What do you think?
Rate this book
Bedlam
Not yet published
Expected 14 Jul 26I did not write my life, and therefore cannot tell you in simple terms what happened to effect such change.
I have left that task to the images that have fallen from my fingers since my youth.
I have let them fall, so that one day they might be picked up.
My pictures describe me correctly. Jennifer Higgie In 1842 an English artist accompanied a former mayor on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Within a year he had become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris and murdered his beloved father, believing him to be an impostor. Bedlam is a novel inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London's Bethlem Hospital – more commonly known as Bedlam. Higgie's prose is fragmentary yet lucid, and the novel evokes the inextricable beauty and terror of Dadd's sensory journey, while raising some of the philosophical questions it poses about art, language and other minds. Bedlam is a mystery story in which we search for clues as to how an individual might go from precocious talent to parricide. Oliver Harris, Times Literary Supplement Jennifer Higgie is co-Editor and staff writer of frieze magazine. She is the editor of Art and Humour published by the Whitechapel Gallery, London and MIT Press. She also wrote the screenplay for the feature film I Really Hate My Job , which will be on general release in 2007.
I have left that task to the images that have fallen from my fingers since my youth.
I have let them fall, so that one day they might be picked up.
My pictures describe me correctly. Jennifer Higgie In 1842 an English artist accompanied a former mayor on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Within a year he had become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris and murdered his beloved father, believing him to be an impostor. Bedlam is a novel inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London's Bethlem Hospital – more commonly known as Bedlam. Higgie's prose is fragmentary yet lucid, and the novel evokes the inextricable beauty and terror of Dadd's sensory journey, while raising some of the philosophical questions it poses about art, language and other minds. Bedlam is a mystery story in which we search for clues as to how an individual might go from precocious talent to parricide. Oliver Harris, Times Literary Supplement Jennifer Higgie is co-Editor and staff writer of frieze magazine. She is the editor of Art and Humour published by the Whitechapel Gallery, London and MIT Press. She also wrote the screenplay for the feature film I Really Hate My Job , which will be on general release in 2007.
- GenresArt
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
84 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 21, 2013
"My head is so full of terrible thoughts that at times I have truly doubted my own reason. I have begun to believe that paintings are not imaginary things, while the world I move through is constructed entirely from shadows."
In 1842 painter Richard Dadd toured Europe and the Middle East. In Egypt he becomes an Osiris worshipper, then returns home to London, stabs his father to death and gets locked up in Bedlam. All true - except maybe the bit about Osiris, but then, this is a novel. And a damn fine one that reads like an extended prose poem at times. Desirable as this hardback is though, with its stark grey boards and silver edge painting, the book deserves a wider audience. Why haven't Dedalus republished this as a paperback? It's got their style all over it. Get to it chaps and chapesses.
In 1842 painter Richard Dadd toured Europe and the Middle East. In Egypt he becomes an Osiris worshipper, then returns home to London, stabs his father to death and gets locked up in Bedlam. All true - except maybe the bit about Osiris, but then, this is a novel. And a damn fine one that reads like an extended prose poem at times. Desirable as this hardback is though, with its stark grey boards and silver edge painting, the book deserves a wider audience. Why haven't Dedalus republished this as a paperback? It's got their style all over it. Get to it chaps and chapesses.
June 14, 2016
Über das titelgebende berühmte Irrenhaus in London wird kaum ewas gesagt, dennoch sind die Eindrücke die Dadd, bei der Reise durch Europa bis nach Ägypten beschreibt sehr einprägsam.
Read
October 17, 2016propably an excellent painter but a sad sad story
Read
December 6, 2016a strange and very sad story
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews