Darkness Visible

Lewis Wolpert There’s a joke about depression that if you describe it you haven’t had one. But the difficulty in describing depression is exactly why Styron’s Darkness Visible is such a masterpiece. It’s not a novel. It’s about his own depression, and it’s extraordinary – one of the best. (Source)

David Biro Styron rightly talks of the ferocious inwardness of pain and the aching solitude of pain. These feelings occur in all types of chronic pain, whether psychological or physical. (Source)

Johanna Reiss He is just about to kill himself when he listens to Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody. The voice of the alto makes him realize that his mother used to sing that piece to him when he was small. (Source)