We're All Mad, Here ....

[d_aulnoy]

And no, despite the tenor of the week, I don't mean "madness" as in anger.  

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been reading a lot of hot new fiction that features insanity as a central conceit: The Burning Girl, Melusine,  Jeff Vandermeer (yes, all of him, or at least all that I can get my greedy, grubby little paws on).  I find myself wondering if it's the next brave frontier, as if, as a people, we're managed to surpass, or at least satisfactorily capture, the stream-of-consciousness, modernist desire to mimic the way people think, and decided to attempt to transcend that to find a way to get down to the bare-bones of consciousness unmediated by conscious intellect.  

I'm still formulating thoughts, but in the meantime ... any happy works of craziness y'all would like to recommend to me?

Comments

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Personally I always go for the Jacobeans when I want a good dose of madness. But as that's theatre, and theatre is always about externals, this may not be what you want. But we live in very Jacobean times, anyway, as far as our tastes and concerns run. So I thought I'd bring it up.

I'd rec my stuff but I'm not really that vain, and I deal with melancholy more than madness.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Heh, the Jacobeans I admire for their sheerly unapologetic school of shithouse-rat crazy melodrama, but I'm thinking more first-person stuff that tries to capture what it's like to *think* like a madman.

And, hey, vanity ho! If you've got stuff from the perspective of an insane narrator that I've somehow missed, point me to it!

[writeonq.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... to me insanity and consciousness aren't necessarily linked. Can anyone really, truly KNOW what another is thinking? Or is it just an attempt at subjective speculation that is, in the end, a form of created fiction?

" ...to surpass, or at least satisfactorily capture, the stream-of-consciousness, modernist desire to mimic the way people think, and decided to attempt to transcend that to find a way to get down to the bare-bones of consciousness unmediated by conscious intellect."

I'd suggest that even stream of consciouness, the act of writng thoughts as they come, is mediated by the act of writing, the conscious move to put thoughts on paper.

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

In these crazy times, only lunatic is truly sane. I wonder though if it is indeed a recent trend.

And vanity....

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

The upcoming THE NEW BOOK OF MASKS edited by Forrest Aguire (Raw Dog Screaming Press) has a story by me where the first person narrator is an autistic sockpuppet.

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

no, but i'm wicked interested in any recommendations you might have (i've got the standard self-flagellating trifecta of memoirs, when i'm feeling too much like i might not be chemically challenged anymore, but have avoided fiction).

On other book front, i've an extra copy of Fire and Hemlock. Do you want?

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I have a bunch of Jeff's books, so let me know if there's anything you're still looking for and I'll loan it to you if it's on my shelf...

[2muchexposition.livejournal.com]

Alternately, is this a hint that you need Shriek? You should definitely know about this, though I could also probably give you a copy (at least of the galley) if you need it before then.

As to the other point, the first thing that comes to mind is House of Leaves, though I'm sure there are other far more obvious ones that I'm just not thinking about right now.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Justine Labralestier's MAGIC OR MADNESS, of course (plus the two sequels), wherein if you don't use your magic you go crazy and if you do use it uses up your lifeforce.

For a secondary character, maybe Robin Hobb's fool trilogy?

[justbeast.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the Imparadise the Mind Book List?
Always a good start, if you haven't.