Reading the Black Dog

Fortunately, I’m not in a mood where the Dog is too close, but I did finally start reading Churchill’s Black Dog. At first I was taken aback. It’s a collection, and only the first story is about Churchill. Also, the author (a psychoanalyst) spends the first 15 pages discussing various theories of Churchill’s temperament. Apparently Sir Winston was an “extraverted intuitive,” “predominantly endomorphic, with a strong secondary mesomorphic component,” and of “cyclothermic temperament.”

At this point the book almost went out the window. But I persevered, and on the next page, following an anecdote about Churchill’s depression before World War II, there comes the line:

Many depressives deny themselves rest or relaxation because they cannot afford to stop. If they are forced by circumstances to do so, the black cloud comes down upon them. … He invented various methods of coping with the depression which descended when he was no longer fully occupied by affairs of state, including painting, writing, and bricklaying, but none of these were wholly successful.…

Hooked. Guess I’ll have to keep reading now…