start with, che cover design is dis quieting: the portrait of an ado lescent girl with an androgynous body, an innocent face and a lost look, hair disheveled, who covers ...- her head with an arm in a gesture of abandon; the photo has been slashed wirh a razor blade in eight - places and sewn back together with ciny scitches. The epigraph, by 'J. was possible, an homage. After a Marguerite Duras, is another sym half an hour, 1 felt as old as my bol of what ir means to be young grandmorher, 1 heard myself say and depressed. "Very early in life ing things that would have felt corn ir was already too lace for me." The fortable coming out of her 80- tide of the introduction says it: year-old mouth: "How depressing!" che book is che story of a young "How awful!" and "How terrible!" woman who haces herself and wants were rhe most frequenr. While the to die. What is so interesring, then, perforrners sang the praises of lirhi about reading 368 pages about um, their bodies moved slowly and the misery suffered by someone clumsily around the stage. Below, with chronic depression? And this rhe audience shouted its inexplic is where rhe circle turns on itself able enrhusiasm. How can they get proving thar there are no coinci excired about it, 1 asked myself, if dences. The fact that Wumel's book che whole show is an anticlimax? was a besr-seller tells us something My rejection was undoubtedly a about a cultural tendency: the pub reaction to che depression chey lic is attracted by whac I would PROZAC NATION projected. If I had had to describe call the culture of depre.ssion. YOUNG ANO DEPRESSED somehow what I was watching, 1 Harvard graduare Elizaberh IN AMERICA would call ir indifference. Wurtzel is a successful journalist. AMEMOIR Coming back to my point of Her life story has sold thousands Elizabeth Wurtzel departure, che non-existent coin of copies; ir has been translaced inro Riverhead Books, New York cidences: A few months ago, Prozac severa! languages. Undoubtedly she 1994, 368 pp. Nation was che copie of conversa is already an icon of what has been tion ar every social gathering I went called Generation X, just like Kurt to. The magazine Vuevena (january, Cobain, who, despice being very rich Ir cannot be a coincidence. The l 996) even published a fragmenr and very famous, shot himself in afternoon that I finished reading in its monographic issue on che the head. Prozac Nation, 1 turned on the tele Generation X. Like any autobiography, when vision set just as a documentary Although it is an easy book you start Prozac Nation, you muse about Nirvana was srarting. Of -that is, neither its language nor make a pact wich rhe book: you course, it centered on che suicide its srruaure is experimental- Prozac know thar che narrator idenrifies of Kurt Cobain. Ir was, insofar as Nation cannor be read rapidly. To completely with a real person; the r \h . (
The fact that rama because she finds no mean apathy and gec a breather in the ing in her achievements. What is reign of prozac, the philosophical Wurtzel � book was a ir ali far? touchsrone of our era. A reflection best-seller tells us As a corollary to this collapsed ofU.S. sociery, chen. Wurtzel says, "After ali, what is depression if ic something about a building of illusions and certain ties, ir seems logical chat at one isn't the most striking, poignant cultural tendency: point in che story she is inviced ro psychic challenge to che American the public is attracted be on Oprah Winfrey's show on a Dream?" Her airn, then, is ro call segment about girls abandoned by sociery's attention to the fact chac by the culture of cheir parents. This was long befare ic has noc delivered rhe promised depression. che book was written and Wurtzel privileges; whar is more, it has not became a famous author, in orher even delivered rhe expectations. words, she was still an ordinary Doesn'e chis sound like the howls aun of memoirs is to relace real young woman. Another produce of of a spoiled child when vexed? evenrs which happened to human che culture of depression. Anorher There is no irony in Wurtzel1s beings like you, che reader. Perhaps sign of che times. Revealing rhe memoirs. The reader narices no dis rhar is che basis far che incredible most intimare suffering befare mil tancing of che narrator from che irnpact of Prozac Nation on che read lions of spectators who, from the narration. 1 read a review chat called ing public when you read, che ghost comfort of their living rooms watch chis che saddesc and funniest account of che real reference point is always how ocher human beings sink into of depression around. 1 found no present, as well as che possibility rhe mud, expose chemselves like humor anywhere in chis book, and of idenuficarion. circus freaks, degrade rhernselves. it seems ro me that William Scycon's Elizabeth Wurtzel's story seems Television viewers have a cacharsis Darkness Visible, 1 far example, is a to me to be a sign of che times. on their sofas and calm cheir fears much more penetrating treatmenr A girl born in che era of divorce, thinking rhat none of that could of the painful nightmare of living her childhood rook place on a ever happen to them. However, as with depression, perhaps because bartlefield where she was che boory in reading an robiography, che of the superior literary quality of Meanwhile, she, ingrown, cuc her fascination stems from rhe fuer that his texc. Prozac Nation seems unend arrns with razor blades and rried it just could. Talk show as ralis ing in its repetirion of episodes and to commic suicide by scuffing her man. But also as the mirror of a passages because they lack the nec self wich ancihiscamines. Wurtzel's soc1ery. essary intensiry, However, ir does parents were young during che eco And Prozac Nation? Is it anoth not transmic ali che darkness of nomic boom chac culminated in er mirror? If one of the costs of which Scyron speaks. lt is the same che counterculcure of che lace 1960s: modernity in Firsr World sociecies ching wich Nirvana. So, even chough che collapse of che American dream. is depression, ir cannot be consid the problem is socially so impor The chapters abouc Elizabeth's ered ocherwise. A mirror, chen? Only tanc and individually so destruc adolescence and youch are full of that? The process is dynamic. The tive, you finish reading Prozac Nation her comings and goings to che psy advent of cultural produces like like any ocher bese seller, wich a chiacrisc: che collapse of che fami Prozac Nation or Nirvana's Lithium ly dream. Despire everyching, she are a response to a real situation: 1 William Sryron, Derkness Visibk. A lives up to expectations: she finish a depressed sociery whose heroes Mnnoir of MadneJS, Vintage, New York, 1990. The Spanish-language version eshigh school, she scudies at Harvard. are the condemned contemporary has been published in rhe Espejo de Drugs, alcohol. A pathetic pano- poets who sing. disenchanted, about Tinta collection by Editorial Grijalbo. RfYIE"I'"
certain feeling of superficialiry which does not force the reader to touch bottom. Is this relared to that pu erility I mentioned before? Yes, bur there is also something more. Sorne thing surprising and frightening. Wurtzel's book is a cry for protec tion, an attempt to get a grip on things. This is perhaps why Wurtzel's book is so successful. And also why Kurr Cobain has become a kind of mythical figure since his suicide. The society which has made thern idols longs to bury itself in the safery of traditional values, in "back to basics," and since ir cannot find irs way there, ir submerges itself in infinite sadness, in chronic depres sion. This is che source of che com plete identification with these heroes of their culture. What is more, 1 rhink this is why che conservarive discourse has been so effectively reborn, because based on che belief that ali times pase were berrer times, solucions come ro mind which muse be che right ones because they are famil iar: in respecr far tradirion lies secu riry, and cherefore, we muse not quesrion ir. I said at the outset coincidences do not exist. The depressed are che heroes of today. When prozac is offered as the only panacea to dis illusionment, ir is roo lace for illu sions. A product of this culture of depression, Prozac Nation, AMemoir, is bur another example.
(. '.1 u/a \fartmrz L',iJc, Researcher at e ISA
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