Review by Choice Review
Happiness, Bruckner argues, is a historical curiosity. In early chapters, readers whip through a summary of the early modern era, where purgatory ameliorated the fear of eternal damnation into a stage where life on Earth was seen as a precursor, not as an opposition, to life after death. As stated, society began to respond to suffering or pain "not with the consolations of the beyond, but with the improvement of this world.. The remainder of this exciting book explores the vicious paradox that the Enlightenment has left: one is obligated to find happiness and punish oneself if one fails to do so. Happiness as liberation has now become happiness as burden. Daily routine, boredom, and pain are part of what it is to be human; to try to eliminate them all is bound to fail. Providing a narrower slice of time as the object of study, with a decidedly more Continental approach, Perpetual Euphoria shares a similar theme with R. A. Belliotti's Happiness Is Overrated (CH, Jun'04, 41-5825): happiness is continually "secondary since it never occurs except in relation to something else.. Another solid contribution to the "down with happiness!" camp, this book is fun to read. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above. S. J. Shaw Antioch University Midwest
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
