The Wit's Guide to Anhedonia
Or, Doctor Shenanigans
Anhedonia was the working title of Woody Allen’s 1977 masterpiece Annie Hall. It means the inability to feel pleasure, and if he’d stuck with that name perhaps his defenders could argue that his life was a cautionary tale: The inability to feel pleasure pushed him to date younger and younger women until he had no choice but to marry his daughter.
“I do not believe in doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.”
― Don Herold
Wait, is it still OK to call Annie Hall a masterpiece? This newsletter lacks the formal accreditation to make such a call, so kick it over to Claire Dederer, author of the incisive new book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. And … green light!
“Annie Hall is a jeu d’esprit, an Astaire soft shoe, a helium balloon straining at its ribbon,” she writes. “Annie Hall is the greatest comic film of the twentieth century—better than Bringing Up Baby, better even than Caddyshack—because it acknowledges the irrepressible nihilism lurking at the center of all comedy.”
Diane Keaton makes it work, Dederer writes, because she was willing to act like a goof and Allen was “daring to burn film on the spectacle of her goofiness.” Still, he would have called it Anhedonia if United Artists hadn’t kiboshed the unsellable title. (Also in the running: Doctor Shenanigans.) The irony of Allen’s current reputation is an easy setup for Dederer:
“My own ability to experience pleasure, specifically pleasure arising from consuming art, was imperiled all the time—by depression, by jadedness, by distraction,” she writes. “And now I was finding I must also take into account biography; an artist’s biography as a disrupter of my own pleasure.”
“A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion.”
― Minna Antrim
The concept of anhedonia, if not the term itself, was huge during the Recent Viral Unpleasantness. I recall the uncomfortable twinge of recognition I felt in October 2020 as I read “What Was Fun?” in Vox. “Is a Zoom birthday party fun, is ordering a pizza fun, are jokes fun, is wine fun?” asked Rachel Sugar. “Have I ever experienced fun?”
When the WHO declared an end to the global health emergency last week, Director General Keith Moon could have easily answered those questions: No, Maybe, Yes, Yes. Much easier now, isn’t it?
“I am too old a hand to be put off pleasure by even the certain prospect of not enjoying it.”
― Kingsley Amis
The literature splits anhedonia into two flavours: appetitive anhedonia — you don’t want to go to the show, but you begrudgingly have fun when you get there — and consumptive anhedonia — you thought you’d enjoy it, but nope, still numb. If you have the choice of which to suffer from, definitely take the first! If everything is better than expected, isn’t that a recipe for perpetual delight?
“If there is one pleasure on earth which surpasses all others, it is leaving a play before the end. I might perhaps except the joy of taking tickets for a play, dining well, sitting on after dinner, and finally not going at all. That, of course, is very heaven.”
― Angela Thirkell
And to solve consumptive anhedonia, you simply have to reject the premise of the question. Don’t say “Is this fun?” because every physicist will tell you that fun cannot be simultaneously had and observed. Do say “What if this were fun?” because then your problem-focussed brain can determine what would make it so. Hint: It’s usually a change in perspective.
“Tight boots are one of the greatest goods in the world, for, by making feet hurt, they create an opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of taking off your boots.”
― Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Another issue of Get Wit Quick, another disease cured. Next week, psoriasis!
Zerp!
Last week, I asked my 22 paying subscribers which highly collectable Riposte Card by the sublime Graham Roumieu they’d most like to receive in the mail. And they spoke to me as one in a rich, clear, and resonant voice:
“Zerp!”
― You
And Zerp it shall be! Subscribe now to get Zerped, which in this context means supporting this newsletter whilmst receiving a surprisingly generous quantity and quality of actual physical artwork.
It’s not too late to Zerp! Tis better to have zerped and lost than never to have zerped at all.
Quote Vote
“Never make a toil of pleasure, as Billy Ban said when he dug his wife’s grave only three feet deep.”
— Seumas MacManus
How that we’re all happy again, let’s put our best foot down on next week’s topic.
That was Get Wit Quick No. 201. If I attended your Zoom birthday party, rest assured it was the exception that proves the rule. Did that Keith Moon joke cause you to ask “What if this were funny?” If so, fair. I considered using the name Pete Townshend but I’d already hit my quota of Problematic Artistes in this issue. I highly recommend the Tamara Shopsin illustration that accompanied the Times’ review of Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, and of course the book itself. Speaking of books, the one that inspired this newsletter is Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. To separate the heart from the heartist, just tap the ❤️.
Thanks for the postcards, but I am finding I am hoarding them, mulling over who should get one. And you had me today with the painting!!! I had no idea what the term meant, but now I do, and will spend a good deal of the rest of my life now trying to figure out which of the two brands I was suffering from in the past. So thanks for that!!