For most of us, living in the “permacrisis,” as many of the more zeitgeisty cultural commentators have described our times, is exhausting and challenging. AN EYE FOR JOY was written as an attempt to instruct its audience on how to overcome this and experience the world in as full a way as possible. Its subtitle—“Noticing The Good World Everywhere”—speaks to an ineffable impulse to savor and enjoy.
Author Peg Guilfoyle writes that her work is “a book about the impulse to wonder, the practice of noticing, and the inclination toward joy.” Guilfoyle’s writing style is urbane, laconic in the best sense, and highly erudite. The book is structured into five sections, dealing with “noticing the good” in the realms of art, people, travel, nature, and history. As one who travels frequently, Guilfoyle is in a good position to form opinions based on first impressions that last. Epicurean sensibilities permeate the book, as well as a certain whimsy. At one point, Guilfoyle reveals that she is a member of the UK-based Cloud Appreciation Society, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Chapters are usually short, on the order of three or four pages, and sometimes less. As such, AN EYE FOR JOY reads rather like an eighteenth-century miscellanea; some items are compelling, others less so. Whether the overarching theme of discovering joy is really necessary is an open question; much of this material doesn’t grapple with the issue of joy as such, but discovers it incidentally. The most compelling passages are arguably those where Guilfoyle segues into memoir. The author’s backstage experiences in Broadway theater, and her deeply moving evocations of a difficult and fearful early life (during which her father succumbed to the ravages of drug abuse) are insightful and moving. The essay “Raising Nora’s Flag,” in which Guilfoyle writes memorably of a Black maid who used to work in her prosperous but dysfunctional home, is deeply affecting.
Ultimately, AN EYE FOR JOY offers thoughtful asides on both the workaday and unusual aspects of life. If some of its shorter chapters feel as though they’re too superficial to sustain interest, many of the longer ones are accessible, perceptive, and even profound.
When at its best, Peg Guilfoyle’s AN EYE FOR JOY: Noticing The Good World Everywhere is astute and profound.
~ Craig Jones for IndieReader