Depth

Some books start strong and peter out as they go forward. Others pick up steam in the middle and race you to the finish. The Social Animal, by David Brooks, is neither of these. It's a strange hybrid of a book, an attempt to explain the latest research on learning and emotion through the stories of two fortunate, happy (fictional) people, Harold and Erica.

Harold and Erica for the most part make their own good fortune, and they are likeable people, or at least Brooks makes you like them. My problem was, I wanted to know them better. The fiction part of the book kept getting in the way of the nonfiction part, at least for me.

But as the book progressed, I got used to its split personality and was uplifted by Harold's final revelations:

"Harold tried and failed to see into the tangle of connections, the unconscious region, which he came to think of as the Big Shaggy. The only proper attitude toward this region was wonder, gratitude, awe, and humility. Some people think they are the dictators of their own life. Some believe the self is an inert wooden ship to be steered by a captain at the helm. But Harold had come to see that his conscious self — the voice in his head — was more a servant than a master. It emerged from the hidden kingdom and existed to nourish, edit, restrain, attend, refine and deepen the soul within."

This is a book about depth — and the depth makes all the difference.