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A review by savvystory
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
4.0
Every social worker should read this, and every therapist and anyone who works with and loves people with mental illness. It captures so perfectly how nuanced mental illness is and gently questions the way we pathologize people for experiencing reality differently. It also showed how mental heath and illness can impact all aspects of a person’s life, from housing to legal standing to physical safety. Plus, it pays homage to the amazing and important role libraries play in our society.
I did feel like the book was maybe cramming too many ideas in, and I had a hard time tracking all the metaphors. Perhaps they all connected in a way that went over my head. Zen, the Aleph, books as an interconnected network, unbound consciousness, hoarding, compassion, hearing the voices of all things, form and emptiness. My favorite theme was about accepting brokenness and rejecting the delusion that everything will always be the way it is - once you accept that you can live in and cherish the present.
It was also complicated because this was technically Benny’s book, also implying he wrote it? But I’m pretty sure the typing lady is a stand-in for Ruth Ozeki, who’s depicted as a writer. So the actual author of the book is present in the book that exists within Benny that he would hypothetically have written. But the book doesn’t say “and then Benny got to writing and wrote this” even in so many words. So who wrote the book?
I think I’ll be thinking about this one for awhile, which is a sign to me that a book was a good. But its themes didn’t quite gel for me in a way that would’ve made this an all-time favorite.
I did feel like the book was maybe cramming too many ideas in, and I had a hard time tracking all the metaphors. Perhaps they all connected in a way that went over my head. Zen, the Aleph, books as an interconnected network, unbound consciousness, hoarding, compassion, hearing the voices of all things, form and emptiness. My favorite theme was about accepting brokenness and rejecting the delusion that everything will always be the way it is - once you accept that you can live in and cherish the present.
It was also complicated because this was technically Benny’s book, also implying he wrote it? But I’m pretty sure the typing lady is a stand-in for Ruth Ozeki, who’s depicted as a writer. So the actual author of the book is present in the book that exists within Benny that he would hypothetically have written. But the book doesn’t say “and then Benny got to writing and wrote this” even in so many words. So who wrote the book?
I think I’ll be thinking about this one for awhile, which is a sign to me that a book was a good. But its themes didn’t quite gel for me in a way that would’ve made this an all-time favorite.