A Review of Happiness by Will Ferguson
What Would Happen if the Entire World Achieved Genuine Happiness?
Feb 24, 2009
In Happiness (Cannongate 2003) the world is turned upside down by a self help book.
The Premise
The main character is Edwin de Valu, an editor in a publishing company. He is just another face in the cubicles, trying to claw his way into fortune and fame. Instead, he wages battles with the slush pile, or pile of manuscripts that still needs to be read.
It is here that Edwin finds the solution to all of mankinds problems. Finances, weight loss/gain, smoking, depression and psychosis are all cured by a simple book. A self help book written by a mysterious writer with an acerbic wit to go with his solutions for humanity. When Edwin releases this book for publication, it unleashes a "devestating plague of human happiness."
Edwin turns out to be the savior of humanity as he wages his own personal war against the plague of happiness. He investigates, he demands that people stop being happy from the very roof tops. But they are so far gone into their happiness that they refuse to hear him.
The Underlying Message of Happiness
While the majority of the book is very funny, with sharp wit and a plethora of literary references, there is a dark belly to it. Ferguson cleverly shows what would happen if the entire world stopped trying to be more and simply accepted life as it is.
He shows that cultures cannot survive if they decide to stop progressing, that they will eventually crash to a halt if everyone becomes content with the way things are.
Ferguson makes his point about humanity's desire for perfection in an easy, flowing way. The reader is still very aware at the end, however, that as a species, human's are different because we are not content. Because we want more, we want to be more, we want more out of this short life we have. If we were to cure all of our problems, all of our issues, what more would there be to live for?
The final answer is love. Edwin loves, although strangely, his co-worker May. He does not fall for the self help plague, but May does. It is because of his love for her that he rails against it, even though she fights him every step of the way. She is not attractive in the societal sense, she is intelligent and weak and flawed. And he loves her for it. Ferguson handles this subject with depressing aplomb as well, refusing the happily ever after and going for the hard reality of life, which is what humans must endure in order to be magnificently human.
The Author
Will Ferguson is the author of eleven books, including The Spanish Fly, which was nominated for several awards and made into a movie and the wildly popular Why I Hate Canadians. He currently lives in Calgary with his wife and children.
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