Yes To Life In Spite of Everything

Viktor Frankl, like anyone who endured the atrocities of the Holocaust, is someone I don’t have the vocabulary to describe. I’m in awe of the resilience and oftentimes almost unfathomable positivity of anyone who has lived through experiences I can’t even imagine. What’s even more extraordinary is that the lectures Frankl gave, which are the basis of this book, were presented only nine months after his liberation from his final concentration camp.

With an introduction by Daniel Goleman and afterward by Franz Vesely, Viktor’s son-in-law, this book comprises three of Frankl’s lectures:

* On the Meaning and Value of Life
* On the Meaning and Value of Life II
* Experimentum Crucis.

These lectures focus on suicide, forced annihilation and concentration camps respectively. With such difficult content I had expected this read to be quite depressing, but there’s hope running through even the darkest of themes. Given the author’s belief that we can find meaning regardless of our circumstances, this hope felt particularly appropriate.

This meaning, Frankl asserts, can come through “our actions, through loving, and through suffering.” Meaning doesn’t only come from work. Illness, physical or mental, doesn’t necessarily equal loss of meaning. Suffering can be either meaningful or meaningless.

Some of the early text read the way some university philosophy lectures I’ve attended felt, where I was anxious for the lecturer to get to the point, but these sections were the groundwork for what was to come. Frankl gives examples of patients he treated and people he encountered in concentration camps, and these provided the answers to ‘how does this theory apply to real life?’, which is something I always seek.

The third lecture was the one that I found most insightful. Building on the two previous lectures, Frankl discusses his thoughts on the “psychological reactions of the camp prisoners to life in the camp.” Learning how this lecture specifically related to his own ability to find meaning was inspirational.

It can be tempting, when someone talks about the importance of your attitude or finding meaning in suffering, to get into ‘yeah, but’. Yeah, but how would they feel if they were in my situation? Yeah, but what qualifies them to speak to me about suffering? It’s hard to ‘yeah, but’ when the person you’re hearing it from is Viktor Frankl. 

While Frankl specifically says that no one’s suffering can be compared to anyone else’s I still find it difficult to think of any of my experiences, not matter how painful they are for me, to be comparable to those who have been subjected to concentration camps. After reading this book part of me wants to admonish myself for having a whinge about any problem I face. However, the overwhelming takeaway for me is if people like Viktor experienced what they did and still managed to find hope and meaning, then it is always possible for me, no matter what comes my way, to change my perspective.

“To say yes to life is not only meaningful under all circumstances - because life itself is - but it is also possible under all circumstances.”

Content warnings include death by suicide, descriptions of concentration camp experiences, euthanasia, mental illness and suicidal ideation.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Rider, an imprint of Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House UK, for the opportunity to read this book.

Viktor Frankl is a shining example of how life needs to be led, how good can be seen in everyone, how darkness can be overcome and light, love and humanity will alway triumph if we allow them and want them to. He has so much wisdom to share, so much knowledge to impart. He has so much to teach her despite all he suffered and all of the atrocities he witnessed. He tells us to live our best life, to live our lives to the full so that we do not regret one single moment. It is a beautiful piece of writing, and I have no doubt the will be equally as popular and as well received as his first.

As it approaches the seventy-fifth anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, the day of Nazi Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945, there are myriad ways in which the population will be remembering those people actively involved in or lost to wartime activity yet this book looks at things from a fresh, amazing and quite frankly inspirational perspective. Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor interned at Auschwitz in 1944 and who spent the remainder of his life attempting to make sense of what happened to him as well as searching for the meaning of life. His profound philosophical questioning led him to pursue a doctorate in philosophy in 1948 where existentialism was among his core beliefs. Viktor E. Frankl's ceaseless ability to see the light in the darkest of circumstances really shows how incredible a man he was. The lectures he prepared and presented way back in the forties, a mere few months after his liberation, have for the first been translated into English and delivered in this powerful, life-affirming 141-page book. His words and philosophy are as meaningful today as they were seventy-five years ago.

He has many valuable lessons to teach throughout this collection and despite losing his wife, mother, father and brother to the brutal Nazi regime he upheld a stoicism and resolve impossible to fathom having seen many atrocities of a bloody and genocidal war. It's times like these, when many societies around the world are in lockdown, we must remember that simply staying at home is nothing in comparison to what these survivors went through as they witnessed the horrors of Nazism and their evil ideology. Packed with wisdom, understanding and guidance this is a book that will never just be a product of its time and will benefit a multitude of people for a long time to come. It is a wonderfully insightful and well written book full of positivity and lessons on how resilience can be built through triumphing over adversity. But most of all it reminds us that hope can be found in these events we often deem as hopeless. Viktor passed on 2 September 1997 in his Austrian motherland but will undoubtedly be remembered for his timeless works. RIP Mr Frankl. Many thanks to Rider for an ARC.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It was short but sweet & very thought provoking. Instead of asking what life can do for you it encourages you to replace that question with what can you do for life & other to fulfil your existence. It breaks down the reasons behind pessimism and looks at things through a lens many may not have looked through before. It highlights the good in the bad events that befall us and is filled with incredible quotes, my favourite possibly being: “Happiness should not, must not and can never be a goal, but only an outcome”. Yet another incredible read from Frankl!

So special to discover these “lost” lectures by the incredible Frankl. Although some references are very of the time, there are so many lessons to learn within this short collection.

I remember reading “Man’s Search for Meaning” in one sitting on a bench on Bournemouth Pier, my eyes hot, my brain ready to burst out of my skull with its power and revelation. It’s hard to believe that a book about the Holocaust would be one of my top life-affirming reads ever. I felt full after, my heart grown by sizes, with a palpable sense of hope. Its basic message was that if you have something to live for, you can overcome anything; its home truths felt like voids in me filled. 
In these lectures, Frankl expands on the meaning and purpose of being, loving and suffering, even when you can’t see light at the end of the tunnel, with a wisdom, compassion and clarity that is nigh unparalleled. I found myself highlighting so many passages in my copy that it would have been easier to just highlight the “unimportant” stuff – of which there is none, really. 
It’s a book of hope, and it will be a tonic to so many. I’ve already bought a stack to give to others.

This book was incredible!  It is crazy how strong people can be in the worst situations life can give you. This made me think about all my struggles and how small they are compared to what other people are going through. I feel sad after reading this but also empowered. Everyone should read this.