Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown

Perhaps this is more suggestive of my lack of research into a book before I have added it to my basket and frantically searching for my card details, but I was unaware that Derren Brown of Happy, was the Derren Brown of magician-TV-fame. However, you quickly realise that his psychological experiments and magic hiding behind clever psychology, it becomes natural that Brown would wish to interlink the fields of psychology and philosophy and delve into the depths of what happiness is, and how and whether we might find it. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that his “celebrity status” did not subtract from the reading of the book. It became clear that Happy, is a fantastic book that happened to be written by a celebrity, rather than a celebrity who has sat down to write a book. Brown writes eloquently with a clear style, and has written an interesting book with an interesting style and concept. This has to be applauded aside from Derren Brown of TV fame.

Brown runs through the philosophical models of happiness, through Stoicism, Epicureans, Romantics, Utilitarianism and others, interspersed with thought-provoking anecdotes and examples of psychological experiments. Essentially Brown turns a lot of self-help models on the head – this is not surprising given his previous forays into such areas – for all intents and purposes, he suggests abandonment of “positive thinking” and goal setting, which considering the current climate of mindfulness and SMART goal setting, did revert my pre-conceptions of this book.

Forgive me for being crass in the summary of Stoicism and Brown’s preferred model, but my take-home (in less than the 500+ pages it was eloquently provided) was that if we cannot control something, then what we must do is to control the effect that factor has on us, and to control the way it controls us, as it were. After discussion of happiness and applying philosophy to our lives, Brown moves on to consider fame and its trappings, and then the sombre subject of death.

To my taste, the book could definitely have been shorter. The edition I have stands at 558 pages including the index, and for me, could have been even better had it been condensed 40-50% shorter. I found the ‘fame’ section easy reading, however I felt that it didn’t necessarily belong in the book, despite the direct correlation to his life. Similarly, there are obvious reasons that death is relevant to happiness (and I have underlined several sections to consider later) however I felt that it distracted from the overall message and could have been omitted. Furthermore, I found a lot of repetition regarding Stoicism, and frequent referencing to CBT and Alain de Botton. In my opinion there was a little too much introduction to the philosophy, including the history and development. I thought the relating to examples was fantastic and perspective providing, but the book just would have benefitted from being 40-50% shorter – putting forward the same message and concept, but benefitting from being a little more succinct.

Undoubtedly, Brown conducts a thorough exploration of philosophy and happiness – from Kant to Descartes, Aristotle, Socrates and John Locke, I am not sure I know of a philosopher that was not referenced at some stage.  Admittedly, I felt as though I may have had a head start to enjoy the book due to previous study of philosophy up to a University level, however, if you have no foundations of philosophy but you are keenly interested, then this book is still for you. Conversely, it may be heavier going and as a result less enjoyable, and also confusing as I believe summarisations of philosophy rarely lay tribute to the sentiments behind them.

Above all, I have underlined a large chunk of this book to consider later, and turned down pages to remind myself to return, a clear message that I have enjoyed this book. Brown had a commanding and authoritative literary voice and there was a thorough exploration of philosophy brought down to an everyday level, as a suggestion of how to navigate life and happiness. I am torn between lending this to various friends I thought of whilst reading, or hoarding it for myself. However – it was not without its faults. It definitely could have benefitted from being shorter, and at times I saw it to be repetitive. Similarly, I found it a little bit difficult that since Brown was authoritative, it was clear which philosophies or models that he agreed or aligned with, and the ones that he did not. I found the religion aspect a little dismissive (but respectful) as you were entirely aware of his views and could see the framework from which you were viewing the information. I also felt that if you are considering Christianity then perhaps it would be appropriate to also consider other religions. Overall it was a well-written, and intelligent book that is able to offer everyone some advice and perspective on happiness and life.