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The Thousand And One Nightmares Of Abdul Hussain
THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTMARES OF ABDUL HUSSAIN is intended to be not a well- engineered best- seller, but, instead, a painful analysis of the soul of a schizophrenic who feels crucifed by confinement and drugs. There is no escape from his illness, his hell, from the bleak psychiatric system that wants to convert him into a passive nobody. He absconds from a mental hospital only to be a confused, penniless vagrant on London's cruel streets.
This nervous book is about how British society can be uncaring, indeed pitiless, towards those having the misfortune of not being able to conform.
The complex, the bewildering, schisms of class and race are uneasily investigated according to the viewpoint of our schizophrenic protagonist- Abdul Hussain. He tears through the existence of others. From the stuck up daughter of a baronet, to an elderly, despairing Afro- Caribbean mental patient, even to Mephistopheles in the abyss of Hell, we discover, with as much discomfort as possible, how NORMALITY can itself be a sort of curse, a cage that does not let the spirit fly and sing. Abdul Hussain is the brittle prism through which all that is ugly and unpleasant about ourselves is refracted- and we may not wish to see how hideous our pomp and pretence may really be. Abdul is at the very nasty interface between homelessness and mental illness. His is a mind that never is secure. He wanders from crisis to crisis, and becomes ever more wounded, ever more unstable.
Here, then, is your entrance into schizophrenia. Feel entangled in its conundrums, its puzzles, its riddles, its dilemmas. These turbulent pages are a confrontation between SANITY and INSANITY- where SANITY is often the villain, and INSANITY is the martyr. Knot after knot of contradiction should encompass and enfold you.
And, in the end, it is the brutal conventional lies that must always destroy freedom, full of a sweet fragility...
This nervous book is about how British society can be uncaring, indeed pitiless, towards those having the misfortune of not being able to conform.
The complex, the bewildering, schisms of class and race are uneasily investigated according to the viewpoint of our schizophrenic protagonist- Abdul Hussain. He tears through the existence of others. From the stuck up daughter of a baronet, to an elderly, despairing Afro- Caribbean mental patient, even to Mephistopheles in the abyss of Hell, we discover, with as much discomfort as possible, how NORMALITY can itself be a sort of curse, a cage that does not let the spirit fly and sing. Abdul Hussain is the brittle prism through which all that is ugly and unpleasant about ourselves is refracted- and we may not wish to see how hideous our pomp and pretence may really be. Abdul is at the very nasty interface between homelessness and mental illness. His is a mind that never is secure. He wanders from crisis to crisis, and becomes ever more wounded, ever more unstable.
Here, then, is your entrance into schizophrenia. Feel entangled in its conundrums, its puzzles, its riddles, its dilemmas. These turbulent pages are a confrontation between SANITY and INSANITY- where SANITY is often the villain, and INSANITY is the martyr. Knot after knot of contradiction should encompass and enfold you.
And, in the end, it is the brutal conventional lies that must always destroy freedom, full of a sweet fragility...
133 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2009
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