The Fourfold Remedy: Epicurus and the Art of Happiness by John Sellars; The Interior Silence: 10 Lessons from Monastic Life by Sarah Sands - review by Emma Park

Emma Park

We Must Cultivate Our Gardens

The Fourfold Remedy: Epicurus and the Art of Happiness

By

Allen Lane 96pp £9.99

The Interior Silence: 10 Lessons from Monastic Life

By

Short Books 253pp £12.99
 

From opposite ends of the metaphysical spectrum, these two books deal with questions that seem of heightened importance at present: how to be happy and where to find meaning in life. The Fourfold Remedy, by the philosopher John Sellars, makes no mention of coronavirus, so had presumably gone to press when the first wave struck; The Interior Silence, by the journalist Sarah Sands, was half written when the pandemic began and has been modified accordingly. Despite these differences, the answers that their authors offer to the question of how to achieve happiness are surprisingly similar.

The Fourfold Remedy is a pocketbook introduction to the ideas of Epicurus, who founded his philosophical school in a garden just outside the walls of Athens in the late fourth century BC. The central question of ancient philosophy was how to achieve happiness. Epicurus’s answer was radical: through pleasure. Opponents

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