Sometimes you pick up a book and realize you’ve been breathing shallowly for years. That’s the vibe of Durga Chew-Bose’s debut collection. It isn’t just a book. When people talk about too much and not the mood essays, they’re usually talking about a specific kind of internal weather—the kind where you’re hyper-aware of the world but also slightly allergic to how fast it moves. It’s about the "too much-ness" of being a person.
Chew-Bose released this collection back in 2017, but honestly, it feels more relevant now than when it first dropped. We live in a world of "content." Everything is a "take." But these essays? They’re the opposite of a hot take. They are slow. They are dense. They are deeply, almost stubbornly, observational.
If you've ever felt like your brain is a browser with sixty tabs open and forty of them are just memories of how the light hit a specific building in 2012, you get it. This is writing for the over-thinkers who are tired of being told to simplify.
The DNA of Too Much and Not the Mood Essays
The title itself is a nod to Virginia Woolf. In a 1931 diary entry, Woolf wrote about her own creative exhaustion, noting she was "too much & not the mood." It’s a spectacular phrase. It captures that feeling of being full of ideas and observations but lacking the specific emotional frequency required to perform them for others.
Chew-Bose takes that fragment and builds a whole philosophy around it. She writes about her heritage, her name, and the simple act of looking at things. Her essay "Heart Museum" is basically the centerpiece of this whole aesthetic. It’s long. It’s winding. It doesn’t follow a traditional "point A to point B" logic.
Most essays you see online today are structured to give you a quick win. They want to solve a problem or give you five tips. Too much and not the mood essays do the exact opposite. They invite you to get lost. Chew-Bose explores the concept of the "nook"—both physical and mental. It’s about finding a corner where you don't have to be "on."
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Why the "First Person" isn't Narcissistic
There is this lazy critique that personal essays are just narcissism. People say, "Who cares about your childhood or your favorite sweater?" But that misses the point. When writing is done with this much precision, the "I" becomes a window.
In "D as in," Chew-Bose talks about her name. She explores the weight of having a name people misspell or mispronounce, and how that shapes a person's periphery. It isn't just about her; it's about the friction between a person and the world.
The prose is lyrical. Some might call it "flowery," but that's a bit of a dismissal. It’s more like high-definition photography for feelings. She uses metaphors that shouldn't work but do. She talks about the "softness" of certain memories and the "clatter" of others.
Writing Against the Algorithm
Let’s be real. The internet hates nuance.
Search engines and social media feeds want clarity. They want bold headers and digestible bits. But the magic of too much and not the mood essays lies in their refusal to be "digestible." They require a different kind of reading. You can't skim these. If you skim, you miss the rhythm, and the rhythm is the whole point.
Durga Chew-Bose isn't trying to rank for a keyword (though here we are talking about it). She’s trying to capture the exact texture of a moment. This kind of writing is a form of resistance. In an age where everything is optimized, writing something that is intentionally "too much" is a radical act.
It reminds me of Joan Didion or Hilton Als. There is a lineage here of writers who refuse to separate their intellect from their emotions. They know that the way you feel about a movie is just as "factual" as the plot of the movie itself.
The Aesthetic of the Fragment
One thing you’ll notice in this collection is how much it values the fragment. Life isn't a cohesive narrative. It's a collection of snapshots.
- The way a friend laughs at a funeral.
- The specific blue of a cheap pen.
- The silence of a kitchen at 4:00 AM.
- The feeling of being "not the mood" for a party you're already standing in the middle of.
Chew-Bose treats these fragments with the same reverence most people reserve for "major" life events. This shifts the focus. It tells the reader that their small, internal world is actually quite large.
What We Get Wrong About Being "Too Much"
In our culture, "too much" is usually an insult. It means you’re too loud, too emotional, too sensitive, or too demanding.
But in the context of these essays, "too much" is a state of abundance. It means your internal life is so rich that it spills over. It means you are paying attention. Most people go through life on autopilot. To be "too much" is to be awake.
The "not the mood" part is the boundary. It’s the realization that you don’t owe your "too much-ness" to everyone. You can have all these thoughts and feelings and choose to keep them in your "nook."
The Influence on Modern Non-Fiction
You can see the fingerprints of this style all over Substack and modern literary journals. There is a whole generation of writers trying to capture this specific blend of cultural criticism and personal memoir.
It’s a difficult balance. If you lean too far into the personal, it becomes a diary. If you lean too far into the criticism, it becomes an academic paper. Too much and not the mood essays live in the "middle space." They use the personal to explain the cultural, and the cultural to explain the personal.
Think about how she discusses cinema. She doesn't just review a film; she describes the feeling of leaving the theater and how the world looks different for twenty minutes afterward. That’s the "afterglow" of art. That is what she’s interested in.
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How to Actually Write This Way
If you’re a writer and you want to tap into this, you have to stop trying to be "correct."
Most writing advice tells you to kill your darlings. It tells you to be concise. But sometimes, the "darling" is the heart of the piece. Sometimes you need the extra adjective.
- Notice the Unnoticed. Spend ten minutes looking at a single object in your room. Write down everything about it that isn't its primary function.
- Ignore the "Hook." Don't start with a shocking statement. Start with a quiet one. Start with the weather or a sound.
- Vary Your Pace. Long, winding sentences that mimic a train of thought are great, but you need the occasional short sentence to snap the reader back. Like a cold glass of water.
- Be Specific, Not Universal. Don't write about "love." Write about the way someone washes the dishes. The universal is found in the specific.
The Lasting Power of the Collection
Why do we still talk about this book? Why does the phrase too much and not the mood essays still pop up in Twitter bios and book club discussions?
Because it gave a name to a feeling that didn't have one.
Before this, we just felt "overwhelmed" or "antisocial." Chew-Bose gave us a more poetic way to understand our own exhaustion. She turned a negative (being "too much") into a creative space.
It’s a book for people who like the feeling of being slightly out of sync with the rest of the world. It’s for the people who want to look at the "heart museum" and see what’s inside.
Actionable Takeaways for the Reflective Reader
If you're feeling like you're in that "too much" state right now, don't try to "fix" it by being more productive. Instead, try to lean into the observation.
- Read one essay a day. Don't binge the book. These pieces are meant to be sat with. Read one, then go for a walk. See if you notice anything differently.
- Keep a "nook" journal. Not a "to-do" list. Not a "gratitude" journal. Just a place to put the fragments that don't fit anywhere else.
- Practice saying "not the mood." It’s a complete sentence. You don't always have to explain why you don't want to participate in the "content" of the day.
At its core, this style of writing is about reclaiming your own attention. It’s about deciding that the small things—the way a name sounds, the way a room feels, the way a memory tastes—are worth the "too much-ness" they require. It’s about knowing that even when you aren't in the mood to perform, you are still fundamentally, deeply present.
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The best way to engage with this kind of work is to let it change the way you look at your own mundane surroundings. Turn off the notifications. Sit by a window. Allow yourself to be "too much" for a while. You might find that the mood you were waiting for wasn't something you needed to find, but something you needed to create for yourself.
Invest in the slow process of noticing. The world is loud, but your internal monologue doesn't have to be a shout. It can be a whisper, a fragment, or a long, winding sentence that takes its time to get nowhere in particular. And that is more than enough.