So when Steve asked me to be writer in residence here at Necessary Fiction, one idea that we had was that I could take happiness (or its opposite) as my theme. The reason for this is that I’ve just published two books that, in one way or another, touch on the topic of happiness. The first of these books is Introducing Happiness which is, more or less, a pop-philosophy book about some of the practical approaches philosophers have taken to the question of happiness. And the second is my children’s book The Snorgh and the Sailor, which is about a determinedly grumpy marsh-dweller who sets out on an adventure, and who doesn’t quite manage to overcome his grumpiness by the end of the journey.

However, having what is by nature a ramblingly undisciplined cast of mind, two weeks in it hasn’t quite worked out like that, and I’ve found myself unable to stick to one thing. However, I thought I’d post at least once on the topic, and share a small section from my Introducing Happiness book. The book itself rattles through various approaches to happiness—from Zhuangzi to the Epicureans, and from Thomas Aquinas to Diogenes—the text interspersed with a number of practical exercises that are designed not so much to lead directly to happiness as to raise intriguing and thought-provoking questions, and to put the philosophers to the test experientially Along the way, I take in the gloom of Schopenhauer, marital advice from Kierkegaard (not good marital advice, I should add), Mencius’s parable of Ox Mountain (one of my favourites) and various other things.

Happiness these days is big business. Everyone, including me, is getting in on the act. But it seems to me that the notion of happiness that is being promoted is often a curiously narrow one. The buzz-words are things like “resilience” and “positive emotion”; and often happiness is connected with a weirdly Protestant work ethic (happy workers make more widgets). So here, to give you a flavour of the book, is a section from the very end, where I’m trying to raise a few questions about this growing consensus.

One reason we might continue to need a philosophical approach to happiness, rather than becoming fixated only on the idea of subjective well­being, is that it may remind us of the radical nature of some of the ideas of happiness that have existed throughout history. And while we can cau­tiously welcome some aspects of the growing political con­cern with happiness, there are reasons to remain at least a little sceptical.
 
Today, happiness programmes are being run every­ where from schools to workplaces to the military. The positive psychology language of character strengths, virtues and ‘resilience’ – the ability to deal with adversity – is found not just within psychology departments and universities, or within the pages of books on happiness, but has become a part of a broader political conception of the good life. Soldiers are trained to develop ‘resilience’ on the field of battle and ‘spiritual fitness’ to help them deal with the trauma of war; employees are asked to respond to increased demands from their managers by using techniques drawn from positive psychology; and happiness is increasingly considered to be an aspect of citizenship.
 
But what if you begin to suspect that the war that you’re fighting, or the things you’re being asked to do in the course of this war, are profoundly unethical? What if the demands of your managers are unreasonable and damag­ing? What if, like Diogenes, you look at the prevailing val­ues that are being promoted as ‘citizenship’ and you see a measure of hypocrisy and double­speak, and you begin to suspect that the coin of conventional morality needs re­minting?

If you want to read more, then in the US you can download the Kindle version now (the hard-copy version will be published by Totem books later this year), whilst in the UK you can get hold of the Icon Books edition which is already published by going here.

Now on to the Snorgh. This book about grumpiness, solitude and friendship came out on the second of this month. It is a picture book, illustrated by the exceedingly talented Thomas Docherty, who depicts the Snorgh of the book’s title as a fantastically grumpy individual.

The book is in many ways a relatively sweet and charming tale of friendship and adventure; but I also like to think that it goes against the grain of the current uncritical celebration of happiness, and the demand all of we solitary, grumpy writerly types reform our ways and become avatars of beaming joy. Let me share a picture of him here, looking suitably unimpressed, in a showdown with the frustratingly perky sailor.

By the end of his journey—in the very final frame—the Snorgh does indeed find a measure of temporary happiness (and, by God!, he needed it); but he doesn’t become a reformed character, and he’s still an endearingly gloomy and cantankerous beast.

Speaking personally, whilst I have Snorghish tendencies, I am always more inclined towards good cheer than I am to misery, and I am as sceptical of literature of unremitting misery as I am of writing that is unreflectively perky. One of the things that writing fiction can do, I think (I am mindful that this is, after all, Necessary Fiction, so I should probably say something about writing fiction) is explore the mixedness of experience, and of life in a world where there is neither complete happiness nor complete misery, where there is always the possibility of both. Certain kinds of literature that pretend to be “telling it as it is”, but that are fixated on misery seem to me to present a vision of human life as dubious as that of some of the more evangelical champions of happiness.

So, speaking of fiction and happiness, my next post—which I hope to have online tomorrow—will be a short story called Smiling List, written by the exceptionally prolific novelist, poet, memoir-writer and all-round good sort, Jonathan Taylor: it’s a tale about orchestras, tyranny and happiness. It is a tale, in fact, about the tyranny of orchestrated happiness…