Girl, Interrupted

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid”- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.

I actually believe these lines. I mentioned in my first post that I was going to talk about books, so this post is about a book that I absolutely love and I am going to try to make you fall in love with it too!

“Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe, life is. Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child for ever.”

-This is from a hauntingly beautiful tale that is, Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. It’s a memoir of the writer’s stay at a psychiatric hospital after she attempted suicide at the age of eighteen.

I am sort of at a loss as to how to describe this book and the emotions it has provoked within me. I guess the best word I can come up with is unsettling. But probably not for the reasons you would imagine. I think that the reason why so many people find this book so haunting is that they can’t help but compare themselves to the writer. Well, I certainly did and I think that is what has left me so unnerved. I was strikingly similar to the writer and that, honestly scared me.

This book is beautiful and strange and thought provoking. It somehow irrationally felt as close to me as some crazy friend. The author at once seemed to be a part of me that hadn’t been able to speak yet, and at the same time felt like a complete stranger who frightened yet compelled me. I first read this book when I was thirteen and since then I’ve returned to it, time and again and each time I’ve discovered new truths and new absurdities. It so curiously and accurately exposes the truths of a mind in distress and questioning of a young lady who is growing and learning.

This tale is so raw with emotion. It is so honest and plain simple. Kaysen takes us through her journey in a loony bin, in short snippets of chapters. I love her writing. It’s so bold, so crisp, so concise and totally unforgiving. She carefully uses it to give names to faces and to make us understand who were labelled as crazy. If you read this, I promise you’ll be left dazzled by her talent, crushed by her truth, and plain giggly by the absurdities of the situations she has created.

To me, reading this book was very cathartic. It made me cry at night and laugh till my stomach hurt, but most importantly I’ve learned things about myself that I never knew.

I will recommend this book to anyone to give a try, because I believe that what you discover in it speaks not only of the book but of who you are as a reader. I conclude with some beautiful words from the book-
“Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have had the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was crazy. Maybe it was the 60’s. Or maybe I was just a girl…..interrupted.”

P.s: There is also a movie based on this book but I, personally ( like all the readers) think that the book is so much better than the movie.