A Review of Sarah Wilson’s “First, We Make the Beast Beautiful”
A Rambling Raconteur
1. This is a book review of journalist Sarah Wilson’s memoir on anxiety, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful.
2. The book is written in a unique style. It is simply a series of notes, and this review is playfully mimicking the structure of the book (so you’ll know what to encounter when you read it).
3. This is a memoir, but it’s also not really one. It has personal stories and anecdotes, but it also contains stats, medical research, blog post comments, self-improvement tips and much more. There isn’t a real logic behind how these things appear — they are ordered on the author’s whim. You’ll either go with the flow or be frustrated. Your call. This is something I don’t want to necessarily criticize, because it is a novel way of doing things and there’s a method to the madness, if you’ll pardon the idiom.
4. The book might be a bit of a jumble as the author is not only an anxiety sufferer, but has multiple mental and physical health issues. So this is not a knock. The book is a product of the author’s illnesses, and the writing style matches that by veering off into wild tangents that may or may not relate to anxiety, with breathless sentences that run on in a mad dash to corral her worries with footnotes tucked away in these ramblings (usually, they’re something her publisher has said to her) and the overall feeling that this creates is a random selection of entries, which means you can pretty much start reading this book in the middle and it’ll still make some sense. If you tolerated that last sentence, you will love Sarah Wilson’s writing style. If not, you may knit your brow at times.
5. Regardless of whether or not you like the style of the read, it is filled with interesting tidbits. One thing I learned about anxiety is that society basically functions as a result of having worrywarts in it. Many famous world leaders had anxiety. So, too, were a select group of gorillas that Dian Fossey researched. This book notes that Fossey decided to remove those anxiety-stricken gorillas from the group. She came back some months later to discover that the other gorillas had perished. It seems that group survival hinged on having jittery gorillas in the pack to alert the others to impending danger. Now that’s interesting.
6. The book also has intriguing techniques worth trying. I might take a stab at sleeping on the other end of the bed, in reverse from how I normally sleep. (That is, sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed.) While reading this book, I also cut down on my caffeine consumption. Wilson, author of a previous book called I Quit Sugar, makes the case of cutting back on processed foods and anything sugar-related to quell those stomach butterflies.
7. First, We Make the Beast Beautiful also had some interesting points on some of my own anxiety-quelling practices. I do Christian meditation occasionally, which is very similar to the meditation Wilson describes in her work. She notes that when you turn away from your mantra, that’s just little bubbles that are floating up in your brain — which is your cranium’s way of dealing with whatever ails you. I’ve always thought that turning away from the mantra was something of a bad thing, that the mantra is something you always have to return to and have God-like focus on. That still may be the case, but Wilson postulates that the thoughts that come to you when you’re (supposed to be) meditating aren’t necessarily a bad thing. That was kind of news to me.
8. Is First, We Make the Beast Beautiful a book worth reading if you are an anxiety sufferer? The answer is, it depends. As I’ve already noted, there is a vast array of useful information in the volume. That alone makes it worth the price of admission. However, the author’s rambling style may actually be anxiety inducing for some. That’s not a personal criticism of the author or her choices, but, as I was reading the book, I was going through a bit of a crisis in my life and found that I could really feel the author’s anxiety lifting off the printed page. Instead of being a soothing tonic, I found this title to be frantic and brought out the sweats in me.
9. Thus, on one hand, the book is helpful. On the other hand, the book may escalate the anxiety that you feel. Therefore, it really depends on your temperament as to how you may feel about reading this title. You may actually enjoy the author’s candor and ability to write how she feels. For others, it may be a chore. So, again, it really depends on your temperament and how much anxiety reading about anxiety you might want to have. This is not a soothing, “talk yourself off the cliff edge” kind of read. This is more a “written from the heart” style of writing.
10. What about me? As you can tell, I feel a bit on the fence about this book. I see the good, I see the bad, you take them both and then you have First, We Make the Beast Beautiful. I don’t want to criticize the style too much as the writing feels deeply personal, and I don’t want to be in a position where I’m criticizing someone’s personality as opposed to the content. The content itself is good and well researched (with the caveat that Wilson openly acknowledges she is not a medical professional). I guess I’d say find a copy of the book in your library or bookstore, and read a few pages at random. If you don’t find your gut going all squiggly, you’ll be in for a reading delight. If not, maybe something else will work better. Still, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful is a utilitarian read full of tidbits and trivia.
11. Sounds like tidbits and trivia is your cup of tea? Dive right in.
Sarah Wilson’s First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety was published by Dey Street Books on April 24, 2018.
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