll at a junior college, including "old people who want to occupy their minds while they circle the drain of eternity." I suspect that kids who listened to Shep in the 50s sensed early on that we start circling that drain from the day we are born. All we can hope to do is distract and please our selves along the way. Don Giovanni, anyone?

I simply loved this book. The prose is elegant, witty, and, most importantly, lively. From seemingly simple activities (swimming, reading, dancing, etc.) the author extracts hilarity, memory, cultural commentary, personal anecdotes, and that thing we call literature. The book is learned without being snooty. It is complicated, nuanced, and rich with quotation. Arm yourself with a giant cup of tea and dig in.

It's the holiday season as I write this, and during this ever-hectic time of the year I sometimes have to make myself stop and breathe and enjoy the season.

Or, I pick up my copy of Willard Spiegelman's latest book, "Seven Pleasures." An hour or two with this tome is as good as a luxurious spa treatment or a weekend getaway. Like the talented professor Spiegelman is (one of my favorites during my student days at Southern Methodist University), he takes you by the hand as he elucidates and ruminates about his seven favorite pastimes: Reading, Walking, Looking, Dancing, Listening, Swimming, and (my favorite) Writing.

His tone is friendly, wise, witty, sometimes downright charming, and often a bit challenging (in a good way, of course), not unlike his college classes. I found myself underlining my favorite passages, sharing them with my significant other, and vowing to bring them up in future conversations with friends. "Seven Pleasures" will make a welcome holiday gift--or any-time gift--for those people in your life who may need a gentle reminder that the best things in life are (quite often) the simple pleasures.

Reading Spiegelman's essays on the elements of pleasure is its own pleasure. His writing befriends the reader as he leads them to discover that true happiness lies in the ordinary rather than the extraordinary moments in life.

Typical Spiegelman--engaging, thoughtful, never a word wasted. He dazzles with his entertaining wit. This book doesn't disappoint.

Seven Pleasures turns the American obsession with the pursuit of happiness inside out. Rather than focus on religion or pharmacology, Spiegelman advocates thoughtful activity and engagement with the world. The book is a collection of essays each titled with a gerund: Reading, Walking, Looking, Dancing, Listening, Swimming and Writing--all, with the exception of dancing, solitary pursuits. The seven essays, in the words of Spiegelman, "explore activities that come from and lead to `ordinary happiness.'" It's not a memoir, but it is deeply personal. Read this and you'll not only fall in love with Spiegelman, but with life again.

I love a book that makes me take notes. That forces me to the dictionary. That makes me take books out of the library. As I am writing this I have Wallace Stevens' poems on my desk. I have written to two dance majors I know regarding what Arlene Croce said about ballet and totally agree with the author about noise level while dining. This is a super volume that teaches and talks to you with only a little effort required on the readers part. Strongly recommend.
Mr G

I loved every bit of this delicious book--which is unclassifiable, unless as the self-help manual we've all, regardless of gender and other identity-markers, been looking for without knowing it. "Seven Pleasures" is a book that teaches you how to think about the life you've already lived in a new way. New Age gurus, move over; Spiegelman has the secret of everyday happiness, and it's an open secret, discovered through a subtle process of re-definition. The seven pleasures arise from activities most of us have engaged in, though not as self-consciously as this. Most are solitary activities; Spiegelman is showing us how to enjoy our own company. This seems true, oddly, even of the chapter on dancing, which is my personal favorite: I'd suggest reading it firs, but you need to begin at the beginning to be ready for that chapter's larger lesson about what is involved in living well--which is, among other things, to find a mean between taking yourself too seriously and not seriously enough. Take this book to the beach--you won't be disappointed.