The other day I was giving someone gyaan about how hard it is to define happiness. Right after I was done talking to them, I realized how saying that out loud to someone is a pointless exercise. Not so because I’m some enhanced being who’s extremely satiated with life, but to understand that this belongs to the self-realization bracket. Perhaps me writing about it is a pointless exercise too, but who really knows?
Francois Lelord’s protagonist Hector and his search for happiness involves him travelling across the globe in this quest. As a psychiatrist, he spends his days acting as a soundboard for his numerous patients. And as you might wonder, do therapists and psychiatrists partake of their own profession? After all, it must be emotionally and physically draining. In light of similar feelings and a patient’s recommendation, Hector decides to head abroad, without his girlfriend Clare, who is occupied with work. Hector’s travels range across China, Africa and the US with him actively viewing actions undertaken by people and noting down observations related to their happiness (or the lack of it). He meets and interacts with a wide array of people: A pompous banker with teeming greed, an embarrassed sex worker who’s seen it all, a terminally ill woman looking out for her kin’s well-being. He’s also a victim of kidnapping and also gets the opportunity to understand happiness from a scientific POV courtesy of an expert, who in turn validates Hector’s observations to a great deal. Everyone involved seems to be on their own quests for happiness.
The read: To paraphrase a line from a movie I love: There’s boring stuff, there are pointless reads, there’s 50 feet of crap and then there’s Hector and the Search for Happiness. I’m sorry, Mr. Lelord, but the entire story feels like Hector and the quest for women he can sleep with. This underlying search for happiness feels so hollow considering the basis for his observations is very direct interpretations of events around him. The protagonist’s thoughts feel extremely bland and it’s hard to see what’s motivating him. I understand behavioral understanding is paramount to the process but I’m severely doubting Hector’s psychiatry pedigree. Written way in way too simple a fashion, it’s hard to understand what is driving any of the chacters beyond their superficial attributes. This makes it even harder to understand why this book is a bestseller. I rarely give up on a book and soldiered through bravely. As expected, nothing really surprised me. My search for happiness with ‘feel-good’ books clearly continues.
Trivia: Here’s an interesting article chronicling the numerous efforts at engineering happiness via scientific methods.
Documentation:
Book: Hector and the Search for Happiness
Author: by François Lelord, Lorenza García (Translator)
Year of Release: 2002
Publisher: Penguin Books