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A Selection of Self-Help Books

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from: Emily Yoffe

Dale Carnegie, Repackaged

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 1999, at 12:24 PM ET

Dear Jeff,

Much of the self-help genre exhorts the absurd, megalomaniacal belief that so powerful are our thoughts that both our fantasies and fears will become reality. As Iyanla Vanzant writes, "I came to realize and understand myself as a divine and creative being whose every thought is manifested as a tangible physical experience." But after reading your missive I see that it's true. My fear was that I would end up being Ed McMahon to your Johnny Carson, and that's what's happened.

I, too, was struck by Vanzant's "Commentary on Nonjudgment," which is both incoherent and appalling. "When you think of something as wrong, you are actually saying there is something wrong with you," she approvingly quotes a supposed wise "friend." (Did you get the same queasy feeling I did that the friend was supposed to be God?) Since you asked me to explain what she means, I guess she means that when that uncle raped her or her ex-husband broke her jaw and she thought that was wrong, it really meant there was something wrong with her.

It would be easy to dismiss this crackpot notion that no one can really judge anyone else's actions but for the fact that it has become such a strain of popular thinking that it regularly comes up in jury deliberations. (I'm doing it again. I'm taking these books seriously, and letting you do all the shtick!)

Reading these books also made me wonder about what those book editors who get such heartfelt thanks from Vanzant and Carlson actually did. (Despite Dr. Cutler's posing for his author photo in a denim shirt--you would have preferred a hairshirt?--I am willing to give him credit for his effort to write a real book.) Jeff, did it bother you (I know, I know, you have reached such a state of enlightenment that nothing bothers you, which will be a real problem for your work as Slate's "Shopping Avenger" ) that not only does Carlson borrow--with acknowledgment--some of his little aphorisms from other self-help writers, but that he copiously plagiarizes his own book as he goes along. For example, Lesson 58 is "Relax," because being relaxed will help turn "your melodrama into a mellow-drama." This is followed by lesson number 60 which is "Turn Your Melodrama Into a Mellow-Drama." I'm afraid I started to get very unrelaxed thinking of all those mean editors who said I couldn't write the same sentence over and over again and expect to get paid.

Such padding obviously doesn't matter to Carlson or his readers. Don't Sweat has been on the bestseller list for two years. That kind of success has to be fueled by word of mouth. Reading these three books made me wonder about the whole self-help genre, about people's hope that some new book will have a formula for making their lives different. I'm not questioning whether people's lives can be changed by reading a book (yes, I've heard of the Bible). And I thought one of the most successful parts of Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full was how one character was transformed by discovering a book of Stoic philosophy. But I'm genuinely curious as to whether any reader's life has been improved by any of the books we are discussing.

I also went and looked up the grandfather of self-improvement, Dale Carnegie, on the Web. One site had Carnegie's own summaries of his two bestsellers, How To Win Friends and Influence People (1936) and How To Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948). You'll find his advice remarkably familiar, Jeff. Here are two examples: "Don't fuss about trifles. Don't permit little things--the mere termites of life--to ruin your happiness" and "Let's never try to get even with our enemies, because if we do we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them."

Which brings up this question: How do you go about repackaging stuff everyone knows and has been written a million times and make yourself a million bucks?

Emily

the book club
entries
12345678
from: Emily Yoffe

Dale Carnegie, Repackaged

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 1999, at 12:24 PM ET
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Self-help books Emily Yoffe is the former "Keeping Tabs" columnist for Slate and a free-lance writer in Washington, D.C. Jeffrey Goldberg, a regular contributor to Slate, is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. This week they are discussing these self-help books: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff . and It's All Small Stuff, by Richard Carlson (click hereto buy the book); The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama (click hereto buy the book); One Day My Soul Just Opened Up, by Iyanla Vanzant (click hereto buy the book).
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