Once, the mad were exhibited at Bedlam for the fascination of Sunday tourists; ooh'ed and ahh'ed at as examples of how the human mind can distort the civilised and rational behaviour which was supposed to be its very particular accomplishment. Lately, they are more freely available between the covers of books, described and philosophised over by neurologists, psychiatrists and therapists who, besides seeking to cure them, wish to illuminate the meaning of their mad patients for the general - as in normal - public. We are offered the chance to marvel at the way minds warp, and to feel that there is some telling connection between the warped mind and its supposed original state of sanity. There is anxiety, too, mixed with a little excitement, at the indistinct boundaries between madness and sanity, and perhaps a degree of envy, with the suspicion that the mad, agonised though they may be, are having a more interesting, or at least more significant, time of it.

LRB 9 May 1996 | PDF Download