BOOK REVIEW: The Book of Human Emotions

For people who are...

Feeling: everything, and want to understand it better

Going: to work, a great book to dip in and out of when on the train

Interested in: etymology, biology, neurology, literary quotes

"To the painter John Constable, the sky was full of emotion"

Clouds, like emotions, are difficult things to capture in artwork or in language, to label a type of cloud is to have it change before we've finished saying it's latin name. And Watt Smith says the same about emotions, not only can they be quickly changed but also we often feel more than one at a time, one merges into the other.

Oddly I'm reminded of the rather sinister character in the film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban talking about the prisoner Sirius Black. Naming an emotion and pinning down what it is and what it means is "like trying to catch smoke, it's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands"

Nevertheless Tiffany Watt Smith does an excellent job in researching the biological, neurological and etymological histories and origins of why we categorise and name emotions the way we do. The book is in no way limited to English either with emotions from languages all over the world including, German, French, Polish, Indian, Inuit, Japanese plus more.

Emotions of note:

a few things in particular which I found interesting...

Torchshlusspanik (German)

- Translates as 'gate closing panic', the feeling we get when we know time is running out

Nginyiwarrarringu (Pintupi, Western Australia)

- A sudden spasm of alarm

Iktsuarpok (Inuit)

- The fidgety feeling when we are waiting for guests to arrive (Watt Smith suggests this could also be the feeling we get nowadays with checking our phones for an email or text)

Cheerfulness

I know that I have felt this and I am glad that it has finally been given a name. Within her discussion of 'Cheerfulness' Watt Smith talks about the 'emotional labour' of jobs, where you have to pretend to be happy all the time as an expected part of your employment. Most common examples are jobs in retail or hospitality, which is also where you will most often deal with unpleasant customers. With the trend for happiness as something to measure the success of countries however, more and more industries expect employees to actually show that they are cheerful at work. 

Which is not realistic. 

Short term, trying to be happy can make you feel happy, but long term it's not so good for mental health. It's thought to actually contribute to feelings of anxiety and depression. 

Besides, I have what is called a "resting bitch face" so it does take actual labour for me to look happy sometimes! 

Gratitude and Anticipation 

You may think economics and accounting have little to do with the subtleties of emotion but in fact that is where we get these two words from, the language of money. 

Anticipation: money given in advance of wages

Gratitude: similar to indebtedness but freely given, related to the practice of giving tips

Thoughts...

I loved this book, on a personal note one symptom of depression is not to feel anything at all, to feel numb, something I have felt on and off for the last few years. Oddly this book was helpful for exercising my emotional muscles and reminding how many different ways of feeling there are.

I would recommend this book also to any writers, or readers for that matter. It's a great way to expand an emotional vocabulary and to be more specific when describing how a character feels or how the situation you have constructed for them might make them feel.

And finally, I know my housemates from uni will find this advice comforting; it was always our response to any stress in our lives, 

"Sometimes the only response to any kind of overwhelming emotion is to fall down and stay there".