no more of that."
King Lear
March Madness starts this Sunday. If you want to know more about it, check out http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/march-madness.htm. 65 (or is it 64?-so confusing) teams vying for the National Championship? I'm with King Lear on this one. May the best team win.
Merriam-Webster defines madness as: the quality or state of being mad: as
a. rage;
b.insanity;
c.extreme folly;
d. ecstasy, enthusiasm
Talk about extremes-from ecstasy to rage. We have all felt these feelings at one time or another. They are part of being a human being, and because we can identify with them they can make for a great story. In William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' all of the above named emotions show up. No wonder it is the most produced of Shakespeare's plays.
Talk to the skull 'cause the face ain't listening.
Love and madness seem to go hand in hand (see d above). One of my own personal favorite books about madness and love is Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's 'The Madness of a Seduced Woman'. The protagonist is Agnes Dempster, a high strung young girl in 1890's Vermont, who leaves her family home in the country to begin a new life in the city. Here she meets and falls in love with a young man, becoming more and more emotionally attached to the point of obsession.
Another favorite by the same author with some of the same themes is 'Time in its Flight'. This novel also takes place in Vermont in the mid-1800s. Although it is a touching story of a marriage, a big part of the story is how the family deals with the madness of a daughter after the death of her husband and baby girl in a diphtheria epidemic. I find this story fascinating because people really did go through this-whole families did die in epidemics, and still do today in some parts of the world. How do families deal with such heartache and pain?
For a different take on the them of madness read Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Or watch the movie. Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Randle McMurphy as the criminal who ends up in Nurse Ratched's psychiatric ward is a good example of be careful what you wish for. Also see Jack in 'The Shining' as he spirals out of control in that lodge in the mountains. Here's Johnny!
The last on my short list of madness books is 'A Beautiful Mind'. "The true story of John Nash, mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty when he slipped into madness, and who-thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community-emerged after decades of ghost-like existence to win a Nobel Prize and world acclaim." (from the book jacket). I confess, I didn't read the book, but I did watch the movie. A really wonderful, inspiring story of this man's triumph over mental illness.
For more on madness check out the back counter display at the library. Now I have to go fill out my bracket sheet. Happy March everybody!
