'Don't you see, she is trying to get out to life'. This is the prime high in this novel where everything boils down to the state of mind Susanna Kaysen was having and the gloomy society that locked down her adolescence into a psychiatric ward. She is trying to get out of the life but she can't. She can't make the society understand that with her flaws, she can stay. She can stay, not survive. That she can do anywhere, but she can stay without doubting her doubts too much.In this epic story of mental health and life in a mental hospital for girls, we read about 18 year old Susanne Kaysen and the other inmates of the ward. Their daily longing for freedom, for a sane life yet at the same time succumbing to the psychiatric hospital for shelter. It acts as a shade and rain in their life. A shade that they want because deep inside they know that society is not so acceptable and rain because they are treated like mental patients inside. However, none of them surrender to the theory of being a mental patient.
Susanne for example is quite good in English and Biology, she is a perfectly fine girl who can bond well with boys and get boyfriends but she also wonders whether there are any bones in her hand. And she tries to scratch off the skin and tissues in her hand trying to see whether there are any bones. This duality, this polychromatic character is being recognized as borderline personality disorder. But, isn't it really sane to question your insanity. Otherwise, how you are going to be satisfied with your inner self, a knowledge of self prudence that says yes I am sane. There are always two sides of the same character, one in which you go in flow with what expects you to and one in which you expect yourself to be and in the middle line if you find it hard to straddle a balance between yourself and society, you are a borderline personality.
With the gritty perforations of the psychiatric ward, this is a must have book for people who are interested in human psychology and its representation in literature. This book is a personal memoir of Susanne Kaysen, whose two years of youth was just snatched by a sign in a paper by a doctor who she met for twenty minutes and subsequently sent off to an address, which later became inscribed into her very essence.
Interestingly critique, darkly satirical, genuinely lively - this is a memorable account of a life in a psychiatric ward and of borderline personality depression. A story for all of us who have been opportune enough to see two images coming out from the same picture. Yes, the society will not understand us, but we understand how to live our lives and that is well, enough. Because it is your choice, to be sane or insane. It is your choice to be remain in your shell and not caring about societal affairs. That wind is too mild to even touch us, let alone change our introvert mind.
Soham Chakraborty - 8/1/2013