Darwin's Worms: On Life Stories and Death Stories

Darwin's Worms: On Life Stories and Death StoriesAdam Phillips has been called "the psychotherapist of the floating world" and "the closest thing we have to a philosopher of happiness." His style is epigrammatic; his intelligence, electric. His new book, Darwin's Worms, uses the biographical details of Darwin's and Freud's lives to examine endings suffering, mortality, extinction, and death. Both Freud and Darwin were interested in how destruction conserves life. They took their inspiration from

Adam Phillips has been called "the psychotherapist of the floating world" and "the closest thing we have to a philosopher of happiness." His style is epigrammatic; his intelligence, electric. His new book, Darwin's Worms, uses the biographical details of Darwin's and Freud's lives to examine endings-suffering, mortality, extinction, and death. Both Freud and Darwin were interested in how destruction conserves life. They took their inspiration from fossils or from half-remembered dreams. Each told a story that has altered our perception of our lives. For Darwin, Phillips explains, "the story to tell was how species can drift towards extinction; for Freud, the story was how the individual tended to, and tended towards his own death." In each case, it is a death story that uniquely illuminates the life story.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 02/07/2001
ISBN: 9780465056767
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.38lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.24w x 0.41d

Review Citations: New York Times 02/18/2001 pg. 32
Entertainment Weekly 03/30/2001 pg. 63