Michael P. Harding

I feel bad for not liking this book. It was a birthday present from my brother in law and I can see why it looks like a book that holds promise. Unfortunately, though, I couldn't bring myself to enjoy it.

From reading the blurb of this book, and indeed from the first few pages, I thought this would be about a man's struggle with depression and isolation. This book is about a period in which Harding's wife spent six weeks in Poland, and marks the first time Harding has been alone since an intense period of depression several years beforehand.

I feel like if the memoir were just about this, I would have enjoyed it more. Particularly in the past few years, Ireland, a country where near to 10% of the population has depression at any given time, has made leaps and bounds in opening up discussion of mental illness, and the stigma of illnesses like depression and anxiety has been reduced considerably. With that in mind, I expected that Harding would offer us another voice in this emerging dialogue, giving us his perspective on his own personal fears and experiences.

While this seems to have been the author's intention, it's certainly not how the book read, to me at least. 'Hanging with the Elephant' was, to me, a confused mixture of Buddhist experimentation, and a bittersweet eulogy for Harding's mother. Indeed, I feel like I spent more time reading about Harding clearing out his mother's possessions in 2012 than I did about the six week period in 2014 when his wife was in Poland. I'm not really sure whether he was trying to capture his preoccupation with his mother's death, or whether it was just filler, but either way, it didn't strike a chord with me at all.

This book isn't totally without merit. Harding occasionally makes witty observations about the world around him, and while it's not a particularly interesting read, it's a very light one (Harding being a columnist, his prose is clear and accessible), but I don't think it's something I'd be rushing to recommend to everyone I know.… (mehr)

I'm surprised that this book has no reviews yet. Staring at Lakes won several awards in Ireland in 2013 and is a really good read. Very direct writing style Harding doesn't hold back and is brutally honest about many of the events in his life. Depression, love, marriage are big themes of the book. Some of the writing can be a bit disarming because it is so direct. He has an interesting relationship with his partner, they seem quite happy to spend time apart and do their own things. His visit to the Buddhist retreat is the most interesting and his description of the countryside and the people is very engaging. The final chapters deal with his love for this mother and are very emotional. Though Harding seems pretty emotional throughout his life, he seems to be in tears a lot of the time. But he deals with the difficulties of depression very adeptly and the story has a positive outlook at the end. All in all it is a very enjoyable read. The chapters fly by. I would recommend it.… (mehr)