Book Review: Quiet by Susan Cain

True to its subject, Quiet is the kind of book that does not rely on a flashy, colorful, in-your-face cover to grab your interest. And like the introverts it discusses, it can sometimes be overlooked. I've been reading it chapter by chapter for quite a while, but it's finally made it from my bedside stack back to the shelf where all the happily read books are perched.

While I found the book insightful and interesting, I would like to disclaim, that I generally do not like to divide people by labels such as introvert and extrovert; and Susan Cain herself states that it should be viewed as a spectrum. Yet for the sake of her argument, and for my post, these terms will provide a basis.

Like many non-fiction books of it's kind, Quiet relies heavily on well-presented anecdotes, rather than straightforward facts. While this can often be a difficult balance, I believe Cain pulls it off well. It has enough scientific research to legitimize the project, while remaining accessible to the average reader.

For readers who are self-proclaimed introverts, the book will reaffirm beliefs and reassure them of the normalcy of their social habits. I would be surprised if many extroverts picked a book subtitled "The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking", yet it is here that the true power of the book lies. It may provide useful insight for introverts, and perhaps a little ego-boost, but in order to be truly useful, it would have to reach the other side. For extroverts to understand more of what goes through an introvert's mind in social situations, would be useful in many settings. Parents with introverted children, co-workers, who may not value the quiet power sitting at the next desk, and friends, who take offense at an introvert's different social preferences.

The book mostly focuses on an American setting, yet there is an interesting chapter on cultural differences, and the estimation of introversion in some Asian countries, which shows that extroversion is not an international norm. Cain may be somewhat out of her depth at this point in the discussion, but it serves the purpose of upsetting the status-quo in our minds.

Overall, it was an enjoyable, easy read and I recommend it, above all, to the extroverts out there.

See Susan Cain's TED talk on the same subject here!

Buy the book online: US & UK Amazon

Visit Susan Cain's webpage here.

Retrospective: My So-Called Life

A high school TV drama from the 90’s that got cancelled after one season. Doesn’t sound like something you’d want to watch, right?! Yet after watching one key scene from the show My So-Called Life, I knew I had to see those 19 episodes. I’ve seen many a high school drama in my day, yet this one stands out. Not only is it a brilliant time-capsule for the grungy, Cranberries-listening, angsty 90’s, but it’s also got some surprising depths beneath it’s after-school special surface.

Angela, our plaid-clad heroine, spends a lot of time mooning over the local pretty-boy Jordan Catalano, but along the way, she offers some truly insightful tidbits about a teenager’s inner turmoil. She explains away her timidity in making actual contact with her long-time love: “if you make it real, it, it's not the same. It's not...it's not yours anymore. I don't know -- maybe I'd rather have the fantasy, than even him.” I believe most teenage girls would beg to differ. Yet there is profoundness in the idea that our inner lives have the possibility to be more fulfilling than reality.

It follows that for most of the season, not much actually happens to the characters. This is perhaps where the problem with ratings might have come in. There were no real cliffhangers in the first half of the season, yet if you understood Angela’s musings, and those scenes with unsaid words hanging electrically in the air, you would be hooked. I would venture as far as to say that the second half of the season, when, no doubt, the writers were under pressure to keep their show on the air, was much less interesting. There were ghosts and drug-problems, and Jordan Catalano finally spoke more than two words. Yet the show lost something by gaining a bit more momentum. It’s charm lay in the fact that it portrayed a somewhat normal teenage life, where not everything had to be a lesson learned, and high school students often wore the same clothes several times.

The show is also underscored by a truly wonderful 90’s flashback soundtrack with the likes of The Cranberries, Buffalo Tom and R.E.M.. The following video exemplifies how the creators were able to set a perfect scene with the right song and a few meaningful looks.

Though the life-span of My So-Called Life was cut short, if there is one thought to take away from the show it is one that Angela articulates in a characteristically cartoonish teenage slang: “People always say how you should be yourself. Like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster or something. Like you know what it is, even. But every so often, I'll have, like, a moment when just being myself, and my life, like, right where I am, is, like, enough.”