Monsieur Redacteur sent me to our local English bookshop to grab Simon Winchester's "The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary". Obviously any title with "madman", "murder", and "insanity" captures one's attention, but the story that Winchester tells of Dr. James Murray's first encounter with Dr. W.C. Minor after the latter submitted 10,000 words to the committee overseeing the making of the OED holds it.
I won't ruin the entire story by blabbing away, but the real "twist" of this book is its intimate look at the fine line between genius and madness.
In 2009 scientists found a link to genius and madness on a genetic level. The gene, called neuregulin 1 plays an important role in brain development, but a variant of the gene is linked to schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder and more importantly, creativity.
Volunteers who were more creative and had achieved more success related to their creative outputs were found to have the variant of neureglin 1. Less creative volunteers did not.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has spent four decades studying the creative process with the end conclusion that "madness" may have no role in heightening creative output. Psychologist Robert Weisberg, who studied the manic periods of composer Robert Schumann, had similar results.
When mania struck, Schumann wrote more great pieces—but he also turned out more ordinary ones, too. Mania "jacks up the energy level," Weisberg points out, "but it doesn't give the person access to ideas that he or she wouldn't have had otherwise."
It's entirely possible, Weisberg notes, that the elevated rates of mental disorders among artistic geniuses comes about as a result of the creative lifestyle, which hardly provides emotional stability. Many artists struggle against poverty and public indifference in their lifetime or if they achieve recognition it becomes a struggle to live up to their own "hype".
Dali, often considered a mad genius, had this to say: "There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.”
Strindberg, Kafka, Plath, van Gogh, Wittgenstein - all displayed "madness". Simply reading Plath's "The Bell Jar" will give you an intimate look at the link between the creative process and the tendency to self-destruct.
Dryden expressed it first and most concisely in Absalom and Achitophel, concluding his allegorical portrait of the Earl of Shaftesbury with the celebrated couplet: "Great wits are sure to madness near allied/ And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
If you'd like to do some further reading here's a list of works by "madmen" (and women):
Inferno, August Strindberg - is by far the craziest of his works.
Heaven and Hell, Emanuel Swedenborg about his ability to communicate with angels is pretty nuts too.
The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Salvador Dali's diaries/memories. It is a truly fascinating look into Dali's life and work.
The Blind Owl, Sadegh Hedayat. You can read my blog post about this book here.
Exegesis, Philip K. Dick. It's not so much a book as a filing cabinet of things he collected maniacally regarding a vision he had in 1974. Valis, was born from this bout of "madness" and may just be his best book.
Une saison en enfer, Arthur Rimbaud. He switched from absinthe to opium and gave the world this work of maddening genius.
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs. He doesn't even remember writing it.
Les Chants de Malador, Comte de Lautremont. "God grant that the reader, emboldened and having become at present as fierce as what he is reading, find, without loss of bearings, his way, his wild and treacherous passage through the desolate swamps of these sombre, poison-soaked pages; for, unless he should bring to his reading a rigorous logic and a sustained mental effort at least as strong as his distrust, the lethal fumes of this book shall dissolve his soul as water does sugar."
When Rabbit Howls, Truddi Chase. Written by a woman who was diagnose with 60+ multiple personalities.
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, William Styron. Not only did Stryon write Sophie's Choice, but his Parisian bout of madness was inspired by Strindberg's Inferno.
Do you know any other similar books to recommend?
I won't ruin the entire story by blabbing away, but the real "twist" of this book is its intimate look at the fine line between genius and madness.
In 2009 scientists found a link to genius and madness on a genetic level. The gene, called neuregulin 1 plays an important role in brain development, but a variant of the gene is linked to schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder and more importantly, creativity.
Volunteers who were more creative and had achieved more success related to their creative outputs were found to have the variant of neureglin 1. Less creative volunteers did not.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has spent four decades studying the creative process with the end conclusion that "madness" may have no role in heightening creative output. Psychologist Robert Weisberg, who studied the manic periods of composer Robert Schumann, had similar results.
When mania struck, Schumann wrote more great pieces—but he also turned out more ordinary ones, too. Mania "jacks up the energy level," Weisberg points out, "but it doesn't give the person access to ideas that he or she wouldn't have had otherwise."
It's entirely possible, Weisberg notes, that the elevated rates of mental disorders among artistic geniuses comes about as a result of the creative lifestyle, which hardly provides emotional stability. Many artists struggle against poverty and public indifference in their lifetime or if they achieve recognition it becomes a struggle to live up to their own "hype".
Dali, often considered a mad genius, had this to say: "There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.”
Strindberg, Kafka, Plath, van Gogh, Wittgenstein - all displayed "madness". Simply reading Plath's "The Bell Jar" will give you an intimate look at the link between the creative process and the tendency to self-destruct.
Dryden expressed it first and most concisely in Absalom and Achitophel, concluding his allegorical portrait of the Earl of Shaftesbury with the celebrated couplet: "Great wits are sure to madness near allied/ And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
If you'd like to do some further reading here's a list of works by "madmen" (and women):
Inferno, August Strindberg - is by far the craziest of his works.
Heaven and Hell, Emanuel Swedenborg about his ability to communicate with angels is pretty nuts too.
The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Salvador Dali's diaries/memories. It is a truly fascinating look into Dali's life and work.
The Blind Owl, Sadegh Hedayat. You can read my blog post about this book here.
Exegesis, Philip K. Dick. It's not so much a book as a filing cabinet of things he collected maniacally regarding a vision he had in 1974. Valis, was born from this bout of "madness" and may just be his best book.
Une saison en enfer, Arthur Rimbaud. He switched from absinthe to opium and gave the world this work of maddening genius.
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs. He doesn't even remember writing it.
Les Chants de Malador, Comte de Lautremont. "God grant that the reader, emboldened and having become at present as fierce as what he is reading, find, without loss of bearings, his way, his wild and treacherous passage through the desolate swamps of these sombre, poison-soaked pages; for, unless he should bring to his reading a rigorous logic and a sustained mental effort at least as strong as his distrust, the lethal fumes of this book shall dissolve his soul as water does sugar."
When Rabbit Howls, Truddi Chase. Written by a woman who was diagnose with 60+ multiple personalities.
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, William Styron. Not only did Stryon write Sophie's Choice, but his Parisian bout of madness was inspired by Strindberg's Inferno.
Do you know any other similar books to recommend?
