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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If I were "mad" in 1798..., November 25, 2004
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.
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