Melancholic Joy

"Drawing on varied examples from poetry, literature and film, including Virginia Woolf, Jack Gilbert and the films of Terrence Malick, Melancholic Joy offers an honest assessment of the human condition. It unflinchingly acknowledges the everyday frustrations and extraordinary horrors that generate despair and argues that the appropriate response to this darkness is to take up joy again, not in an attempt to ignore or dismiss evil, but rather as part of a "melancholic joy" that accepts the mystery of a world that is both beautiful and brutal"--