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danoreading's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars. I enjoyed a few of these essays a lot, but in general I wasn't a fan of the author's writing style and couldn't connect.
cwalsh's review against another edition
3.0
The first story in the collection was STRONG. And I mean really strong. I expected each following essay would be equally as profound, however as the book progressed I found myself bored and frustrated. While it is evident that Jamison is an excellent writer, I often felt like her narcissism plagued each scenario at hand.
mersell's review against another edition
5.0
The opening essay, The Immortal Horizon, In Defense of Saccharin(e), Fog Count, and Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain are my favorite essays from this collection, but I enjoyed all of them.
quenchgum's review against another edition
3.0
I’ve been a bit obsessed with nonfiction essays recently — the more creative, the better. I award bonus points for literary stuff that brings in public thinkers, other authors, and artists of all stripes and persuasions. I want you to quote Sontag and Foucault and Berlin. I want you to bring art and philosophy to life.
ENTER: THE EMPATHY EXAMS. On first blush, this essay collection checked all my boxes. It’s intelligent. It’s literary. It raises provocative questions and invites you to consider actively cultivating empathy where you disagree.
And yet: I found this book good, but not great.
The through-line that holds together these essays is our relationship with empathy. Jamison urges us to keep our hearts open and to reconsider our instinctual judgments. Each essay calls for a revolutionary ethos of patience and care where we don’t traditionally give it: when we are self-absorbed and laud ourselves for showing basic care for others; when we feel drawn to self-identify with our own pain (or judge others that do so) at the exclusion of our other identities; we unfairly discredit women that melodramatically exhibit their pain; we don’t usually reserve patience and care for those that struggle with pains that many view as self-imposed (e.g., those with Morgellon’s disease, those that self-harm); etc. We can all benefit from extending care to others, especially where it feels unnatural. It’s a great theme, and it’s one I’m particularly simpatico to. (Me? I felt bad for the killers in Capote’s In Cold Blood).
So what’s the issue? Jamison didn’t execute as well as she could have. The writing is often vague and the transitions are abrupt. More damning, though, was Jamison’s seemingly compulsive need to call out any thoughts she felt ashamed of. It read like she needed to punish herself by publicly bearing witness to every embarrassingly self-centered (read: human) thought she’d ever had. And, sure, I understand that her obsessive honesty positioned her as trustworthy and fallible. Maybe more importantly, it also further developed her arguments around the idea that we should have empathy for even the least like-able among us. And now you may say: these are noble goals! Why not?! The issue is that Jamison’s repeated focus on herself ultimately held back the narrative instead of adding color to it. Each of her essays ostensibly focused on serious situations about others until they got just a little bit — or sometimes entirely — sidetracked as Jamison turned the focus to her life and her quibbles about it and the mountains that she makes out of them. It weakened essays that could have been spectacular.
I can’t help but feel that a select group of star-studded essayists (I’m thinking Alexander Chee, Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, Maggie Nelson, Cathy Park Hong) could have taken this concept and run with it. It could have been tighter, more piercing, more shocking, and more meaningful. It was good but it could have been excellent.
3.5/5.
ENTER: THE EMPATHY EXAMS. On first blush, this essay collection checked all my boxes. It’s intelligent. It’s literary. It raises provocative questions and invites you to consider actively cultivating empathy where you disagree.
And yet: I found this book good, but not great.
The through-line that holds together these essays is our relationship with empathy. Jamison urges us to keep our hearts open and to reconsider our instinctual judgments. Each essay calls for a revolutionary ethos of patience and care where we don’t traditionally give it: when we are self-absorbed and laud ourselves for showing basic care for others; when we feel drawn to self-identify with our own pain (or judge others that do so) at the exclusion of our other identities; we unfairly discredit women that melodramatically exhibit their pain; we don’t usually reserve patience and care for those that struggle with pains that many view as self-imposed (e.g., those with Morgellon’s disease, those that self-harm); etc. We can all benefit from extending care to others, especially where it feels unnatural. It’s a great theme, and it’s one I’m particularly simpatico to. (Me? I felt bad for the killers in Capote’s In Cold Blood).
So what’s the issue? Jamison didn’t execute as well as she could have. The writing is often vague and the transitions are abrupt. More damning, though, was Jamison’s seemingly compulsive need to call out any thoughts she felt ashamed of. It read like she needed to punish herself by publicly bearing witness to every embarrassingly self-centered (read: human) thought she’d ever had. And, sure, I understand that her obsessive honesty positioned her as trustworthy and fallible. Maybe more importantly, it also further developed her arguments around the idea that we should have empathy for even the least like-able among us. And now you may say: these are noble goals! Why not?! The issue is that Jamison’s repeated focus on herself ultimately held back the narrative instead of adding color to it. Each of her essays ostensibly focused on serious situations about others until they got just a little bit — or sometimes entirely — sidetracked as Jamison turned the focus to her life and her quibbles about it and the mountains that she makes out of them. It weakened essays that could have been spectacular.
I can’t help but feel that a select group of star-studded essayists (I’m thinking Alexander Chee, Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, Maggie Nelson, Cathy Park Hong) could have taken this concept and run with it. It could have been tighter, more piercing, more shocking, and more meaningful. It was good but it could have been excellent.
3.5/5.
notghosts's review against another edition
3.5
Some essays - the first, the last, the essay on Morgellons - were very good. Some captured interesting topics e.g the Barkley marathons or the West Memphis three but there were quite a few duds in the middle. The essay on sweetness and sentimentality stands out for being practically senseless and incoherent and I found myself unconvinced by her rhetorical devices jn the last essay, though it had its moments.
krisandthesea's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
joeykills's review against another edition
1.0
you know the “empaths” on tiktok? its her, shes patient zero.
dnf at 45% but it was such a horrible experience that im considering it a read
dnf at 45% but it was such a horrible experience that im considering it a read