Karl Jaspers

In my PhD I looked at the philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers. Jaspers was important to my work, as he was medically trained in psychiatry, but held a deep interest in the cross-over between schizophrenia and creativity. His studies into the poet Friederich Holderlin and the playwright August Strindberg have been very important into my own studies into schizophrenia. Holderlin was very concerned with the world of Greek antiquity in his poetry, and through his schizophrenia, he came to believe that this world was a truly existing one. Martin Heidegger famously took an interest in the work of Holderlin, and this interest helped to ground his friendship (to an extent) with Jaspers. Strindberg, who also suffered from a deep schizophrenia, came to prominence through such plays as Miss Julie and The Father. He recorded his schizophrenic thinking in his work Inferno, and the document is important in understanding schizophrenic modes of being. Jaspers was well ahead of his time in examining these two seminal artistic figures. Even to diagnose them both as schizophrenic was ahead of its time - the diagnosis of schizophrenic cases was then, as it is now, a very controversial area of inquiry.

Jaspers gives a solid medical grounding to his work, and this gives his corpus a clarity which is invaluable into understanding creative manifestations of schizophrenia. Jaspers should be a first point of reference to anyone interested in how cultural production can be underpinned by schizophrenic processes.

Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time

There was quite an extended time, when asked who was my favourite author, I would say 'Marcel Proust'. His major work, In Search of Lost Time (also translated as Remembrance of Things Past) is a monumental work. One of the longest novels in world literature, it is an epic in a different sense to War and Peace. We might call it an aesthetic epic. This is one of the key narrative devices that Proust employs - an exploration of the arts and culture. Swann, one of the main protagonists, at one point hears a phrase from a sonata being played by a pianist at a soirée, and becomes obsessed. This concern with art is paramount for Proust. Proust had a passion for the English aesthete John Ruskin, who himself was a considerable dilettante who dedicate his life to the exploration of art. In Proust's In Search of Lost Time, people are continually being compared to classic works of art, as artists play their way around the stage of this sprawling drama. But it is a drama that is in a sense gentle and soothing (to an extent). I feel the book has a soporific quality. This normally would be said to detract from a book, but the kind of sleep it induces is one of those blissfully calm sleeps that one has a Sunday morning while it is raining outside. This brings me to the second quality of the book - and that is the poetic quality. Their are touching and moving descriptions of light playing amongst trees, wind rustling leaves, moonlight on still nights, and all the sorts of things that the poets of the ages have sung about. This combination of aesthetics and poetry makes In Search of Lost Time a powerful document. But a third ingredient elevates this text to greatness. And that is the psychological insight Proust employs to gather around his characters and their various forays into human drama. Character's words, actions and behaviours are imbued with a sharp clarity of description that gives each a wonderful human quality - a quality that all epic texts display.

Overall In Search of Lost Time stands above almost all of the great works written in the last hundred years. It is an achievement that will defy what time can bring down.

Octavio Paz

I count Octavio Paz as one of the most influential writers to my own writing that I have so far encountered. His poetry is technically proficient, inspirational and unusual enough to let him stand as one of the great poets of world literature. But his oeuvre includes so much more. Literary studies, political writing, explorations of aesthetics and art are all inclusive in this great man's contribution to world letters.

His great poem I believe is 'Sunstone'. A sprawling aesthetic vision, it takes the reader to where they most want to go - that is through the clouds and into what is beyond. My favourite prose work of Paz's is Alternating Currents. It combines thought, words and concepts in usual and delightful ways, and explores literature and art in such a bold and assured way that one is only swept along with delight.

It all started for Paz in his grandfather's library where he was able to read extensively as a young boy. The depth of his learning and poetic voice no doubt stem from this time.

Paz showed courage to resign from his post as a Mexican diplomat in protest of the deaths of Mexican students by government hands.

Paz's award of the Nobel Prize is only a small testament to his outstanding achievement. It is the assuredness of his writing, particularly of his poetry, which really strikes one. In fact even his prose has a poetic brilliance which distinguishes this man as a poet foremost (he thought so himself) and otherwise a writer of great intelligence.

Arvo Part

The Estonian composer Arvo Part has always been for me an exemplar of what can be achieved post the fragmentation and atonality of modernism. Part, in his early compositions, worked closely with the techniques of Schoenberg and the dissonance which his program encompasses. But what occurred next was to move music in a new and logical (yet undiscovered) direction. Part repatriated the tonal and harmonious, and did so still (somehow) with elements of atonality lingering in the shadows. This seems like a simple synergy of what came before with what was contemporaneous. But a successful combination of these elements had not been achieved with such popular appeal.

Pieces such as Spiegal im Spiegal give a light and harmonious dance that please the ear with their rounded and polished sounds. Alternatively, pieces such as Lamentate and Miserere almost assault the ear with a harsh brilliance that disturbs as it delights. Perhaps Part's greatest work, Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten bridges the gap, and moves with a tension and indeed ugliness that brushes the sublime and yet is grounded in the commonplace.

Part should be savoured for his achievement. He has once again allowed us to believe in beauty, but in a Baudelairian sense that touches what is uncomfortable, but still very much worth attaining.

Huysmans - A Rebours

Joris-Karl Huysmans' novel A Rebours (Against Nature) is a classic of decadent literature. Its dark pessimism (partly inspired by Schopenhauer) is striking in its literary expression. Huysmans is concerned with what is deeply ambiguous about the human condition, and the work shocks as it delights.

It was A Rebours that shot Odilon Redon to fame. It was the first time Redon's work had received such wide exposure. The reason Huysmans included Redon in his work was that it exemplified perfectly the strangeness and disconnection that Huysmans was attempting to imbue in A Rebours.

Another important figure of nineteenth century French artistic culture, Charles Baudelaire, finds his way into the pages of this beguiling text. Huysmans first work, a collection of prose poems, was said to be very much influenced by Baudelaire. As with Redon, Baudelaire gives voice to the darker side of humanity, and does so in a wonderfully extravagant literary way. Baudelaire shocked, just as Huysmans was to, and therein lies the latters interest.

Other notable figures of French letters at the time find there way into A Rebours. Stephane Mallarme is discussed at length, as is Paul Verlaine. Mallarme is much preferred by Huysmans - Verlaine is accused of being derivative. A further interesting figure to appear is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is very interesting in terms of this epoch of French writing. Most of those writing in Paris at the time were strongly influenced by Poe, and indeed Mallarme and Baudelaire were heavily indebted.

A Rebours is a momentous and meticulous work. In many respects it is encyclopedic in its knowledge of fields as diverse as Latin poetry and botany. Its attention to the smallest detail gives this work a breath that will astonish all those who read this wonderful text for the first time.

A Passed PhD

I have recently had word that my PhD has passed. The news presented a feeling of relief and satisfaction. Relief that a long journey is now at an end, and satisfaction at the obstacles I have overcome to achieve my goal.

My PhD is in the discipline of Philosophy, and examined the topic of schizophrenia. This was an important choice for me to write on schizophrenia, as I suffer from schizophrenia myself. I feel my philosophical work on schizophrenia has been given greater insight by my personal experiences into the condition.

The thesis looked at theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Karl Jaspers, Gilles Deleuze and Luce Irigaray. It also used the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger to interpret what in fact schizophrenia is.

I hope this achievement can give hope to others suffering from schizophrenia, that success in life is possible despite the impediments that schizophrenia presents.

Diary of a Schizophrenic

My book, Diary of a Schizophrenic, has recently been released as a paperback. The book was written during a schizophrenic episode I had in 1998. The first half of the book was written while I was ill, but the second half was written during the recovery which followed. I am proud of this book, for a number of reasons. Firstly it gives a positive outcome for a very negative experience. Anyone who has experienced a schizophrenic episode knows how debilitating it can be. Secondly, the initial release of the e-book, and now the paperback, occurred during my candidature for a PhD. My PhD is on schizophrenia (in philosophy), and so I thought it important to give hope to those suffering schizophrenia that success is possible after an episode. And I might add, it took some courage to go public during a degree which is so important to me.

The book is interesting because it does show the hallmarks of psychosis (delusion, avolition, anhedonia), but it is on the whole very clearly written. It delves quite extensively into literature and art, and mentions a whole host of the classics such as Homer's Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Goethe's Faust. It mentions many classic authors such as Walt Whitman and William Blake. I was about to commence my honours year at university, and my thesis was to be on Ludwig Wittgenstein, so I write quite extensively about him. Many artists are mentioned, and trips to galleries and plays detailed. Overall I would call it an aesthetic book.

Things have gone pretty well for me subsequent to this episode. I am now married with a son. My poetry has been published in a number of good journals, which you can find in other blog entries below. I have had academic articles published (again see below), and I am working and am generally enjoying life.

Now time for a bit of promotion. You can buy a copy of my book from a number of places. Amazon in the UK are selling it, as are Amazon in the US. Books on Board are selling the e-book, as are Amazon in the US (as a Kindle book). Chipmunkapublishing are the publishers of the book, and you can get copies of the paperback or e-book by going to their website. Just click on any of the above links you'll get to the respective shops. The book may also be ordered in from any bookshop.

If you choose to buy the book, I hope you enjoy it. As I said it has given a very negative experience a very positive outcome. I hope the book can work to help diminish some of the stigma surrounding mental illness in society.