Book Review
Man's Search for Meaning (by Viktor Frankl)
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- The power of Dr Frankl’s story is the detail. His description of camp life is tragically rich, organized as a series of anecdotes on common themes. There’s the train carrying the rapturous prisoners who have discovered they are not headed to the gas chambers. There’s the capots whom prisoners have to ingratiate to avoid especially brutal labor. There’s the broken humor, the discolored appreciation of art, poetry, and music, the yen of one’s beloved, and of course the apprehension, should one escape, of integrating back into society. The story is itself powerful but the metaphor adds a distinct oomph to it.
- How Dr Frankl’s personal experience informs his academic research is eye-opening. The latter is almost a continuation of the former, a crisp phrase that completes the sentence. His story always grounds me. No matter how terrible I think my life is (it usually isn’t), I’m reminded of my privilege when I read Man’s Search for Meaning. I often discover when I crack open this book that I’m the man searching for meaning.