Bedlam Burning

Rating:
Summary: Witty and Clever
Review: Geoff Nicholson's Bedlam Burning is a cleverly-told story about, Michael Smith, an attractive 23 year-old British man, who allows a less-better looking acquaintance of his from University (they met at a book burning party), Gregory Collins, use his photo on the book jacket of Gregory's first novel. Michael, masquerading as Gregory at a book reading, is offered a position in a psychiatric clinic as a writer-in-residence, part of the therapy for those being treated there. Bedlam Burning is also a witty examination of what it is to read, what it is to write, who, and how much, we can believe. Michael almost immediately begins getting submissions from everyone at the clinic. As he ruminates on these submissions, you may wonder, who is really writing these? Can you believe it at all? Gregory keeps coming back into Michael's life, complicating things, but allowing Nicholson to give us more ruminations on the nature of writing, authorship and reading. The novel is engaging, humorous and witty. The characters are just that--characters. The story moves along fairly quickly and it works. An enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Not A Book That I'd Want To Burn
Review: Michael Smith is a man who is convinced that he is your pretty decent, average sort of guy with absolutely no outstanding talents either positive or negative. However, that is not enough to stop him from having an extraordinary adventure. In 1974, when he attends a "book-burning" party of an eccentric old college professor, Smith meets Gregory Collins, the epitome of a loser and a self-proclaimed writer-wannabe. However, when Collins actually succeeds in acquiring a publication deal for a bizarre novel, he calls on his old acquaintance, Smith, to help him out by posing for him on the author-jacket to improve sales by making the author seem attractive. Amusedly, Smith agrees. When events take a surprising turn and Gregory Collins is asked to do a reading for his book, he is left no option but to call on Smith again. And again, Smith comes to his aid. It is at this reading that Smith meets, Alicia, an attractive young female psychiatrist. She wants to hire him to work at the Kincaid Clinic (a lunatic asylum) as a writer-in-residence to inspire the patients to pour out their thoughts and feelings through the catharsis of penning them. Desperate to remove himself from his own trite job and London life, and eager to be in the vicinity of the attractive Alicia, Smith agrees, carrying his duplicity even further.

Under these circumstances, Michael Smith cannot possibly be expecting a typical sort of reception. However, when he finds himself wading through thousands of pages of anagrams, trivia, sex-and-violence stories, football matches, and spiritual enlightenment guides, even he finds himself overwhelmed. When his boss responds to his gesture of furnishing the patients' library by tearing the covers off of all the books, he begins to feel a certain amount of concern over his current situation. The inmates come in varying degrees of catatonia, hyperactivity, psychosis, and antisocial, yet how can he resist Alicia's fulfilling--even if strange--sexual encounters? And how can he escape from his scheme, when the entire clinic is counting on him to publish an anthology of their creative writing efforts?

The first one hundred pages of this book were absolutely hysterical. The plot was funny, engaging, and never dragged on with non-essential details. It was very fast-paced and did not take long to read. However, I found the parts detailing Alicia's sex with Michael, which described her coprophemia (arousal by spouting verbal and graphic obscenities) to be a bit over-the-top. At times, the plot seemed to get a little far-fetched and unbelievable beyond the point of satire. Some people might find the book irreverent in its treatment of the mentally ill (the concept of the so-called Kincaidian therapy being quite laughable itself). However, this novel was unlike anything I had read in quite a while. The characters were very well-developed, Michael Smith was very likeable, as the self-assured yet blundering narrator, and whenever Gregory Collins appeared on the scene you were rolling your eyes. A certain amount of wry amusement is warranted as you find that you ought to have guessed what was coming next in this corkscrew plot. In the end, Geoff Nicholson does manage to very cleverly reign in all of the chaos he produces and give us a conclusive--if not somewhat tidy--finale.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, funny, clever
Review: This is a very, very funny book. The other reviews were pretty accurate, the one thing I will add is there is quite a bit of British humor...non-Brits might not get all the jokes! But don't let this put you off, the book is very amusing and has a couple of clever plot twists too.