Bedlam: A Novel of Love and Madness [Paperback]

Greg Hollingshead (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2007

An International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Nominee
 
A Toronto Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
 

Conspiracies, plots, and paranoia are sweeping through London in the last days of the eighteenth century, and James Tilly Matthews has been caught under false pretenses and locked up in the city's vast, crumbling asylum. As his wife, Margaret, tries desperately to free him, political forces conspire to keep him locked up. Margaret's chief adversary is John Haslam, the asylum's chief apothecary, a man torn between his conscience and the lure of scientific discovery: as James becomes more famous--and more unhinged--he becomes a valuable specimen for the young doctor and a pawn in a grand political conspiracy. Based on real characters and events, Bedlam is a brilliant evocation of a city teetering between darkness and light, and a moving study of every kind of madness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Canadian Hollingshead (The Roaring Girl) offers a sprawling story based on a contentious historical episode. In 1797, James Tilly Matthews was committed to Bethlem (aka Bedlam), the notorious British lunatic asylum, after nattering on about an "air loom" machine used by villains to control people. But there was more to it; Matthews claimed he was being punished for going on a peace mission to France during the Revolution. Certainly his confinement had not been ordered by John Haslam, the Bethlem apothecary who treated him, nor by his wife, Margaret, who tried for nearly 20 years to have him released. Hollingshead deploys all three as narrators of this fictionalized account: Matthews, who slips in and out of lucidity; Mrs. Matthews, singleminded (and therefore largely uninteresting); and Haslam, whose use of Matthews as a research subject makes his motives suspect. Hollingshead's language slides between the centuries as he tangles with provocative themes: the causes and treatments of mental illness, the battle between service and self-interest in the doctor/scientist, and the ways mad members of society can reflect the chaos of the world outside. A vivid picture of the grotesque patients and sadistic staff of the "English Bastille" adds density to the gallows humor that peppers this brutal story. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Superbly disturbing . . . a profoundly moving examination of both mental and political lunacy."--The Boston Globe
 
"Bedlam has no end of gorgeous writing . . . elegant, heartfelt . . . filled with rewarding descriptions of a bygone era."--The New York Times Book Review
 
"A vivid picture of the grotesque patients and sadistic staff of the 'English Bastille' adds density to the gallows humor that peppers this brutal story."--Publishers Weekly

 

"Stylishly written, full of dazzling, epigrammatic insights . . . An intellectual novel, but also a moving story about fully fleshed human beings."--The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Picador (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312427425
• ISBN-13: 978-0312427429
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,219,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If I were "mad" in 1798..., November 25, 2004

By 

Elizabeth (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bedlam (Hardcover)

Several times I thought about giving up on Bedlam by Greg Hollingshead (on page 58, on page 176 and so on). What keep me reading was that I wondered whether I would have escaped being thrown in a mad house if I had lived in London at the turn of the nineteenth century, as had Jamie Matthews.

I see now that it was the enigmatic and slightly confusing tale of Jamie's possibly wrongful confinement of over 20 years in Bethlem Hospital for the insane that kept me reading. If I could have come to the conclusion that he was insane and that this story was simply a dreary tale of his mistreatment, I perhaps would have put the book down. If I could have surmised that he was in fact confined because he came up on the wrong side of a political situation, I also perhaps would have put the book down. What kept me reading was the fact that I couldn't make up my mind even to the very end.

The true genius of Hollingshead's book lies in the depth and complexity of the two main characters, Jamie Matthews and the John Haslam (Bethlem's apothecary), drawing you from one side to the other. Sometimes Jamie's ravings have just enough sense to make you believe his sanity, then something about them pushes it just past normal and you can see why he is committed. Likewise, John Haslam's treatment of the patients at Bethlem seems as times a life of dedication to serving the unfortunate in the best way he knows how, and at others times it is a self-serving project to further his own notoriety. In both cases, for both characters the answer is that it is all true. Rarely has there been such a wonderful portrayal of contradictions of the human condition.

On page 436, the words of Jamie's devote wife Margaret sum up this portrayal of mental illness with a truth that persists to this day:

"Perhaps in an imperfect world you don't find intelligence at its keenest pitch without some touch of [madness]. Perhaps there needs a certain pressure, heating the thoughts until they glow, and glowing ignite yours and by that sympathy show you more than you could ever see on your own, but then the brilliance grows too hot, fever sets in, and all common sense is lost, and that connexion is betrayed."

I would recommend this book to everyone, only don't complain to me as you slog through it. Wait and patiently persist and it you will discover it's true brilliance.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, disturbingly entertaining, heartbreaking and hopeful, October 6, 2008

By 

RevLina (Yonkers, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bedlam: A Novel of Love and Madness (Paperback)

I'm saddened by the reviews finding this book a difficult read and hope they scare no one away. Hollingshead presents a confusing subject matter in an gripping manner with plain language. At the conclusion of the novel I'm left haunted by the characters and contemplating the many issues the author raised: the nature of madness and reality, the enduring power of love, and the bewildering effects of twisted kindness.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth it, March 1, 2008

By 

Book Lover "Sam" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bedlam: A Novel of Love and Madness (Paperback)

I wanted to give up on this novel because it is so confusing. I usually enjoy a challenging read that requires my attention and memory, but I found many passages in this book that I could not decipher. I kept going because I thought at some point everything would fall into place. After slogging through the entire book, I felt I had wasted my time.