Stanley And The Women

Rating:
Summary: A dark tale from Amis
Review: "Stanley and the Women" is a lot darker than other Amis novels. The protagonist, Stanley Duke, is a man with a lot of problems--he drinks too much, has a rather unpleasant ex-wife, self-centered, shallow actress, Nowell, a cold and brittle second wife, Susan, and a son, Steve, who goes mad one day.

Steve has always been an "underachiever." But one night, he shows up dishevelled, disoriented and mumbling something about alien invasions. While Steve descends into madness, Stanley battles with the psychiatric branch of the National Health Service. Ping-ponging between diagnoses, hospital politics, prevailing therapy theories, and psychiatrists (who--in terms of mental competency--are indistinguishable from the patients), Stanley tries to maintain the domestic status quo.

Reading this book reminded me, once again, why I love literature. This was not an upbeat or humourous read ("Lucky Jim"), but, nonetheless, I found Stanley's memories of losing a childhood acquaintance profoundly moving. How this early experience then shaped Stanley's attitudes towards the medical profession was intricately woven into the tale. The idea that one incident from childhood can set a pattern, or attitude for life gave me food for thought, and also caused me to remember a similiar incident from my own childhood that I had not thought about for many years.

Rating:
Summary: A dark tale from Amis
Review: "Stanley and the Women" is a lot darker than other Amis novels. The protagonist, Stanley Duke, is a man with a lot of problems--he drinks too much, has a rather unpleasant ex-wife, self-centered, shallow actress, Nowell, a cold and brittle second wife, Susan, and a son, Steve, who goes mad one day.

Steve has always been an "underachiever." But one night, he shows up dishevelled, disoriented and mumbling something about alien invasions. While Steve descends into madness, Stanley battles with the psychiatric branch of the National Health Service. Ping-ponging between diagnoses, hospital politics, prevailing therapy theories, and psychiatrists (who--in terms of mental competency--are indistinguishable from the patients), Stanley tries to maintain the domestic status quo.

Reading this book reminded me, once again, why I love literature. This was not an upbeat or humourous read ("Lucky Jim"), but, nonetheless, I found Stanley's memories of losing a childhood acquaintance profoundly moving. How this early experience then shaped Stanley's attitudes towards the medical profession was intricately woven into the tale. The idea that one incident from childhood can set a pattern, or attitude for life gave me food for thought, and also caused me to remember a similiar incident from my own childhood that I had not thought about for many years.

Rating:
Summary: Stan in 100 words
Review: Stanley Duke's teenage son, Steve, has gone mad. Stan is a perplexed misogynist surrounded by women - ex-wife Nowell, Trish (Steve's doctor), his wife Susan and her snotty mother. Trish, as she treats Steve, thinks and speaks in a voguish but threatening psychobabble. The diatribes of Stan and his mates against this inability to call a madman a madman - indeed, all offences against common sense - and against the strangeness of 'females' provide the most enjoyment - a coherent but increasingly extreme rage. Stan finally loses all faith in women - and Steve ends the story as mad as he began. Rating 64.2%