From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Subject: Re: Back to Books
Summary: lexical anhedonia 
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 17:39:41 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.195439.10516@novell.com> janines@novell.com 
(Janine Schenone) writes:
>
>I have a problem, which I hope you R.a.b.belaisians can help me solve: 
>I am in a fiction funk. The problem is so severe that I believe 
>they should add a new diagnostic category to depression for people 
>who can't seem to find anything to read. 
>
>Suggestions?

Your plight is covered nicely in an article by Marcelle Clements in 
the May 5, 1992 New York Times.  Here is an excerpt: 


	"Although this is the era in which flaws in the emotional and 
psychological development of every man, woman, child and dog have been 
scrutinized in the most minuscule detail, there seems to be no organized 
interest in one of the most painful afflictions known: lexical anhedonia, 
or the inability to feel pleasure while reading. 

[...]    

	"Clinically, lexical anhedonia is chiefly characterized by the 
inability to suspend disbelief or its inverted retrograde, the inability
to sustain appropriate distance from the text. 

	"What follows is a partial list of dysfunctions and their 
variations.  (Caveat:  In perusing the following, readers may fall 
victim to "medical school syndrome" and recognize every symptom as 
their own.  Remember: if you have been able to read this far, your 
case is not hopelessly advanced.) 

I.  READING INTERRUPTUS 
    [Inability to read at normal tempo for 20 minutes or more]

    Magnification:  Single words or sentences fill the mind.  Certain 
writers are conducive to this symptom.  Proust is probably the most 
notorious.  In extreme cases, the mind attaches itself as if with 
glue to punctuation.  One stares at a semicolon, attempting to 
extrapolate therefrom the sensibility, creative depth and sociocultural 
influences of the author. 
    Instant Aphasia:  Reading the same sentence over and over again, 
and it doesn't make sense.  (Or you forget that you ever read it 
before.) 
    Lexical Masochism:  Inability to read without constantly noting 
how intellectually enfeebled one has become, eventually leading the 
reader to give up all reading except magazines.  Members of the 
baby boom cohort are especially subject to this since their 
intellectual decline dovetails with the increasing complexity and 
conceptual difficulty of the fiction they believe they ought to be 
reading. 
    The Satyr Obstruction:  Inability to read because all you can 
think of is sex.  (Alternatives: food or death.) 
    Primal Bibliodysfunction:  The following are symptoms which 
relate to the first page or, in extreme cases, occur immediately 
upon reading the first sentence: 
      (a) The Pinocchio Complex:  Believing that everything you 
          read is a lie.   (In the case of books on Central America, 
          the sufferer is unable to distinguish his own symptom from 
          objective reality.) 
      (b) Mnemonic Undertow:  Everything you read reminds you of      
          something else you've read. 
      (c) Remembrance of Reading Past: Everything you read reminds you 
          of the circumstances in your home at the time you learned 
          to read and you are overwhelmed by your early traumas. 
      (d) Miscellaneous Bibliodysfunction:  Aversion to the typeface 
          used; an onslaught of shivers every time you touch the 
          paper; thinking the book smells funny. 

[II. BAD TRIPS] 

III. METAPHYSICAL DILEMMAS 

     The Epistemological Gambit:  Research shows that an excessive 
concern with one's insignificance in the cosmos often leads to a 
preoccupation with the subject of his or her own ignorance, which 
then results in an attempt to master one particular field.  The 
reader chooses a category (sometimes, one darkly suspects, at random) 
and, in an attempt to master it, loses interest in acquiring any new 
books except those in his or her field.  

[...] 

     Insufficient Stimulus Barrier:  Also sometimes known as Tidal 
Empathy.  Everything you read moves you almost to tears.  You keep 
closing the book, rubbing your forehead. 
     Grand Conceptual Tidal Empathy:  It's not what you read but 
that you are reading at all that moves you.  You find yourself 
overwhelmed by the idea that some author set his or her deepest, 
most secret thoughts on paper, and there you are, *reading it*! 
Come to think of it, you can't believe that there even are such things 
as books, that humans in the midst of love, war and the acquisition 
of filthy lucre pause to create things of beauty.  The whole idea of 
art fills and overwhelms you.  Your heart is flooded with gladness. 
You are utterly incapable of reading. 

=====
I'm sorry, Janine, but lexical anhedonia does not yet appear to 
have unambiguous clinical treatment available in the United States. 

I do endorse Fido's suggestion, though. 

--Barbara