Media Diet: Thomas Moore
Mind of a soul man
November/December 1996
By Joshua Glenn, Utne Reader
Therapist-turned-writer Thomas Moore--whose first two books, Care of the Soul and Soul Mates, were breakaway best-sellers--has been characterized in the mainstream press as a Pollyanna self-helper--a critique the author himself finds laughable. "I know the dark side of life," he says. "In fact, I wrote a book called Dark Eros in which I took the marquis de Sade as one of the greatest psychologists of our time. One of the only understanding reviews it got was in Screw. My publisher would not want me to say that, because it suggests that I'm not one of these inspiring authors who tell people how to live a holier-than-thou life, but that's not who I am." Associate editor Joshua Glenn talked to Moore, who lives in rural New Hampshire with his wife and their two children, about his sources of inspiration during a tour for his latest best-seller, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, which surveys the wisdom of many cultures on topics such as marriage and intimacy, friendship and community, spirit and soul.
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What magazines do you read?
I really admire Resurgence. I like its focus on a certain kind of environmentalism that isn't political, scientific, or New Age. Rather, it looks at the environment by looking at culture, the philosophy behind the way we live, spiritual issues, the arts. I also like Mother Jones because I like to read politically liberal magazines to offset everything I get in the media. It's extremely well written and edited, and it's always multicultural. It explores various cultures and, as an alternative to American culture, describes how they're living. Although it's a political magazine, it shows how people are living their values; it's not just about people debating theories.
Finally, I've been reading Fine Woodworking for 15 years or so. Although I do very little actual woodworking myself, I value magazines in which people discuss the details of their craft. In my books I talk about finding concrete ways of remaining attached to the world, bringing beauty and craft back into life. Reading these craft magazines makes my own writing more concrete.
What books are you enjoying now?
I don't read much nonfiction, but I recently finished Yasunari Kawabata's novel, Beauty and Sadness. It's a poignant story about simple, sensual beauty and the sadness that is generated by letting oneself experience beauty. The whole history of literature on the soul focuses on themes that are not very popular in our literature today--things like beauty, friendship, pleasure, melancholy. In the past people talked about "melancholy" or "sadness" or "loneliness," but today we bracket it all into "depression"--and medicate it. So when I found a book with the title Beauty and Sadness, I couldn't resist it.
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