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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
Istina Mavet, the narrator, is a young woman living in first one, then another, then the first, mental hospital in New Zealand. She narrates over about 9 years.
I struggled with the first few chapters, as I could not see where this book was going. But where could it go? Once I let myself look at it as a novelized memoir instead of a novel story I began to enjoy it. The narrator is classically unreliable. We don't know why she is in the hospital, and we don't know why she is transferred (twice). We don't know why she is sent back after a brief time at home. We don't know her diagnosis, we don't know what she does when "naughty". But the reader feels for her--her own confusion about what she has done wrong and why she has to stay, why she is moved from ward to ward (leaving the reader confused too), why anyone is there (other than the woman who murdered her baby decades earlier—she would most likely be there for postpartum psychosis, still), her anxiety and fear caused by EST and the threat of another treatment. The electroshock treatments seem to make her worse--at least in her mind, she seems to become more paranoid, anxious, and scared.
A very interesting book. Frame spent some time in NZ mental hospital(s), so had a unique perspective when writing this book. Which makes me curious how much is autobiographical (the fear of EST? the confusion of why she is there?), how much of this actually happened to her, and how much is truly fictional.
I struggled with the first few chapters, as I could not see where this book was going. But where could it go? Once I let myself look at it as a novelized memoir instead of a novel story I began to enjoy it. The narrator is classically unreliable. We don't know why she is in the hospital, and we don't know why she is transferred (twice). We don't know why she is sent back after a brief time at home. We don't know her diagnosis, we don't know what she does when "naughty". But the reader feels for her--her own confusion about what she has done wrong and why she has to stay, why she is moved from ward to ward (leaving the reader confused too), why anyone is there (other than the woman who murdered her baby decades earlier—she would most likely be there for postpartum psychosis, still), her anxiety and fear caused by EST and the threat of another treatment. The electroshock treatments seem to make her worse--at least in her mind, she seems to become more paranoid, anxious, and scared.
A very interesting book. Frame spent some time in NZ mental hospital(s), so had a unique perspective when writing this book. Which makes me curious how much is autobiographical (the fear of EST? the confusion of why she is there?), how much of this actually happened to her, and how much is truly fictional.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
First Read (July 4 2019) 3 stars
Frame's prose is incredibly beautiful and there were many passages that stopped me in my tracks with their brutal beauty and truth. I also really appreciated such a direct and honest look at institutions of the time which seemed to really hold nothing back. The negative impression of the institution as well as the theorized reasons behind these awful conditions came across very clearly, but without feeling like a non-fiction antipsychiatry text. I did feel like there was something missing from this text that I can't quite put my finger on. I'm not sure how to phrase this, but I think it's the way her day-to-day life was narrated there. There wasn't enough of a big picture perspective to get an idea of what her overall time there was like (i.e. it wasn't as frequently reflective as other texts on this subject), but there also wasn't enough detail about particular moments in time or her day-to-day life to feel realistic. It was somewhere between a macro and micro perspective, never really leaning strongly to one or other so that the end result was left feeling a bit blurred. I also thought it was a bit of an odd choice to offer none of Istina's backstory whatsoever. So overall I felt like something was a bit off about this work, but the prose is beautiful and the message was very important and well told.
Second read (July 19 2020) 4 stars
I enjoyed this more on the second read! It may be because I'm returning to this after having read her autobiography, An Angel at my Table, which details the context surrounding her institutionalization. While her lack of context in Faces in the Water is important to how she told her story, I'll admit that it made me feel in the dark while reading last week - which, I suppose, is part of the point. But it made for a more clear read having more information. And this time, the lack of information about her day to day actually added to the work for me, because so much of it must have been a blur and, in any case, not narrating it is part of the work's meaning. Frame has a unique way of storytelling where you feel both so intimately close to the language but so distant from the events and core of the story, it's a really intellectually stimulating read.
Frame's prose is incredibly beautiful and there were many passages that stopped me in my tracks with their brutal beauty and truth. I also really appreciated such a direct and honest look at institutions of the time which seemed to really hold nothing back. The negative impression of the institution as well as the theorized reasons behind these awful conditions came across very clearly, but without feeling like a non-fiction antipsychiatry text. I did feel like there was something missing from this text that I can't quite put my finger on. I'm not sure how to phrase this, but I think it's the way her day-to-day life was narrated there. There wasn't enough of a big picture perspective to get an idea of what her overall time there was like (i.e. it wasn't as frequently reflective as other texts on this subject), but there also wasn't enough detail about particular moments in time or her day-to-day life to feel realistic. It was somewhere between a macro and micro perspective, never really leaning strongly to one or other so that the end result was left feeling a bit blurred. I also thought it was a bit of an odd choice to offer none of Istina's backstory whatsoever. So overall I felt like something was a bit off about this work, but the prose is beautiful and the message was very important and well told.
Second read (July 19 2020) 4 stars
I enjoyed this more on the second read! It may be because I'm returning to this after having read her autobiography, An Angel at my Table, which details the context surrounding her institutionalization. While her lack of context in Faces in the Water is important to how she told her story, I'll admit that it made me feel in the dark while reading last week - which, I suppose, is part of the point. But it made for a more clear read having more information. And this time, the lack of information about her day to day actually added to the work for me, because so much of it must have been a blur and, in any case, not narrating it is part of the work's meaning. Frame has a unique way of storytelling where you feel both so intimately close to the language but so distant from the events and core of the story, it's a really intellectually stimulating read.
I bought this from a charity shop about three years ago and I have been meaning to read it for even longer than that. Now, on a day that was so hot and humid I felt like I couldn't concentrate on anything complicated, I picked this up. That wasn't my best decision (it's not an easy book to read by any stretch of the imagination) but I did find this an enjoyable book to read. Maybe not enjoyable, maybe interesting.
This book is a fictional account of the author's life in mental institutions in New Zealand. It was published in the 1960s and tells the story of a woman in her twenties go in and out of two different mental institutions. She also suffers under treatments of the time, like Electric Shock Therapy and lobotomies.
This book reinforced my fear of historical mental institutions (I don't know enough about modern ones to say anything, only that I hope they are far better regulated). The constant lack of control over what was happening to you and where you were going (the main character was moved from ward to ward seemingly without reason), the fact that none of the doctors or nurses seemed to understand how big an effect environment and personal treatment can have such a big effect on someone's mental health and how Doctor Howell was notable as a doctor because he had the radical idea that the patients he was treating were humans.
Istina's view on how the nurses treated the 'hopeless' cases who no one saw as animals in a zoo rather than human beings echoed our views and I liked how Istina was brutally honest about how she saw these nurses, who had no more compassion for their patients, if they ever had. It was the fear of the treatments that Istina spent most of her time thinking of. First it was ESTs where most of her life in the first place revolved around avoiding these treatments and when you realise that nurses could recommend people for these treatments because they disobeyed orders or were 'difficult', you could see why she was so terrified.
And then there were lobotomies where people are told they are going to get a whole new personality (basically saying the one they have at the moment is no good) and Istina worries she is going to have one of them, especially when she sees the effects the operation has on people she knows. When you learn that the author was going to have the same treatment, apart from the fact that it turned out her novel won a prestigious literary prize, which was the only reason she didn't have the operation, you can see she is truly writing what she knows. Apart from the fear and the lack of control, it's the daily humiliations which Istina hates, like having nurses watch her use the toilet and being told to stop worrying about having no pants, there were no men around. I felt such sympathy for her, as even 'nice' nurses didn't see anything wrong with these actions and seemed to regard the patients objecting to such things as them being 'difficult'.
I've been putting this book off for a while because I felt like I needed to be the right mood for it. And I sort of regret that, but at the same time, reading this book when I was physically uncomfortable (thanks heatwave) seemed to fit very well with Istina's mental and physical discomfort.
The writing style was also very easy to devour half of the book in one sitting. I will say that sometimes the timeline, whether Istina was at home or at the mental institution, sometimes confused me.
Definitely recommend. 4.5 stars!
This book is a fictional account of the author's life in mental institutions in New Zealand. It was published in the 1960s and tells the story of a woman in her twenties go in and out of two different mental institutions. She also suffers under treatments of the time, like Electric Shock Therapy and lobotomies.
This book reinforced my fear of historical mental institutions (I don't know enough about modern ones to say anything, only that I hope they are far better regulated). The constant lack of control over what was happening to you and where you were going (the main character was moved from ward to ward seemingly without reason), the fact that none of the doctors or nurses seemed to understand how big an effect environment and personal treatment can have such a big effect on someone's mental health and how Doctor Howell was notable as a doctor because he had the radical idea that the patients he was treating were humans.
Istina's view on how the nurses treated the 'hopeless' cases who no one saw as animals in a zoo rather than human beings echoed our views and I liked how Istina was brutally honest about how she saw these nurses, who had no more compassion for their patients, if they ever had. It was the fear of the treatments that Istina spent most of her time thinking of. First it was ESTs where most of her life in the first place revolved around avoiding these treatments and when you realise that nurses could recommend people for these treatments because they disobeyed orders or were 'difficult', you could see why she was so terrified.
And then there were lobotomies where people are told they are going to get a whole new personality (basically saying the one they have at the moment is no good) and Istina worries she is going to have one of them, especially when she sees the effects the operation has on people she knows. When you learn that the author was going to have the same treatment, apart from the fact that it turned out her novel won a prestigious literary prize, which was the only reason she didn't have the operation, you can see she is truly writing what she knows. Apart from the fear and the lack of control, it's the daily humiliations which Istina hates, like having nurses watch her use the toilet and being told to stop worrying about having no pants, there were no men around. I felt such sympathy for her, as even 'nice' nurses didn't see anything wrong with these actions and seemed to regard the patients objecting to such things as them being 'difficult'.
I've been putting this book off for a while because I felt like I needed to be the right mood for it. And I sort of regret that, but at the same time, reading this book when I was physically uncomfortable (thanks heatwave) seemed to fit very well with Istina's mental and physical discomfort.
The writing style was also very easy to devour half of the book in one sitting. I will say that sometimes the timeline, whether Istina was at home or at the mental institution, sometimes confused me.
Definitely recommend. 4.5 stars!
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
dark
Janet Frame's Faces in the Water was a book club pick for January, and a book which I had not expected to love quite as much as I did. Whilst I have wanted to read it for years, it is a tome which has so far evaded me in bookshops and the like; I had to resort to the Internet to find a copy of it.
From the outset, I was immediately captivated. We are effectively living inside protagonist Istina Mavet's head, as she negotiates the mental hospital in which she is incarcerated. As this account is based upon Frame's own experiences, there is an added edge of horror to the whole. Frame's writing is striking and beguiling, and every sentence is memorable: 'I will write about the season of peril. I was put in hospital because a great gap opened in the ice floe between myself and the other people whom I watched, with their world, drifting away through a violet-coloured sea where hammerhead sharks in tropical ease swam side by side with the seals and the polar bears'. Istina's voice is sharp, and her ideas verge upon the theatrical: 'I was not yet civilized; I traded my safety for the glass beads of fantasy', and 'I swallowed a stream of stars; it was easy...'.
Frame's account is vividly appealing particularly when she discusses the outside world, which is barred to Istina and her peers, and the whole is so well paced - for instance, the passage in which Istina discusses the dangers left behind 'all the doors which lead to and from the world'. There is a dreamlike element ever-present within, and one can pick out nods to various fairytales and other childhood stories too: '... I dream and cannot wake, and I am cast over the cliff and hang there by two fingers that are danced and trampled on by the Giant unreality'.
Despite this, Istina is still poignant and to the point - as well as unarguably chilling - when discussing the doctors and nurses who walk the corridors of the hospital: 'Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime'.
As readers, we are immediately aware of the never-ending, and frankly terrifying, cycle of waiting for Electroshock Therapy every day. Frame really pulls the innards of the institution out to be looked at by us, the outsiders, who do not have to live with the consequences of being deemed unsafe within the wide society. She lays the life of the mental hospital bare; yes, there is an element of retrospect and historical contextualisation at play here, but it does not serve to make the scenes which Istina describes any less appalling.
The stream-of-consciousness style of narration, as well as the use of fragmented prose and fractured memories, allow the story to come through in all of its horror. Istina is fascinatingly complex, and oh-so-real. The novel itself is stunning and hard-hitting, and not one which can be read lightly, or without dedication from the reader. Faces in the Water is undeniably intense, and reading it is, at points, decidedly exhausting, but when an author reminds you this much of the utterly wonderful Shirley Jackson, you know that you really should read her entire back catalogue as soon as you are able to get your hands on it.
From the outset, I was immediately captivated. We are effectively living inside protagonist Istina Mavet's head, as she negotiates the mental hospital in which she is incarcerated. As this account is based upon Frame's own experiences, there is an added edge of horror to the whole. Frame's writing is striking and beguiling, and every sentence is memorable: 'I will write about the season of peril. I was put in hospital because a great gap opened in the ice floe between myself and the other people whom I watched, with their world, drifting away through a violet-coloured sea where hammerhead sharks in tropical ease swam side by side with the seals and the polar bears'. Istina's voice is sharp, and her ideas verge upon the theatrical: 'I was not yet civilized; I traded my safety for the glass beads of fantasy', and 'I swallowed a stream of stars; it was easy...'.
Frame's account is vividly appealing particularly when she discusses the outside world, which is barred to Istina and her peers, and the whole is so well paced - for instance, the passage in which Istina discusses the dangers left behind 'all the doors which lead to and from the world'. There is a dreamlike element ever-present within, and one can pick out nods to various fairytales and other childhood stories too: '... I dream and cannot wake, and I am cast over the cliff and hang there by two fingers that are danced and trampled on by the Giant unreality'.
Despite this, Istina is still poignant and to the point - as well as unarguably chilling - when discussing the doctors and nurses who walk the corridors of the hospital: 'Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime'.
As readers, we are immediately aware of the never-ending, and frankly terrifying, cycle of waiting for Electroshock Therapy every day. Frame really pulls the innards of the institution out to be looked at by us, the outsiders, who do not have to live with the consequences of being deemed unsafe within the wide society. She lays the life of the mental hospital bare; yes, there is an element of retrospect and historical contextualisation at play here, but it does not serve to make the scenes which Istina describes any less appalling.
The stream-of-consciousness style of narration, as well as the use of fragmented prose and fractured memories, allow the story to come through in all of its horror. Istina is fascinatingly complex, and oh-so-real. The novel itself is stunning and hard-hitting, and not one which can be read lightly, or without dedication from the reader. Faces in the Water is undeniably intense, and reading it is, at points, decidedly exhausting, but when an author reminds you this much of the utterly wonderful Shirley Jackson, you know that you really should read her entire back catalogue as soon as you are able to get your hands on it.
Although it's a very important document of the treatment of mentally ill people, and although some sentences are mind blowingly beautiful this book is very meandering. It's just over 200 pages but still it felt like it just wouldn't end. (But then again, maybe that's cause I read this book in snippets over such a long time.)
If you're into interesting language and plot isn't very important to you then I would definitely give this book a shot.
If you're into interesting language and plot isn't very important to you then I would definitely give this book a shot.