Man Is the Sum of What He Cannot Give Up
Good Fit
- Readers interested in psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan) and critical theory who aren't put off by terminology
- Anyone wanting to understand grief/loss beyond the simple "5 stages" model, at a philosophical-political depth
- Readers who enjoy literary/cultural references (Homer, Shakespeare, Barthes) and can handle dense essayistic prose
- Those wanting a critical distance from "pop psychology" and "positive thinking" discourse
Not a Fit
- Readers looking for practical, step-by-step advice on "coping" with grief — the book describes, it doesn't prescribe
- Those wanting a text free of academic/psychoanalytic jargon, written in plain language
- Readers not prepared for heavy material on death, loss, and violence (including direct references to real events like the 2015 Suruç massacre)
The Foreword lays out the book's thesis: the human infant arrives in the world "prematurely," helpless and absolutely dependent on others — so growing up is, from the very start, a story of loss and trauma. On this basis, Özmen critiques the contemporary "depression epidemic" discourse: since the 1980s, the spread of antidepressants has reduced psychic suffering to something like a bacterial infection, a "biological serotonin story" — this is not merely a medical matter but a political one, since capitalist commodity logic turns happiness into something purchasable on the market.
"In the Beginning There Was Loss" draws on Lacan's theory to argue that from the moment humans begin to speak, they permanently lose direct contact with "the real" — loss is not an event the subject encounters LATER, but the constitutive condition of subjectivity itself. "Encountering Art" frames art as a framework and "gift" for this loss, enabling "ontological mourning" — citing John Berger on Van Gogh and Leopardi.
"Settling into the World" draws on Freud's theory of the oral stage (introjection, projection) to show that an infant's "swallowing/spitting" reflexes form the primary template for all our later experiences of loss — the root of expressions of love like "I want to take you into me."
"The Brotherhood of Mourning" describes Achilles mourning Patroclus in Homer's Iliad — arguing that those around him are really mourning their own past losses, not Patroclus himself: collective grief offers everyone a "gift" — a chance to confront their own loss. "Mourning Is a Gift to Man" extends this idea, dedicating it to the victims of the 2015 Suruç massacre — presenting the act of mourning itself as the last refuge of human dignity.
"Delayed Grief: Hamlet" reads Shakespeare's Hamlet as a clinical case — Gertrude's unmourned grief is interpreted as the root of Hamlet's melancholy, while Laertes'ss open grief serves as a "trigger" for Hamlet. The section's final essay, "Mourning or Melancholy," sharply criticizes the popular "complete your mourning, get back in line" discourse — arguing it masks a capitalist demand for a "functional, griefless self."
- The text is a collection of standalone essays gathered from Birikim magazine's "Weekly Writings" column — more a mosaic circling recurring themes than a single linear argument
- Freudian and Lacanian terminology (introjection, "the real," ambivalence) is used without explanation — demanding extra effort from readers unfamiliar with psychoanalysis
- Literary/philosophical references (Homer, Shakespeare, Roland Barthes, John Berger) are dense and enrich the text, but require some familiarity
- Sentences are long, multi-layered, and at times abstract — reflecting the dense style of the Turkish essay tradition
The book's core theoretical reference point — Özmen's entire argument builds on this classic Freud essay
Directly quoted in the book — a similar work writing personal grief in fragmentary essay form
The "Loss and Mourning Texts" section continues by examining melancholy's ties to "utopian desire," its melancholic roots in childhood, and the "medicalization" of loss in the postmodern/neoliberal era, before moving to a separate "Death" section.
The book's second half turns more political — critiquing psychiatric institutions as a "practice of power," addressing trauma and collective memory, and finally, in "What Is This Depression?" and "Depression Is a Political Problem," developing an argument that reads depression less as a medical diagnosis than a political-economic symptom, closing with "Epilogue: Our Souls Are Not a 'Thing.'"
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