So what's the consensus here on this book? Is it as life-changing

who told you to read this, your mom or your therapist?

>>9688727
It's one of the most penetrating books I've ever read, although truth be told the main gist of it could probably be boiled down to a few pages, or even a sentence: Humans are animals that are aware of their own mortality, of the fact that for all the transcendence and mystery of consciousness, they are also tied to vulnerable fleshy bodies that suffer and will eventually pass into the mystery of death, and much or even most of the human psyche, including both the everyday narrative which people tend to unconsciously run on and the psychological structure of society and civilization as a whole, is a complex of defense mechanisms that keeps people from the full awareness of this.
Is it life-changing? I don't know. It may make you more aware of the lengths to which you go in order to avoid facing the issue of death. I think it can have a sort of stabilizing effect in that many intelligent people already probably suspect a lot of what the book alleges, and there is a certain relief in actually bringing the matter to one's conscious intellectual attention.
Should young neurotic men read it? I don't know. I read it when I was young and neurotic, and it didn't do any damage, at least.

I started reading it after seeing it referenced in Ligotti's CATHM. Although it was a bit heavy on psychoanalysis so I switched to Freud as pre-reading. Wpuld like to hear others views.

>>9688727
That New York Times Book Review quote on the cover...
>A brave work of electrifying intelligence and passion, optimistic and revolutionary, destined to endure.
>optimistic and revolutionary, destined to endure
>optimistic and revolutionary
>optimistic
Huh? I mean, I wouldn't call it pessimistic, but to call it optimistic is rather strange.

>>9689332
High quality post. It didn't change my life since not much in it seemed new to me, but I liked reading it, and I'll probably read it again soon.
>>9689416
Unironically blame normalfags.