Man's Search for Meaning

For my fall reading I read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The book was split into two sections - one where he describes his experience as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, and the other where he describes his theory ("Logotherapy") that we find meaning in attempting to find meaning. Yeah. It's kinda meta.

The first half of the book was gripping. He described how prisoners who were put in charge of other prisoners often became more tyrannical than the Nazi guards. He talked about prayer groups that formed and how prisoners coped with their terrible fate. It was great.

The second half was less interesting to me. Frankl often resorted to vague language and misleading interpretations of events to prove his point. He also drifted into the abstract very often. I enjoyed the specific examples in the first half of the book a lot more.

I'm glad I read it, though. It's a pretty famous book and I think it's good to know what people are talking about when they reference it. It also, like every other book, offered a cool new way of looking at the world and how it all works. So I appreciated it for that reason.

I'm not completely sold on fall reading, though. I think for the most part students are busy and reading a whole book, even in the span of a few months, can seem like a pretty daunting task. It's good to encourage us to read, but there has to be another way. I don't know. Maybe dedicate the first 15 minutes of every class to reading. I know it would seriously infringe on time for more traditional class, but it might put everyone in the right frame of mind before we all launch into a discussion or research a new topic. Just that thought.