What, then, should we make of the philosophers who write self-help books? Are they bowing to market forces, dumbing down ideas to cash in on a credulous readership? Or returning to a calling they should never have renounced, “a region that from time immemorial was regarded as the true field of philosophy”—in the words of Theodor Adorno, no admirer of dumbing down or cashing in—“but which … has lapsed into intellectual neglect, sententious whimsy and finally oblivion: the teaching of the good life”?
Two hundred thirty meters into one of the deepest underwater caves on Earth, Richard “Harry” Harris knew that not far ahead of him was a 15-meter drop leading to a place no human being had seen before.
Getting there had taken two helicopters, three weeks of test dives, two tons of equipment, and hard work to overcome an unexpected number of technical problems. But in the moment, Harris was hypnotized by what was before him: the vast, black, gaping unknown.
And yet, according to the Wall Street Journal, 9pm is the hot new bedtime – not for middle-aged tired people, but for twentysomethings. The young people of today, it seems, are taking control over their sleep routines and prioritising shuteye over fun. A 2022 analysis found that Americans in their 20s were getting, on average, nine hours and 28 minutes of sleep a night, up from eight hours and 47 minutes in 2010. The WSJ quoted one 19-year old as saying: “For me, nothing good happens after 9pm.”
What is the world coming to when teenagers believe that? Why would anyone – young or old – want to go bed at nine? And what would happen if I tried it, just for a week?
Fourteen Days chronicles how Covid-19 exacerbated a fever of competing rights and fierce arguments over free speech and silencing. And it inadvertently pinpoints the effect that lockdown had on literature: how it has become increasingly solipsistic and autofictional, with lived experience valued over creative storytelling. The power of much of the writing here is undeniable, as is the sense of personal testimony. The fact that it doesn’t cohere as a novel is perhaps the point, giving us a more accurate reflection of the fractured world we came back to. The imagination remained socially distanced, leaving us with a strange sense of collective isolation.
McDowell also offers a rich picture of 19th-century Romanticism and her respect and admiration for her heroine is admirable. Claire’s life was disordered and often unhappy, the kind of life understandably usually judged a failure, and, though the failures were usually on account of her own difficult temper and egocentricity, she at last meets with kindness and admiration in this fine novel.