Currently Reading: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Quickening Maze


The Quickening Maze is set in the English countryside, in an asylum for the troubled and insane in the mid 1800's.  The romantic decay of the mind, contrasted with wildness of nature, in which famous poets of the era are characters - sign me up!  Even the title is suggestive, poetic, romantic, and half-mad.  But if you like all of these things you may be disappointed in this book.

The story follows the Allen family, owners of the asylum, upon the arrival of Mr. Alfred Tennyson, the poet, and his older brother who takes up residence in the asylum.  The story does not have much of a strong central plot, though there is certainly a traceable arc.  The story is variously narrated by Mr. Allen, his 17 year old daughter Hannah, John Clare, an older poet and resident of the asylum, and a woman named Margaret who has been at the asylum for some time.  The two male characters and the two female characters are easily comparable in their actual and potential life experiences, though I'm not sure to what end.

It just never lived up to the potential.  The characters were not as interesting as they should have been.  The Mr. Allen and his family felt like caricatures and never really came alive on the page.  Alfred Tennyson was a bit boring, and not nearly as poetic as I had hoped.  The crazy characters, John Clare and Margaret were the most interesting:  Margaret with her delusions related to Christianity and her abuse at the hands of her husband, John Clare with his disillusionment with the modern world and his experiences with the Gypsies.  But they were not interesting enough to make this a book I would recommend to anyone.  It wasn't terrible - just disappointing.

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