Favorite Book Depicting Mental Illness?

Book which has helped me- Evolution Of A Cro Magnon by John Joseph. It's more about abuse, addiction, and general demons than any explicitly defined flavour of madness, but he's been through so much that I think most people who've been through any of these things will be able to take something from it.

Book about real madness- Panzram: A Journal Of Murder- autobiography of a nonce, rapist, serial killer. Published with extensive notes about penology, history, and to an extent criminology.

Books about the madness of humans in general- the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Would recommend to any young idealist eg. leftist, as they point out the irrational side of human nature beautifully, and through doing so demonstrate how utopian schemes are absurd.

keep fighting

 

Well I was speaking about madness in a more general sense rather than specifically mental illness- I didn't pay enough attention to the thread title, sorry. That said, many of his characters are mentally ill in some way or another...how does he depict it? Not so much by saying, "this guy is off his rocker," but by depicting the 'unusual' ways in which the characters behave, think, and feel, and how that effects both their lives and the people around them.

 

I'm currently reading "The Chaos of Standing Still" by Jessica Brody, and I feel like it's a good depiction of anxiety and grief after loss.

 

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky is powerful.

Nothing gets deeper into the conflicted psychology that I think we all experience. Read it, it’ll change your life.

 

I think this was the first book I read (except for Con Air the book when I was about 10 lol). A proper hard punk lad I had become friends with lent it to me. I read it hiding behind my machine in the factory I was supposed to be working in- was black with oil by the end.

keep fighting

 

There's a theory out there that all the animal characters of Winnie the Pooh are actually representations of Christopher Robin's mental illnesses... so believe it or not, Winnie the Pooh might actually be a book depicting mental illness. For examples, Eeyore represents depression, Piglet represents anxiety etc.

 

Recently read a book called ‘the philosophical classics and was surprised to see Winnie the Pooh as one of the most recommended philosophical books!

 

On the Christopher Robin thing: that Harry Potter lad right...

I'm not into that lame Harry Potter stuff but as I understand it, he has to run into a wall in a railway station, which leads him into some secret platform to go off to magic land. If you ask me, he went bonkers cos of living in a cupboard at his parents. He becamse convinced that London Euston had some magic platform, and the poor bastard ran BANG slap bang into a wall. The rest of the books are just stories about his hallucinations while in a coma.

 

Are you looking for recommendations or just want to know our favorites? Since I am inpatient I will answer both of your questions. Lol.

Non-Fiction = A tie between - Andy Behrman's "Electroboy" and Kay Redfield Jamisson's "An Unquiet Mind"
Fiction = "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

As for the discussion on Dostoevsky... I would offer a friendly argument that the "madness" depicted in his books as well as other Russian authors during that time period are not depicting "madness" in the modern western conception, a madness which derives from the interior workings of the mind. It is more a "cultural madness" that is derived from the socio-political status of lower class Russians at that time. The Western concept of madness is very different. In the ancient world it was something that "came from outside" usually through a deity. Madness then became sin related (the Greek term is hamartema). Then with the enlightenment madness shifted from the soul to the logical mind (logos) and then finally to the biological mind in the last 150 years.

If you are looking for other recommendations let me know. My graduate thesis is on madness and the history of mental illness. I've had Bipolar Disorder for 18 years and have studied quite a bit about mental illness in literature, as well.

 

Interesting. Maybe true in some of his books or as an overall theme...some characters though, like the Prince, and that woman everyone is trying to bone, in The Idiot, seem to be intended to stand out as truly mentally impaired?

keep fighting

 

Wow, that's pretty cool. I wonder how Winnie the Pooh espouses philosophy though?

 

Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds.

Nobody said this list couldn't include sci-fi right?

 

That book I mentioned is about a schizophrenic man that uses his many different personalities, or 'aspects' as he calls them, to help him solve crimes. It's a really entertaining read.

 

Frederich Nietzsche once said "Everything I learned about psychology, I learned form Dostoevsky". Some historians even believe that Freud stole some of his theories from Dostoevsky.

Also, The Silver Lining Playbook is a great read.

 

Freud was defo influenced by Dostoyevsky, he was one of the first authors to really understand how conflicted the human mind was.