I DIDN’T cry after reading this splendid book, but I was entertained and laughed quite a lot. Soft amounts to a defence of the human emotions against critics who have lampooned or mocked outward displays of feelings.
Selectively surveying a thousand years of Western culture, Ferdinand Mount proves a humane and impressively well-read guide, challenging, on the one hand, the snobbery, hard-heartedness, and elitism that have elevated thought over sentiment, and questioning, on the other, the bloodless values and assumptions that still regard blubbering in public as an unforgivable offence. “Manliness” and the “stiff upper lip” are examined as instances of such needless disdain.
Mount increasingly leans towards the sentimental. Often, it has been a force for good and led to social reforms. Initially dismissed by critics as “derivative tosh”, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin had an explosive impact, and made the continuance of slavery in the South appear a loathsome thing.
In England, Oscar Wilde sneered at the death of little Nell in Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop, and yet it was Dickens’s novels, replete with “tear-jerkers”, that generated a public debate concerning the Poor Laws, the injustice of long-term prison sentences for debt, and the inhumanity of the workhouses and cruel public schools.
Since its first iteration in the early 1960s, pop music, with its unrestrained emphasis on love, tenderness, and relationships, offended critics who thought it incredible that such cheap and tawdry material could somehow represent high culture. But, as Mount makes clear, it was the songs of the Beatles and, later, Paul McCartney, that rang out across the UK on 3 June 2002 on the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation. “Hey Jude” brought a chorus of more than a million together in the Mall, and “All You Need is Love” was played by bands all over the UK well before church bells rang out.
Simple words and melodies have a potency and emotional charge that can contribute massively to human flourishing and community. As Mount wryly observes, however, they can also lead to unintended consequences. A noted enthusiasm on the part of inebriated gatherings for singing Frank Sinatra’s self-congratulatory “My Way” in karaoke bars in the Philippines has led on occasions to fighting and injury, especially when it is sung out of tune.
Mount delights in such offbeat observations and digressions. Beyond novels and music, he also surveys art, social history, and big ideas. Mill, Nietzsche, Goethe, Rousseau, and Marx are all paraded for inspection. With his acumen and a talent for storytelling, Mount reminds us that there is no shame in tears. Feelings exist to guide our reason. Jesus confounded the scribes with his wisdom. But he also wept, as did his friends.
Canon Rod Garner is an Anglican priest, writer, and theologian. His latest book is Reappraisals: Lives less ordinary (Liverpool Hope University Press, 2025).
Soft: A brief history of sentimentality
Ferdinand Mount
Bloomsbury £20
(978-1-3994-2188-1)
Church Times Bookshop £18
