The asylum of Dr. Caligari

Inget omslag — James Morrow: The asylum of Dr. Caligari (2017)

184 sidor

På English

Publicerades 24 september 2017

ISBN:: 978-1-61696-265-4
OCLC-nummer:: 960090884

"It is the summer of 1914. As the world teeters on the brink of the Great War, a callow American painter, Francis Wyndham, arrives at a renowned European insane asylum, where he begins offering art therapy under the auspices of Alessandro Caligari - sinister psychiatrist, maniacal artist, alleged sorcerer. Determined to turn the impending cataclysm to his financial advantage, Dr. Caligari will -- for a price -- allow governments to parade their troops past his masterpiece: a painting so mesmerizing it can incite entire regiments to rush headlong into battle. As the doctor's outrageous scheme becomes a reality, Francis joins with his brilliant, spider-obsessed student, Ilona Wessels, and a band of lunatic saboteaurs to thwart the mercenary magic. By radically reimagining the most famous of all German Expressionist silent films, satirist James Morrow has wrought a timely tale that is by turns funny and erotic, tender and bayonet-sharp - but …

"It is the summer of 1914. As the world teeters on the brink of the Great War, a callow American painter, Francis Wyndham, arrives at a renowned European insane asylum, where he begins offering art therapy under the auspices of Alessandro Caligari - sinister psychiatrist, maniacal artist, alleged sorcerer. Determined to turn the impending cataclysm to his financial advantage, Dr. Caligari will -- for a price -- allow governments to parade their troops past his masterpiece: a painting so mesmerizing it can incite entire regiments to rush headlong into battle. As the doctor's outrageous scheme becomes a reality, Francis joins with his brilliant, spider-obsessed student, Ilona Wessels, and a band of lunatic saboteaurs to thwart the mercenary magic. By radically reimagining the most famous of all German Expressionist silent films, satirist James Morrow has wrought a timely tale that is by turns funny and erotic, tender and bayonet-sharp - but ultimately, The Asylum of Dr. Caligari emerges as a love letter to that mysterious, indispensible thing called art." -- back cover.

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Björn recenserade The asylum of Dr. Caligari av James Morrow

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I absolutely love the first half of this; the 1910s explosion of ideas, of modernism and technology and psychology leading both to boundary-pushing art and medicine and the madness of war, the supercharged ideas of the 20th century given terrible purpose. Which of course is very much part of the inspiration for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari too, and I really wish the novel had built on that more. Somewhere around the middle it abandons much of that in favour of a heist plot with some sub-Pynchon meta stuff, so by the time it circles around at the end it feels a bit like it suddenly remembered that the ending has to wrap up the ideas from the beginning as well. Fun, and not a bad companion to Miéville's The Last Days of New Paris, but could have been more.

Also, jfc, get a German proofreader for your Google …

I absolutely love the first half of this; the 1910s explosion of ideas, of modernism and technology and psychology leading both to boundary-pushing art and medicine and the madness of war, the supercharged ideas of the 20th century given terrible purpose. Which of course is very much part of the inspiration for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari too, and I really wish the novel had built on that more. Somewhere around the middle it abandons much of that in favour of a heist plot with some sub-Pynchon meta stuff, so by the time it circles around at the end it feels a bit like it suddenly remembered that the ending has to wrap up the ideas from the beginning as well. Fun, and not a bad companion to Miéville's The Last Days of New Paris, but could have been more.

Also, jfc, get a German proofreader for your Google Translated German.

Ämnen

World War, 1914-1918
Art therapy
Artists
Magicians
Psychiatric hospitals
Fiction