Paperback not so much of the week as of the year, of the decade—or, I am inclined to say, of all time. And why? Because it's the best book ever written, that's why.
—Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian.
The Anatomy of Melancholy is one of the great comic books of the world.
—Anthony Burgess.
One of the maddest and most perfectly paranoid, obsessively organized, etceterative assaults on the feeble human powers of concentration ever attempted.
—Angus Fletcher.
This is high praise, and I would go even further, with one qualification.
The Anatomy is really three books in one (or four if you include the book-length Prologue): a First, Second and Third "Partition".
The first Partition, on the symptoms of melancholy, is truly wonderful stuff. Burton is as bookish as they come, and has basically concertinaed the entire contents of a 17th-century library. Here you meet ghouls, fairybabes, changelings; cynanthropes frothing at the mouth, madmen, bedlam, philtres, men who try to dry puddles with their mind, men who die of thirst from fear of a black dog reflected in water, monks convinced they are damned to hell and are followed by black dogs... etc., etc., all couched in a most wonderfully verbose, expansive, telescopic, highfalutin prose—De Quincey on steroids. And methamphetamine. After 96 hours without sleep.
But that doesn't quite do it justice either. As William Gass writes in the intro: "Burton the ranter rants. It is delicious."
The second Partition, which treats of cures, was hard work. A lot (and I mean
a lot) of pages on the humours, phlebotomy, herbs, diet, exercise, air, etc., etc., etc.
Things pick up a little in the third Partition, which deals with Love Melancholy (both romantic and religious) and finally treats of symptoms and cures—but it doesn't quite touch the first partition.
That said, I thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) recommend this book, its unspeakable contents, and their promulgator, the inimitable Robert Burton.
What are you waiting for? If you don't like it, I will personally reimburse you.
My money is safe.
OP
