Posted by Jonathan on January 24, 2002, at 0:06:57
In reply to bloody iris murdoch!, posted by ELA on January 23, 2002, at 12:29:30
Hi Emma :)
WARNING - I'm a semi-illiterate maths/science geek and currently have the attention span of a goldfish because of my depressive illness and medication, so please take my recommendations with a large pinch of NaCl.
If your attention span is temporarily as limited as mine, you might enjoy Talking It Over by Julian Barnes (and even if your attention span is normal, so is my wife's; she enjoyed it too). The three protagonists take turns to describe the same events to the reader, as seen through three different pairs of eyes. It's a little like reading a thread on PSB! Your name gets a brief mention in Chapter 16, which I think may make you smile :)
There's also a recent sequel, Love, etc, written when the author and characters are about ten years older. You must read it second: to do otherwise would be (as Oliver might say) like Sauternes before Manzanilla, or Gotterdammerung before Siegfried, or swine before pearls.
In view of your recent posts - how the problems that concern us change as we get older: from Barbie dolls or trainers to student loans or impatience to finish uni and get on with your life to realizing that a couple of years' delay in starting your chosen career is nothing if you had fun and made a choice that you're happy with - it's interesting to see how the characters' outlook on life develops as they grow older. I also liked the views of us eccentric British through Terri's American and Mme Wyatt's French eyes.
> I am particularly interested in things that could help me understand about mental illness more...?
Oliver has some interesting things to say about his depressive illness and The Men Who Guess; so has his GP, Dr Robb. This psychopharm geek noticed that she prescribed Oliver a plausible dose of dothiepin (Prothiaden™ - another tricyclic like your old friend amitriptyline).
"The Glittering Prizes" by Frederic Raphael was compulsive viewing in the JCR of my college when it appeared on TV in the late '70s. Sadly, the book is now out of print but of course the UL has a copy, and so have Queens' and Darwin. It's another on how our view of life changes as we accumulate experience, disappointments and cynicism; the protagonists start as Cambridge students (or `customers' as we cynics believe too many dons now see you - actually, I do believe that there are still enough left to make a difference who really care about you).
> I have a degree in English Lit ...
Wow! Didn't you say that you're only 20? - and you're already reading for what must be your second degree, in education. You must have a brain the size of a planet ;)
Douglas Adams wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (already recommended by IsoM) a couple of years after he graduated: he read English Lit at Pembroke. Marvin the "paranoid android" might help you understand depression more; but, as anyone here could tell you, he's depressed - not paranoid. This web-server gives you a sample of Marvin's Weltanschauung if you ask it for any non-existent file:
http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/asdfhjkl
I'm afraid I've never read anything about mental illness (except here on PSB) that I don't find too depressing to qualify as a light entertaining read. Perhaps this is a potential gap in the market for a young Eng Lit graduate and aspiring writer like Doug Adams, but having your experience of depression? You could have a glittering future ahead of you.
If you like sci-fi, Fred Hoyle (who used to be Plumian Professor at Cambridge) is probably the greatest and most imaginative scientist who has written novels (e.g. The Black Cloud, "The Inferno", "Ossian's Ride", "October the First is Too Late", etc.). Regrettably, they're again all out of print. His autobiography, Home is Where the Wind Blows is fun (and it contains twice as many equations as Hawking's A Brief History of Time) and Hoyle's blunt, entertaining Yorkshire writing style makes it a good read.
I'm so glad, Emma, that you're still with us and you now feel that last Saturday was the turning point that set you on the road to recovery. Don't let the inevitable potholes on this road discourage you, and please try to keep all your options open for the future.
Happy reading :)
Jonathan.
poster:Jonathan
thread:17108
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020112/msgs/17134.html