An ache, a pain, a mysterious lump, a strange sensation in some part of your body, the feeling that something is not right. The fear that something is, in fact, very wrong. These could be symptoms of illness. But they could also be the symptoms of hypochondria - an enigmatic condition that might be physiological or psychological or both.
In this landmark book, Caroline Crampton tells the story of hypochondria, beginning in the age of Hippocrates and taking us right through to the wellness industry today. Along the way, we encounter successive generations of doctors positing new theories, as well as quacks selling spurious cure-alls to the desperate. And we meet those who have suffered with conditions both real and imagined, including Moliere, Darwin, Woolf, Freud, Larkin, and Proust whose symptoms and sensitivities gradually narrowed his life to the space of his cork-lined bedroom. Crampton also examines the gendered nature of the medical response, the financial and social factors at play, and the ways in which modern technology simultaneously feeds our fears and holds out the promise of relief.
Drawing on Crampton's own experience of surviving a life-threatening disease only to find herself beset by almost constant anxiety about her health, A Body Made of Glass explores part of the landscape of illness that most memoirs don't reach: the territory beyond survival or cure, where body and mind seem locked in a strange and exhausting kind of dance.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Clarity and beauty combine with terror and dark comedy - essential reading for everyone who has a body. And yes - that means every single reader in the world -- Lucy Worsley [A] deeply researched, subtly argued history of the condition...written with elegance and flashes of humour... Crampton is skilled at uncovering hidden connections, charting how ideas about health and medicine rise, fall and re-emerge over centuries... Memorable and vivid * Sunday Times * A clever blend of memoir and science writing that elevates a funny and faintly ridiculous subject into a piece of cultural history * Mail on Sunday * Blending memoir and cultural history, A Body Made of Glass is lucid, broad in scope, full of nuanced reflection and digs deep into concepts of rationality, language, trauma, the brain v the body, class, gender and the inequity of health services * Guardian * Ambitious... Her precise and visceral recollections make real and corporeal a condition that some claim is neither... A Body Made of Glass is a wide-ranging work, moving from personal story to literary analysis to the history of medicine and back again * New Statesman * With extensive experience in the worlds of the medically explained and the medically unexplained, Crampton is perfectly placed to write this fascinating and intelligent cultural history of health anxiety, suffused with the intensity of feeling that hypochondria ignites, as well as the insight that it often precludes * Observer * In tying her own experience, as if by an invisible thread, to numerous intellectual giants and fictional characters across time, [Crampton] offers us a rounder taste of her condition... Her unflinching interrogation of hypochondria and its evolution leads to fascinating cultural observations * Irish Times * Masterful... [a] very readable account of the history of hypochondria as a concept in human history; and its implications for how we think about what is real, what is normal and how we relate to our bodies... A profound work -- Dr Gwen Adshead A fascinating history of health anxiety * Guardian * An intelligent, vulnerable and learned book about a condition so widespread and yet so misunderstood. A Body Made of Glass unpicks the mysterious relationship between mind, body, and a health anxiety which may or may not have a physical source... Humane, thoughtful, and unsettling. The best book I've read in ages -- Cal Flyn A wonderful, poignant and personal journey into the world of hypochondria. Written with wisdom and insight, this is both an important and entertaining read into a much misunderstood condition -- Dr Alastair Santhouse [A] thoughtful and touching examination of what it means to be well... Crampton's unflinching honesty and skill with words make for a tender and often heart-breaking history of medicine. Every medical professional should read this book -- Subhadra Das Moving and fascinating... By combining her own experiences with a reflective and insightful study of hypochondria's history, Caroline has created a unique exploration of the condition. A surprising, uplifting and compelling book -- Dr Michael Brooks A compassionate, erudite and humane exploration of our greatest anxieties. If you've ever had sleepless nights worrying about your health, this definitive history of hypochondria is for you -- Dr Jules Montague With wry humour, [Crampton] recognises the frequent absurdity of her situation... She is an evocative writer, capable of elegant description and astute analysis, and she captures the ambiguities and contradictions of health anxiety * New Scientist *
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Maße
Höhe: 194 mm
Breite: 131 mm
Dicke: 27 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-78378-906-1 (9781783789061)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
CAROLINE CRAMPTON is an author and podcaster who writes about the world and how we live in it. She worked in journalism at publications like the New Statesman and The Times before focusing on literary non-fiction. Her first book, The Way to the Sea: The Forgotten Histories of the Thames Estuary (Granta, 2019); her latest book is A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria (Granta, 2024). Her award-winning podcast about golden age detective fiction, Shedunnit, is distributed by BBC Sounds. As a broadcaster, she has appeared on BBC Two, Sky News, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 and her reviews have been published by the Guardian, London Review of Books and Spectator.
