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A review by franfernandezarce
Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise
3.0
as Sarah Wise herself admits in her epilogue, the circumstances of those admitted into mental asylums against their will can 'stubbornly' echo one another. despite the historical scope of this book, each individual here discussed cannot escape their place in Victorian society and, in consequence, its rules and laws. since the reader cannot escape either the resonances in-between cases, these echoes do take half the steam of the book's running time as the similarities and names begin to blur one another. interest wanes, inevitably.
one fix would have been to have selected a smaller group of cases and provided a more extended discussion of their specific characteristics and differences. although Wise has structured her cohort in terms of causality to explore how each situation influenced or altered the laws on lunacy at the time, foregrounding those individuals more easily distinguishable from one another could have certainly helped the book in terms of pacing.
unfortunately, this form of selection would have required a form of value judgment on Wise's part. nobody wants to be a compliment on someone else's story and if there is one thing this book persistently avoids doing is to offer an opinion. more journalistic in tone than in pure retelling, one does wonder if there is a former draft crystallising Wise's opinions on her subjects that was sadly scrapped. biographies, after all, are partially generated by and for the sake of gossip, and opinions are partially created by other people's thoughts. a strange tinge of emptiness is left lingering on the reader by the end of Wise's book. outrage will not be in short supply but the liveliness generated by one's talk about another person will be difficult to find.
one fix would have been to have selected a smaller group of cases and provided a more extended discussion of their specific characteristics and differences. although Wise has structured her cohort in terms of causality to explore how each situation influenced or altered the laws on lunacy at the time, foregrounding those individuals more easily distinguishable from one another could have certainly helped the book in terms of pacing.
unfortunately, this form of selection would have required a form of value judgment on Wise's part. nobody wants to be a compliment on someone else's story and if there is one thing this book persistently avoids doing is to offer an opinion. more journalistic in tone than in pure retelling, one does wonder if there is a former draft crystallising Wise's opinions on her subjects that was sadly scrapped. biographies, after all, are partially generated by and for the sake of gossip, and opinions are partially created by other people's thoughts. a strange tinge of emptiness is left lingering on the reader by the end of Wise's book. outrage will not be in short supply but the liveliness generated by one's talk about another person will be difficult to find.