Blind Reason

Rating:
Summary: Blind Reason Is Outstanding
Review: Blind Reason (BR) is a great read; no doubt about it. But, I think the author is holding out on us. This is supposedly a first novel! One of the great difficulties of any medium is the control of large forms; that rarely comes easily. The magnificent poet is not necessarily a great novelist. A great novel, though it be written with poetic prose, is not necessarily written by a great poet: BR is just what it needs to be. If, indeed, BR is a first novel, the talent for novels springs as Aphrodite, full grown from the mind of Zeus.
The sense of time in architecture is wonderful; when something happens is as important as what happens. All things have there just temporal proportion: nothing is too early, and nothing is too late. This sens eof timeing maybe be the most illusive of all artistic parameters.
The particular level of realism is one that could only be acheived now. We live in very scary times, and I don't mean alleged Islamic terrorists. I mean the US government, which has become a clear and present danger to all life on this planet; that, and the corporate structures to which it is completely beholden. Any intelligent reader should be able to see that within this enraging story there is as much truth as poetry. That said, the novel wears its cerebral mantle lightly. In fact, it wears all its mantles lightly, and that is exactly one of its greatest charms. Structure that calls attention to itself is defficient in art, and BR does none of that.
I certainly did not skim through this book, but read rather deliberately and slowly, simply because I liked the language and details. Some uses of language invite racing through, because the words don't really matter; other uses invite lapping up the the words and savoring them. Blind Reason invites the latter.
There is a reduction of material to the essential, so that at no point where some development is needed is there a feeling of inessentialness, i.e., all words count. The additions to the basic English prose of German, Italian and French is fun itself. Griffon doesn't talk down to readers, nor does she talk up. It's that kind of intricate balance that pervades the novel, multiply. Along with the balances are always the tensions: simply put, you awalys want to know what happens next - and speaking of that, somehow, the author speaks, in a not quite omniscient narrator's mask, sympathetically of all characters - even the arch villain. The character of Moriarty in A.C. Doyle comes to mind. There is a decided respect for the power of evil, as in reality there should be. There may be a message here, but first, BR is a novel; the rest is for you to figure out.
I simply get get over the "first novel" bit, since Blind Reason deftly avoids all the pitfalls of going to large structures before being ready. In one way or another, the author was clearly ready, down to no overworked words, and a nice variation in sentence length. She hasn't fallen victim to a given style, but rather creates a lean one, devoid of self indulgence, in her own voice.
Overall, the structural things that I like most are the senses of timing, balance, and balance of tensions. On the entertainment level, it's a wonderful romp and great fun; under that is an expose' of several of the great sicknesses of what for some reason is often referred to as post modern civilization. What's next? "post post modern"?
Personally, as a kind of icing on the cake, I happen to like the detailed attention to food. I was waiting for *the* great recipe for Fettucini Alfredo - fortunately, I already know it :-) Anybody who uses a chiffonade d'herbes with lamb, and actually knows what it means! - get *my* vote. :-) Blind Reason is a well constructed novel, with many kinds of interests, poetry and truth. It is entertaining, thoughtful and informative; Griffon clearly did her homework on pharmaceuticals. Brava! Encore!

Rating:
Summary: Blind Reason - All Systems Go
Review: Blind Reason (BR) is a great read; no doubt about it. But, I think the author is holding out on us. This is supposedly a first novel! One of the great difficulties of any medium is the control of large forms; that rarely comes easily. The magnificent poet is not necessarily a great novelist. A great novel, though it be written with poetic prose, is not necessarily written by a great poet: BR is just what it needs to be. If, indeed, BR is a first novel, the talent for novels springs as Aphrodite, full grown from the mind of Zeus.
The sense of time in architecture is wonderful; when something happens is as important as what happens. All things have there just temporal proportion: nothing is too early, and nothing is too late. This sens eof timeing maybe be the most illusive of all artistic parameters.
The particular level of realism is one that could only be acheived now. We live in very scary times, and I don't mean alleged Islamic terrorists. I mean the US government, which has become a clear and present danger to all life on this planet; that, and the corporate structures to which it is completely beholden. Any intelligent reader should be able to see that within this enraging story there is as much truth as poetry. That said, the novel wears its cerebral mantle lightly. In fact, it wears all its mantles lightly, and that is exactly one of its greatest charms. Structure that calls attention to itself is defficient in art, and BR does none of that.
I certainly did not skim through this book, but read rather deliberately and slowly, simply because I liked the language and details. Some uses of language invite racing through, because the words don't really matter; other uses invite lapping up the the words and savoring them. Blind Reason invites the latter.
There is a reduction of material to the essential, so that at no point where some development is needed is there a feeling of inessentialness, i.e., all words count. The additions to the basic English prose of German, Italian and French is fun itself. Griffon doesn't talk down to readers, nor does she talk up. It's that kind of intricate balance that pervades the novel, multiply. Along with the balances are always the tensions: simply put, you awalys want to know what happens next - and speaking of that, somehow, the author speaks, in a not quite omniscient narrator's mask, sympathetically of all characters - even the arch villain. The character of Moriarty in A.C. Doyle comes to mind. There is a decided respect for the power of evil, as in reality there should be. There may be a message here, but first, BR is a novel; the rest is for you to figure out.
I simply get get over the "first novel" bit, since Blind Reason deftly avoids all the pitfalls of going to large structures before being ready. In one way or another, the author was clearly ready, down to no overworked words, and a nice variation in sentence length. She hasn't fallen victim to a given style, but rather creates a lean one, devoid of self indulgence, in her own voice.
Overall, the structural things that I like most are the senses of timing, balance, and balance of tensions. On the entertainment level, it's a wonderful romp and great fun; under that is an expose' of several of the great sicknesses of what for some reason is often referred to as post modern civilization. What's next? "post post modern"?
Personally, as a kind of icing on the cake, I happen to like the detailed attention to food. I was waiting for *the* great recipe for Fettucini Alfredo - fortunately, I already know it :-) Anybody who uses a chiffonade d'herbes with lamb, and actually knows what it means! - get *my* vote. :-) Blind Reason is a well constructed novel, with many kinds of interests, poetry and truth. It is entertaining, thoughtful and informative; Griffon clearly did her homework on pharmaceuticals. Brava! Encore!

Rating:
Summary: Blind Reason Is Outstanding
Review: Blind Reason is racy, raw, and relentlessly readable. Plus it's reason enough to swear off all prescription drugs forever! Griffon tells a masterful tale of suspense and paranoia. It's compulsively readable. I was up for 2 nights because I simply couldn't put it down. Blind Reason would be the perfect present for anyone who has ever believed in the corruption of big business. Way to go, Griffon!

Rating:
Summary: Paxil withdrawal suit plaintiff turns novelist
Review: Blind Reason is the first novel published by Paxil withdrawal suit plaintiff Patricia Griffon. The novel was written during a period of time in the late '90s when the author says she was going through a difficult withdrawal from taking the popular anti-anxiety/depressant drug Paxil. Blind Reason imagines a diabolical plot to reestablish the Third Reich as a political force in the Western world using a German-based pharmaceutical company's marketing of a new Prozac-like "mood brightner" Euphorin. Euphorin is to Blind Reason what Soma is to Brave New World, a drug used to help the masses forget their cares, and any notions of a living in a democratic and free society as well.

Blind Reason's heroine is Maya Warwick, a reclusive investigative journalist and writer who lives in a mountain community west of Denver and suspects there is more to the marketing campaign behind Euphorin than helping heal the emotional suffering of the masses. Maya has broken other stories about the marketing of psychiatric drugs before and her motives for her journalism are more than just informing the public. Her motives are personal. Both her parents had been the victims of a murder-suicide while one of them was under the influence of a older psychiatric drug implicated in dozens of other grisly acts of violence. Meanwhile, a close friend has recently committed suicide while taking Euphorin. Like countless thousands of other family and friends of people who committed destructive acts of violence while under the influence of psychiatric drugs, Maya simply wants to know what role the drugs might be playing the grisly murder-suicides that are likely to dominate the evening news these days.

Blind Reason works best when it sticks to the story behind the diabolical conspiracy to foment a neo-Nazi uprising in Colorado and beyond. The intrigue behind the German-based pharmaceutical giant VB Pharmaceuticals and its American-based subsidiary FetcherBurkeWinslow is what held my attention the most. Maya finds herself recruited, basically against her will, into an CIA mission to uncover the links between VB-FBW and the burgeoning neo-Nazi movement in the U.S. This is interesting material that is fun to read. Furthermore, the author inserts mention of the influence the resistance to the aggressive marketing of psychiatric drug has had on her research into her writing here. In this sense, Blind Reason is more than just another spy novel, but a literature of this resistance to the conventional wisdom of the Prozac-era, which holds that everybody has lived happily ever after since the introduction of Prozac to the market in December 1987.

Far too many words are devoted to a love triangle involving one of Maya's neighbors and an agent she meets before flying off to Germany. Both of Maya's love interests here are the kind of middle-aged male characters who make my eyes roll over. First, there's Blubbering Andrew, Maya's next door neighbor, and Handsome Agent Harry, the agent who trains our heroine in a crash course of German and waltzing. Does Maya throw herself into the arms of our dashing agent before she flies off to Germany? Does our dashing Agent Harry mindlessly abandon his job and run off to Europe to track down his new found love Maya? Does Andrew blubber over the phone about how he's missed out on his last chance to find love with Maya over the phone? Is Maya's decision on who she will ultimately take for a lover in the end conveniently provided for her by way of being seated next to her future amour on her plane ride back to Colorado? Does the sky have stars on a clear night?

After over 550 pages, Blind Reason pants and wheezes and hurls itself exhausted across the finish line. In the end the reader is subjected to a confessional group therapy session we've all seen over and over again on Oprah and all the other talk shows. No wait. Harry tells Maya, "Being with you is as close as I've come in years to feeling any human connection, or emotion. I thought that part of me was dead forever, especially after Annabella died. Thanks to you, I see now that I could feel those things again, and that's the most hope I've had in years." I hadn't heard that before.

Blind Reason is a worthy first effort for Griffon. It is a work of fiction that could have only been concocted in the mind of a person under the influence of a potent and aggressively marketed pharmacueutical drug. I found that it dragged on a little too long and the little love triangle our heroine finds herself in is little too much Harlequinn romance for me.

Rick's Scientfically certain rating: 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

-Rick Giombetti, Seattle ...

Rating:
Summary: Blind Reason more Truth than Fiction
Review: Blind Reason maybe more truth than fiction. Patricia Griffon will take you through the adventure and intrigue of the psychopharmacology development of the mysterious drug Euphorin. Global mind control, the dream of despots years ago, was finally becoming reality. One warning if you start "Blind Reason," give yourself plenty of time, as you will not be able to put the book down until the last page is read. Then you may not sleep that night.

lori

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book!
Review: I read this book in two days - had a hard time putting it aside to eat even! This book is classified as 'fiction' but contains complete truth with regard to psychotropic drugs. I would recommend Blind Reason to anyone who loves an intriguing plot.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book!
Review: I read this book in two days - had a hard time putting it aside to eat even! This book is classified as 'fiction' but contains complete truth with regard to psychotropic drugs. I would recommend Blind Reason to anyone who loves an intriguing plot.

Rating:
Summary: Move Over John Grisham
Review: Nobody prepared me for what I would find between the covers of this fantastic book. I had just finished reading King of
Torts when somone suggested Blind Reason, which made Grisham's tale of pharmaceutical corruption look like a comic book. Griffon's attention to detail is astounding; her research into the Third Reich, the Cia and the pharmaceutical industry is meticulous. The plot is fast-paced and the dialogue, on a host of subjects, is brilliant, but I was left with the haunting question of how much of what Griffon wrote is fact or fiction. The lines are definitely blurred. This is a great weekend read. Now, how can I get a date with the heroine, Maya
Warwick?

Rating:
Summary: Bonfire of the SSRIs
Review: The Bonfire of the SSRIs or Big Pharma Under Fire
Two contemporary authors have addressed the issues of the wealth and power Big Pharma wields in novel-length fiction - grandmaster John LeCarre in THE CONSTANT GARDENER and Patricia Griffon in BLIND REASON. I've read both. LeCarre is, as ever, admirable, but he himself commented, concerning TCG, that his novel is "tame as a holiday postcard". After comparison to Griffon's BLIND REASON, I absolutely agree. Reading BLIND REASON is like a series of fascinating and sometimes terrifying rides in a top-of-the-line amusement park. Sometimes it feels like a survival training course. When you disembark, both shaken and stirred, you will recognize the real-world players that the characters in BLIND REASON resemble. The masks are off.... Griffon's scope and international intrigue are wider than LeCarre's, and her characters and events arrive and explode with the speed of fireworks. LeCarre has steered clear of the dangers of talking back to Prozac by centering his issues around a fictitious TB drug tested on an unsuspecting African tribe and the diplomatic service - sets and settings both rather difficult for the contemporary reader to identify with. There may be very good reasons for this: as he recorded, a real activist in Nairobi ended up with a bullet wound in his head, and this sort of accident "can happen again". The more courageous writer, Griffon, has personal knowledge of and has researched the Prozac family of drugs and their cousins, and has presented a possible future and it is nasty. The Nazis, resurrected with hidden fortunes from WWII, have a plan for us - and in their hands, and on everyone's lips, will be drugs.... BLIND REASON is one of the few books I have read that I will return to all my life. My copy will need to be replaced in a few months. I am guilty of book-bashing and reference-writing and article-stuffing again - it's the darndest book I've ever read. Why? Griffon's purpose in writing the book - to expose the dangers of Pharma/political connections and corruption - fills in the stories between the lines in today's news reports. Why did the US government vote through a bill that protects *both* Homeland and Eli Lilly from prosecution re Thiomersol (vaccines linked to autism cases)? Because of Patricia Griffon's politically astute BLIND REASON, I think I know the *reason*. I might keep THE CONSTANT GARDENER in my guest bedroom - as a soporific - but poring over BLIND REASON has kept me awake many nights. Want a gentle mare or a sleeping pill, the predictable clockwork themes of Bach? Try LeCarre. For the ride of your life, get Griffon. BLIND REASON rocks - and may rock your world. This is Griffon's first turn as a suspense writer. I believe she will outshine Antonia Fraser, Patricia Cornwell and LeCarre (once again) in her next book, BLIND CHANCE. Break out the champagne - the belle of the ball is here! BLIND REASON is an entry in the 2003 Pulitzer Prize competition.

Also recommended: The Constant Gardener by John LeCarre