Rodrigo de Souza Leão (1965–2009)

This autobiographical Brazilian novel is the story of life in an insane asylum. The author, a schizophrenic who was in and out of psychiatric institutions from the time he was a teenager, died in his early 40's shortly before this book was published. His prose is vibrant, poetic, and inventive, and I was immersed in this short but complex novel. I could never figure out whether he writes so well because of his schizophrenia, or in spite of it.

Sample:

I hate mirrors. Mirrors are just good for showing how we deteriorate with age. The first thing I broke at home was the mirror. I didn't even care about the seven years of bad luck. Then I went for the booze, and seized with undeniable madness I started throwing the whiskey bottles to the floor one by one. It turned into a dangerous place. A sea of glass shards. Some things didn't break, like the glass top of the big table in the lounge, which proved to be indestructible. A table decoration was also unbreakable. There were things that melted away at the slightest touch, that self-destructed when I stroked them, and others that remained steadfast. My father came and asked me to stop. I didn't stop. My little niece was screaming. My brother was screaming. My mother was screaming. My sister was screaming. Our cleaning lady was screaming.

No Not That.

Yes that. I'm breaking it and I'm going to break more. I'm breaking. I'm breaking. Breaking.

The police arrived and handcuffed me.

They took me to Pinel, the public psychiatric hospital.

Why did you break everything?

I broke everything because I'm made of shards. When the shards invite me to, I wreak havoc.

Highly recommended.
4 stars… (mere)

Rodrigo de Souza Leão presents an amazing journey into the mind of a schizophrenic in a Brazilian mental institution. There are descriptions of the strange behaviors of his fellow patients and the staff, the hash medical procedures, the effects of a large of medications, the (mostly) comforting visits of his family, and the “friends” who inhabit his imagination.

Through it all there are passages of poetic lucidity.

It took me a long time to read this short novel because I kept going back and re-reading passages like this:

“I was possessed by a fertile spirit of modern madness, one that had helped twentieth-century poetry many times and had put contemporary literature in its rightful place.”

Or this:

“I hope that when the Big Bang happens, a spaceship full of earthlings will be shot into outer space, taking at least one Van Gogh painting with it.”

Amazing writing.… (mere)