It's true, the author's writing style takes some getting used to. He is extremely wordy and this is not the breezier read one might find with Sedaris, for example. That said, I found myself relating to the author's "half empty" outlook on life. I was intrigued by the studies he cites that indicate that people have a general temperament--optimist or pessimist--and there's really nothing we can do to reset our internal compass. Sure, we all have peaks and valleys in life, but there's a reason that some people seem to get over a major blow or life-changing event within a short period, while others wallow in a pit of misery and self-flagellation for endlessly long stretches of time (see also: me). Witty, observant, and light-hearted, but poignant, melancholic, and somber. One of the funniest yet saddest books I've ever read. On a personal note, I love Rakoff's prose. Pure wit and genius in the way he writes. How strongly I would recommend this is directly proportional to how much of a cynical bastard you consider yourself to be. “Should you happen to be possessed of a certain verbal acuity coupled with a relentless, hair-trigger humor and surface cheer spackling over a chronic melancholia and loneliness - a grotesquely caricatured version of your deepest self, which you trot out at the slightest provocation to endearing and glib comic effect, thus rendering you the kind of fellow who is beloved by all yet loved by none, all of it to distract, however fleetingly, from the cold and dead-faced truth that with each passing year you face the unavoidable certainty of a solitary future in which you will perish one day while vainly attempting the Heimlich maneuver on yourself over the back of a kitchen chair - then this confirmation that you have triumphed again and managed to gull yet another mark, except this time it was the one person you’d hoped might be immune to your ever-creakier, puddle-shallow, sideshow-barker variation on adorable, even though you’d been launching this campaign weekly with a single-minded concentration from day one - well, it conjures up feelings that are best described as mixed, to say the least.” - p. 186
What do You think about Half Empty (2010)?
There were only a few essays that I didn't love. Most were wonderful.
—Icca
