Jonathan Cape The Quickening Maze

Wurde angeschafft für ein Uniseminar, das ich dann doch nicht besucht hatte. Dennoch das Buch gelesen und es hat mir wirklich sehr gut gefallen. Sicherlich nicht allzu einfach in Englisch, aber dennoch gut verständlich.

This historical novel is partly based on true life events, when the paths of the poets John Clare and Alfred Tennyson crossed in a random way via a mental asylum called High Beach, on the edge of Epping Forest in Essex. That sounds like a crazy plot, but this novel, which was short listed for the Booker this year, but lost out to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, is evocatively and beautifully written by Adam Foulds. John Clare is an inpatient at High Beach - who is slowly loosing his grip on reality, and imagines himself, and those around him, to be many different characters. He is on a desperate mission to escape into the forest that he so loved to explore in his youth, and succeeds in spending nights under the stars in the company of the local gypsies. The connection that Clare makes with them, and the empathy that each has for the other is a touching detail. Alfred Tennyson comes to High Beach to accompany his brother, Septimus, who is a patient there. Here he encounters the founder of the institution, Matthew Allen and his large family. He causes the young passions of one of Allen's daughters, Hannah, to stir. She `walked and recited the remarkable facts to herself - a poet, tall, handsome, strong, dark - and out of her thoughts he appeared. Under the bell of her skirt she stumbled, seeing him, but continued forwards, calm, preparing her smile. What would happen? In her mind, the apex of their next encounter was, outrageously, a kiss, his large arms around her and the fierce kiss kindling where their lips touched.' Foulds considerable descriptive powers convey the dark mystic power of the forest, and the brooding atmosphere of the asylum with great skill. We learn of dark secrets in the Allen family, and watch the money making scheme of Matthew unfold. We feel the full horror of High Beach, the desperation of its inhabitants, and the cloying atmosphere in which Allen brings up his family. This is a beautiful novel, in which Foulds impresses with his distinctive creative style. I can't say if it should have won the Booker without reading all the other books on the short list, but for me it was certainly a more powerful and evocative read than the recently declared winner.

I'll have to remind myself to skip the Man Booker finalists,, this book was impossible to finish and I finally gave up about 3/4 through. There are two or more storylines, one where the people are crazy and the other about the family, you never really learn anything about any of the characters.

Adrian Foulds is a young British poet, and is worthy of being followed. His novel tells the story of the heartbreaking poet, John Clare, in his descent into madness. At the institution in Epping Forest, where Clare wrote some of his most brilliant and moving poems, the inmate develops a relationship with a young Tennyson, as well as the chief doctor. Nature, genius, passion, and the romance of science are themes not only of the poems themselves, but also of the lives of the protagonists. A novel of great depth of feeling and thought, and a superb read. "I Am": The Selected Poetry of John Clare

I love this. There were some dodgy moments. An editing occasion (?) to do with eyelids I seem to remember, and yet again an anal rape scene, which Foulds also included in 'The Broken Word' (also excellent). Everything apart from those things, which seemed odd and fetishised - absolutely marvellous. A moving sense of Clare, that sense of isolation mental illness brings even now but million-fold because of the barbaric treatment. The way the book shifts between his heaven of writing and living and being around people, and the confinement of asylum and not being able to escape the difficulties of his own mind. The simultaneous freedom and dark torture of his own intensity. If you suffer with any of the same things and are a writer, you will kid yourself you know Clare a little better and suffer a few of the same things and so you cry a bit.That's all good. Helps us write. Splendid.