“Shyness turns you into an onlooker, a close reader of the signs and wonders of the social world,” writes Moran in this fascinating and enthralling mix of anthropology, biography, biology, sociology, popular culture and much more. Shyness is “neither a boon nor a burden . . . but part of the ineluctable oddness of being human” and fertile ground, therefore, for exploring what it means to be human. Among the many famous and successful people “of the violet persuasion” considered are Charles Darwin, Siegfried Sassoon, Alan Turing, Charles Schultz (creator of Peanuts), Charles de Gaulle, Dirk Bogarde, Agatha Christie and Bobby Charlton. Bogarde survived the D-Day landings and the battle for Normandy and was among the soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belsen but after three weeks of his first West End play, he had to be replaced because of illness brought on by his shyness. For some decades now, a “war against shyness” has been waged, and it includes a pharmacological dimension, but rather than see it as a disease to be cured, Moran sees it as a reality to be lived with, which can inspire and enrich us.
