Review by constantine2020 - Faces in the Water

constantine2020 's review for:

Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

3.5

dark tense slow-paced

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ½

Genre: Classic + Literary Fiction

Faces in the Water tackles mental illness. It is the story of Istina Mavet who is committed to a psychiatric hospital called Cliffhaven. It is about her surviving that place. Her interaction with doctors, nurses, and other patients. As readers, we have no idea about her life prior to being committed to this hospital. We just get a glimpse of her past life that she used to be a teacher and had lost her grip on reality.

This is the second novel for the author and to know that the author has gone through the same hardships as the main character in this novel is fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Janet Frame was hospitalized for being schizophrenic. The hospital officials were about to do a lobotomy for her but they stopped when they knew she won a literary award. The procedure was canceled and then she was released later.

The author must have included a lot of her own experience in this story. But we don’t know the degree that Janet represented herself in Istina. This book was difficult to read. One is because it keeps you in tension all the time as you have to go through the awful procedures these patients were going through. It will make you feel uncomfortable the least. Maybe disturbed also for knowing that mental institutions were using such kinds of therapy for the patients. The second reason is that the writing was tough. I don’t know why but my mind and focus kept drifting. I’m not sure if the subject of the writing was the reason for this or the writing itself. Overall, this was a good difficult read. I wouldn’t call it enjoyable because I don’t see anybody enjoying characters going through electroconvulsive therapy and other horrible procedures that were used at those times!

Content Warnings