Happiness, Anna, Jessa, and Laura

Just a reminder: Registration to read the online edition of the New York Times is required but free, quick, and painless.

From Jim Holt's article, "Against Happiness," in the June 20 issue:

The news that a little evil lurks inside happiness is disquieting. After all, we live in a nation whose founding document holds the pursuit of happiness to be a God-given right. True to that principle, the United States consistently ranks near the top in international surveys of happiness. In a 1994 survey of 41 countries, only the supposedly dour Swedes surpassed us in "positive affect." (Elaborate scales have been invented to measure individual happiness, but researchers admit that difficulties remain; for example, a person is more likely to express satisfaction with his life on a sunny day than on a cloudy one.) Of course, happiness has always had its skeptics. Thinkers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn have criticized it as a shallow and selfish goal. But the discovery that happiness is linked to prejudice suggests a different kind of case against it. Does happiness, whether desirable or not in itself, lead to undesirable consequences? In other words, could it be bad for you, and for society?

The burgeoning new science of happiness hasn't paid a lot of attention to this question. Its practitioners are more concerned with the causes of happiness than with its effects. Defining happiness as "well-feeling" -- being satisfied with life, having episodes of joy -- they have discovered some interesting things: a large part of happiness seems to be genetic; marriage fosters it, but having children doesn't; men become happier with age, women less happy; money does little to boost happiness; religious people are happier, possibly because of the social support they get from church; and so forth.

Read the article.

It reminded me of this famous quote: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Yes, Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. Note that I haven't linked the book club edition. Yes, boring suburban women will soon gather to discuss the masterpiece on a morning talk show. They will clap over the "good parts." Exhale in dismay over the "naughty parts." Wipe tears away when the host reads aloud "with feeling." The spectacle would probably be funny if it weren't so damned creepy.

Jessa Crispin's scathingly witty take:

While trying to find the new issue of Bust, I noticed Anna Karenina was chosen as the new Oprah book and is now in the place of prominence in every bookstore. It's nice to see the New York Times use this as an excuse to profile the translators, even if Oprah did only pick this translation because it has the prettiest cover. Just a guess.

Spot on.

Hunting for that quote over at one of my favorite web-stops, Bookslut, reminded me that Jessa Crispin's site earned a nod in Time. Laura in Apt 11D, another favorite web-stop, linked the article.

From "Meet Joe Blog":

Blogs are inverting the cozy media hierarchies of yore. Some bloggers are getting press credentials for this summer's Republican Convention. Three years ago, a 25-year-old Chicagoan named Jessa Crispin started a blog for serious readers called bookslut.com. "We give books a better chance," she says. "The New York Times Book Review is so boring. We take each book at face value. There's no politics behind it." Crispin's apartment is overflowing with free books from publishers desperate for a mention. As for the Times, it's scrutinizing the blogging phenomenon for its own purposes. In January the Gray Lady started up Times on the Trail, a campaign-news website with some decidedly bloglike features; it takes the bold step of linking to articles by competing newspapers, for example. "The Times cannot ignore this. I don't think any big media can ignore this," says Len Apcar, editor in chief of the New York Times on the Web.

I might have continued spinning this web of related thoughts and links, but my office comprises three walls of windows. It's sunny, breezy, and only 67 degrees here.

Computers off.