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A review by angelayoung
Playthings by Alex Pheby
3.0
I'm not politically engaged enough to have properly grasped the unearthing of the roots of the 'psychological structure of fascism' that other reviewers have suggested underpins this novel, but I am humanly and psychologically engaged and I found this deconstruction and disintegration of a human mind fascinating and horrifying. (And because Fascism, or any starkly imposed ism, can cause the mass deconstruction of human minds and attitudes, then I do understand the analogy other reviewers have drawn.)
This novel is based on the life of a German judge called Daniel Paul Schreber (whose name is unchanged in the novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Paul_Schreber. Schreber lived between 1842-1911 and suffered three mental breakdowns. When he recovered from the second one he wrote Memoirs of My Nervous Illness which was published in 1903. Freud read Schreber's Memoirs and thought Schreber should be appointed director of a mental hospital. Alex Pheby has turned Schreber's experiences into this novel.
Playthings is a disturbing fictionalisation of Schreber's mental disintegration, accompanied by his hallucinatory Jew (as he calls him) whose name is Alexander Zilberschlag (I can't help thinking that because these names mean defender and silversmith, perhaps they also mean ally and alchemist?) and I found the passages between Schreber and Zilbershlag the most compelling. Schreber thought he was turning into a woman and although - in the novel - this wasn't abundantly clear, at least it wasn't to me, there is a searing scene that suggests this delusion began at a very young age.
The other wonderful thing about this book is that it's published by Galley Beggar Press (in the UK) whose strapline is: 'A collection of quality new, contemporary and classic fiction from the British Isles'. Their existence, and the books they publish, are very good things indeed.
This novel is based on the life of a German judge called Daniel Paul Schreber (whose name is unchanged in the novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Paul_Schreber. Schreber lived between 1842-1911 and suffered three mental breakdowns. When he recovered from the second one he wrote Memoirs of My Nervous Illness which was published in 1903. Freud read Schreber's Memoirs and thought Schreber should be appointed director of a mental hospital. Alex Pheby has turned Schreber's experiences into this novel.
Playthings is a disturbing fictionalisation of Schreber's mental disintegration, accompanied by his hallucinatory Jew (as he calls him) whose name is Alexander Zilberschlag (I can't help thinking that because these names mean defender and silversmith, perhaps they also mean ally and alchemist?) and I found the passages between Schreber and Zilbershlag the most compelling. Schreber thought he was turning into a woman and although - in the novel - this wasn't abundantly clear, at least it wasn't to me, there is a searing scene that suggests this delusion began at a very young age.
The other wonderful thing about this book is that it's published by Galley Beggar Press (in the UK) whose strapline is: 'A collection of quality new, contemporary and classic fiction from the British Isles'. Their existence, and the books they publish, are very good things indeed.