Ode to Happiness - Keanu Reeves' New Endeavour

On 18th June, Keanu Reeves held a book signing at Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus to promote his most recent endeavour and literary debut - Ode to Happiness. The book, described as a ‘grown-up’s picture book’, is written as a meditation on making the best of a bad situation and also as a tongue-in-cheek approach to coping with life’s miseries. With Keanu Reeves and the artist Alexandra Grant in attendance, the event focussed primarily on the driving force behind the book and what inspired it’s creation.

Ode to Happiness first started life as an impromptu  joke between Reeves and his friend Janey Bergam. Bergam had been listening to the most chronically depressing and self-pitying songs one can find on the radio and, imitating the melancholy which adorned the lyrics, Reeves conjured several lines depicting the kind of person who wallows in misery. From drawing a sorrow bath in his despair room to applying his I Hate Myself face-cream and putting on his Alone-Again silk pyjamas, Reeves takes the reader on a short journey through self-pity before concluding on the ‘high’ note that things can always get worse.

After the initial in-joke of the Ode to Happiness, Bergam secretly passed Reeves’ words onto her friend, Alexandra Grant, who then converted the words into images as a surprise gift for Reeves. However, what first started out as a rather elaborately designed joke grew into something more as it was passed around and shared with friends and family. People took a deep interest in the book and started wanting to purchase copies for themselves or friends. The consensus was that this was something to be shared, and before long the book was taken to German publisher Gerhard Steidl to achieve this end.

Reeves at the signing of Ode to Happiness

Ode to Happiness is not so much a book as it is a work of art. Reeves’ words are hand-written by Grant, accompanied by her watered-down black ink images, which just ooze melancholy. The whole design and concept of the book/work of art has a very organic feel to it, not just in the hand-written text and imagery, but the choice of paper, the cover… Everything about it is brilliant yet humble at the same time.  However, when describing the relationship between the text and the imagery, accompanied is probably the wrong word. They don’t feel as if they have been created separately at all, but somehow a consorted endeavour between literature and art, both word and image linked by a symbiotic bond. The very essence of the book is in it’s overall execution, no separate element can be distinguished from the rest.

A word that has been used to describe the book, and probably the most accurate existing word that can apply, is haptic - you can pick it up, feel it, smell it, and fully appreciate it as the physical piece of art it is (something you couldn’t do on the iPad). It certainly is something to be felt rather than read, both physically and emotionally. If Grants illustrations (again, not the right word for what they are to the words, but I don’t think there’s a word that exists that can do them justice) and Reeves’ tongue-in-cheek yet brilliant words don’t move you, then I accuse you of being dead inside!

One of the fundamental properties of Ode to Happiness is that it’s also subjective, in that the reader takes from it what they want. Some will read it and weep in empathic understanding, others will laugh at it’s gentle mocking of sadness, and others (such as myself) will remain stoically straight faced but able to appreciate the emotion behind it all the same. The imagery, too, is fairly subjective, with it’s watery and ethereal quality leading the reader to make sense of it in their own way. At the signing, for example, someone asked whether the final image was based on the Eagle Eye from Turkish mythos to symbolise protection, with the words “Things can always get worse.” written beneath. I, personally, saw the image as an unknowable event, a potential worsening of the situation that is unforeseeable, and also due to the book’s subjectivity that it’s applicable to everyone without being too specific. And that’s exactly it - there’s no single answer, just the many interpretations that can be drawn from it!

It’s only a brief little article, consisting of no more than twenty pages and shaped more like a large pamphlet (presumably it’s a step-by-step guide to coping with depression?!), and whilst there may not be much to it on the surface, it carries an incredible depth of thought. Reeves has a way with words, no matter how few or many, that somehow manage to penetrate the soul. Whether it’s just a clever play of words or a brilliant observation, he can’t help but move you.

So thank you Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant for your utterly inspired creation, and Janey Bergam for catalysing it, it’s the perfect guide during my darkest hours! However, I would have rathered you hadn’t scribbled all over my book. I used to sit next to someone at school who did that every maths class, and it really got on my tits…

If you’ve read Ode to Happiness, I’d like to hear your thoughts and feelings on it! How do you interpret the black spot on ‘things can always get worse’? Is it written more out of sorrow or joy? Have you ever run yourself a hot sorrow bath in your despair room, with a misery candle burning?! I certainly have! I even have a pair of alone again silk pyjamas…