Passages

A schizophrenic woman wanders beaches and hotels, delusions and detention camps, searching for her brother; her schizophrenic lover finds violent mythology as he searches his fantasies for himself. Both navigate poetic dreamscapes of obsession and orgiastic sadism as they traverse Europe by train, increasingly distant from each other as they near what they seek. The woman's fluid, impressionistic narrative contrasts schizophrenically with her lover's cryptic, annotated journal entries, but both describe the metamorphosis of mental illness and especially the passage of time. As with other antinovels emphasizing perception of mental states and passage of time over plot and linear narrative, this book uses carefully crafted imagery to stimulate the reader's subconscious. Given that this particular antinovel is also an exploration of the chaotic subconscious of two schizophrenics, its sensate sex-and-violence imagery becomes doubly significant: a stream of subconsciousness that describes waking dreams while feeling like one. It will interest fans of avant-garde fiction and students of the aesthetic side of mental illness alike. Brendan Driscoll
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Genre: Literary Fiction