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shirp's review against another edition
2.0
"A History" - Very specific, American history with a political slant. Loosely tied narratives that are sometimes forced in a very convuluted way. I did learn things, but the overall structure and depth of information, as well as the author's conclusions, leave something to be desired. These chapters were probably better as they originally appeared as stand-alone essays in the New Yorker.
pshepp's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
alexisrt's review against another edition
4.0
Just a note that a lot of this book was previously published in the New Yorker, so will not be new to longtime readers. It's more of a collection of pieces than a cohesive whole, but the essays themselves are interesting.
painalangoisse's review against another edition
3.0
This book feels incomplete as an argument. The chapters are divided mostly chronologically both in terms of life span and history. However, this led to my feeling that Lepore was telling a story rather than presenting an argument. That would be fine were it her mission, but the book concludes that “history is the art of making an argument by telling a story about the dead.” It was generally an interesting story. But it does not represent a cogent argument, and ultimately, that is what I wanted from it. Also, I found Lepore’s focus on individuals a bit tedious. Ultimately, their purpose appears to have been to tie the story into a neat package. But that comes at the cost of truly understanding a progression of ideas in a society, which was what the book promised. I had particular difficulty with the chapters “The Children’s Room” and “All About Erections,” which described conceptions of childhood and adolescence entirely through books and their authors’ disagreements. Each of the sections felt like an introduction, a case study that should have been used to illustrate a greater point that just never appeared. I know what’s included in “The Care and Keeping of You,” but I would have liked to see more analysis of how that content reflects cultural change. Overall, that was my biggest problem with the book: it felt like there was too much evidence and too little analysis of it or conclusions drawn from it. Lepore seemed to relish being able to proclaim that something was a great reflection of cultural change. But there was little further explanation of why. It was a very anticlimactic read. The prose itself was engaging and I did learn some interesting facts.
jham0330's review against another edition
2.0
The subject of this book intrigued me and it received several good views. However I must not have realized how the book was shaped, as a collection of essays. While each chapter of the book catalogs life from conception to death, it feels like the author merely found a topic that interested her that had a character or theme in the correct life genre, then added the phrase "Mansion of Happiness" to make it fit. It's just like reading a book of essays, some you will enjoy and some will be awful. This book was very hit or miss with me.
sde's review against another edition
5.0
I can't believe this is the first book by Jill Lepore I have read. I never would have picked it up on my own, but it was part of a quarterly book box I subscribe to. It is all about the history of everyday domestic things like marriage and childrearing told in an extremely engaging manner with fascinating tidbits throughout.
If I highlighted my favorite parts of the book, I would pretty much be providing a paraphrase of the entire book, but perhaps that chapter that will stay with me the longest is the one on breastfeeding. We all know how it has come in and out of style, but the story behind campaigns to make it so were interesting. It also shows how a relatively minor issue was used to distract people from what mothers and babies really need:
"Non-bathroom lactation rooms are so shockingly paltry a substitute for maternity leave, you might think that the Second Gilded Age's craze for pumps -- especially the government's pressing them on poor women while giving tax breaks to big businesses - - would have been met with skepticism by more people than Tea Partiers. Not so."
If I highlighted my favorite parts of the book, I would pretty much be providing a paraphrase of the entire book, but perhaps that chapter that will stay with me the longest is the one on breastfeeding. We all know how it has come in and out of style, but the story behind campaigns to make it so were interesting. It also shows how a relatively minor issue was used to distract people from what mothers and babies really need:
"Non-bathroom lactation rooms are so shockingly paltry a substitute for maternity leave, you might think that the Second Gilded Age's craze for pumps -- especially the government's pressing them on poor women while giving tax breaks to big businesses - - would have been met with skepticism by more people than Tea Partiers. Not so."
swoody788's review against another edition
4.0
I promised my brother I'd finish this by his birthday, and I made it with two days to spare. I wasn't really sure what to expect, and I absolutely loved the introduction, but it turned out a little differently than I thought it would. I understand now that most of the chapters were individual essays written for the New Yorker, but as I read through them I felt like there was something missing to tie them all together, aside from the obvious progression of tales from birth to death. I loved the premise of the book, and Lepore's sense of humor, and I appreciated her perspective on some hot-button political and social issues. I feel like I now have a much broader understanding of a few stances I had not considered valid at all before, and I can see the reasoning behind them. Overall, this book made me think about so many of the things in this day and age that we accept as "the way it has always been", when in fact a lot of these ideas/norms are fairly recent and the product of political motives. There is a lot of discussion of sexuality that I think may offend some, but I feel like for the most part it was tastefully done.
jasonthefirst's review against another edition
4.0
Really interesting read, if hard to describe. The chapters aren't explicitly connected, but each one is fascinating and there's enough of a through-line to propel you through. There isn't a beginning/middle/end here, but I learned so much while reading that didn't seem like a big deal.
mattnixon's review against another edition
4.0
The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore is a collection of loosely-connected essays exploring The Meaning of Life (capital “T”, capital “M”, capital “L”). It turns out that the answer to this grand, existential question frequently turns on the unexpected and, often, the seemingly prosaic. To wit: photography and political calculus did far, far more to create the “right to life” movement than organized religion (especially protestant Christians).
Instead of trying to answer the question of the meaning of life, Lepore looks at how modern and ever-changing forces--scientific, economic, political, technological--fundamentally alter the seemingly eternal “truths” of life. For example, there have always been children, but “childhood” is a modern construct. Where did the idea of childhood come from and what forces shaped (and continue to shape) its conception? The author uses various anecdotes and cultural artifacts--the board game “Life” and its numerous iterations, Stuart Little, 2001: A Space Odyssey, among others--to illustrate changes to the concepts of birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.
Lepore writes with a clear point of view but without an agenda, an approach and accomplishment admirable and all too rare. While I think I understand the personal and policy implications of her essays, she resists the urge to spell anything out. This is no diatribe. My assumptions about her intent could be wrong. In fact, I would argue that this space--the distance between knowledge and what that knowledge means and to what ends it is used--is an essential theme of the book. Showing how hucksters, charlatans, politicians and marketers seize, distort, obfuscate and deny science and facts is one of clearest takeaways from this book. One new-to-me example was how Planned Parenthood was hijacked away from Margaret Sanger by eugenicists sharing a philosophy of “family planning” akin to the Third Reich’s.
At this point, I feel it’s important to offer a significant disclaimer: The Mansion of Happiness draws from a very narrow and hegemonic viewpoint. It deals almost exclusively from a post-Enlightenment (really post-Industrial; the Enlightenment era content is usually provided as context for the meat of the story), white (oh-so-very white), American point-of-view. While I try not to presume authorial intent, I would say that Lepore doesn’t even attempt to present a complete picture of the forces that shape(d) our concepts of life and death. Rather, it seems she is merely presenting some of the ways transient forces change what we believe are eternal truths (“the sanctity of life” is a concept younger than many Gen-Xers). That said, I believe the author would have better served her work by explicitly explaining her choice of such a very exclusive (and possibly exclusionary) purview.
If all this sounds like a bit of a trudge--good, important (capital “I”) reading--don’t worry. Lepore writes with alacrity and a sly sense of humor. She chooses interesting stories and then lets those stories do the heavy lifting for her instead of spilling ink on ponderous and limiting (and agenda-driven) explanations/interpretations. This book is not deep--and that’s no slight. It’s an easy read that I found wholly original and thought-provoking.
The Mansion of Happiness is an entertaining and at times profound exploration of the ideas of birth, life and death. After reading it, I have no better idea as to the meaning of life, but I do have a better understanding of the meaning of “life”, i.e., a more-informed way of unpacking the language and semiotics comprising the stages of our existence here and now on earth.
Instead of trying to answer the question of the meaning of life, Lepore looks at how modern and ever-changing forces--scientific, economic, political, technological--fundamentally alter the seemingly eternal “truths” of life. For example, there have always been children, but “childhood” is a modern construct. Where did the idea of childhood come from and what forces shaped (and continue to shape) its conception? The author uses various anecdotes and cultural artifacts--the board game “Life” and its numerous iterations, Stuart Little, 2001: A Space Odyssey, among others--to illustrate changes to the concepts of birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.
Lepore writes with a clear point of view but without an agenda, an approach and accomplishment admirable and all too rare. While I think I understand the personal and policy implications of her essays, she resists the urge to spell anything out. This is no diatribe. My assumptions about her intent could be wrong. In fact, I would argue that this space--the distance between knowledge and what that knowledge means and to what ends it is used--is an essential theme of the book. Showing how hucksters, charlatans, politicians and marketers seize, distort, obfuscate and deny science and facts is one of clearest takeaways from this book. One new-to-me example was how Planned Parenthood was hijacked away from Margaret Sanger by eugenicists sharing a philosophy of “family planning” akin to the Third Reich’s.
At this point, I feel it’s important to offer a significant disclaimer: The Mansion of Happiness draws from a very narrow and hegemonic viewpoint. It deals almost exclusively from a post-Enlightenment (really post-Industrial; the Enlightenment era content is usually provided as context for the meat of the story), white (oh-so-very white), American point-of-view. While I try not to presume authorial intent, I would say that Lepore doesn’t even attempt to present a complete picture of the forces that shape(d) our concepts of life and death. Rather, it seems she is merely presenting some of the ways transient forces change what we believe are eternal truths (“the sanctity of life” is a concept younger than many Gen-Xers). That said, I believe the author would have better served her work by explicitly explaining her choice of such a very exclusive (and possibly exclusionary) purview.
If all this sounds like a bit of a trudge--good, important (capital “I”) reading--don’t worry. Lepore writes with alacrity and a sly sense of humor. She chooses interesting stories and then lets those stories do the heavy lifting for her instead of spilling ink on ponderous and limiting (and agenda-driven) explanations/interpretations. This book is not deep--and that’s no slight. It’s an easy read that I found wholly original and thought-provoking.
The Mansion of Happiness is an entertaining and at times profound exploration of the ideas of birth, life and death. After reading it, I have no better idea as to the meaning of life, but I do have a better understanding of the meaning of “life”, i.e., a more-informed way of unpacking the language and semiotics comprising the stages of our existence here and now on earth.
iffer's review against another edition
2.0
While I found this book a relatively engaging, quick read, especially for non-fiction, I agree with the other reviewers that Mansion of Happiness is meandering, and not in a good way. By the time I had finished reading the dust cover insert, introduction and first chapter, I already had the impression that I was reading essays on miscellaneous topics Jill Lepore found interesting that she then attempted to tweak to fit a theme so that they could be published in a book. Lo and behold, in the "Last Words" chapter, Lepore writes that most of the chapters of the book began as essays written for the New Yorker. Several interesting ideas about humans' evolving worldview about the stages of life and various historical events and figures are explored, but the "story" Lepore is trying to tell isn't cohesive.