Asylum

Rating:
Summary: Interesting psychologial study stops short of compelling
Review: The premise of "Asylum" is fascinating, and from the start I expected a great psycho-sexual thriller. But the novel turned out to be surprisingly tame. I kept waiting for something to happen; all the action seemed to take place in slow-motion. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace, and we gradually discover that the real action is taking place in the minds of the characters. Maybe that's what McGrath had in mind. But except for a crucial scene on a school-field trip, the novel never achieves a level of urgency.

Ultimatey we're left with a character study of varying levels of insanity, self-absorption and self-destruction. Each character suffers in his or her own way from some mental impairment or ulterior motive -- no one is completely honest or "normal," which makes for interesting reading. But in the end, I wasn't sure why Stella loved Edgar so, why she was ready to sacrifice everything for him. The author tells us how wild she is for him, rather than showing us (other than her willingness to take extreme risks). The answer seems to lie with Stella herself -- Edgar just happens to be the vessel into which she pours her emotions, frustration and rage (an unfortunate choice, being that he's a psychotic murderer). You get the feeling Stella could have taken a different path, but she would inevitably ended up in the same place sooner or later.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing psychological drama
Review: Perhaps Patrick McGrath's most celebrated novel, Asylum is an effective, suspenseful and intelligent drama about sexual obsession and depression. As with all McGrath novels, you must pay attention to who is doing the narrating, in this case psychiatrist Peter, who ultimately treats both Stella Raphael and Edgar Stark as patients in an asylum outside London. Because you are not sure of Peter's motives and entanglement in the plot throughout the novel, you never seem to completely trust the third party narrative you get from Peter, which is mostly told by him in flashback as related by his patients.

To summarize the plot, Stella is the wife of Max, a stodgy and intellectual psychiatrist and assistant superintendant of the asylum outside London where they live with their son Charlie. Early in the novel, Stella becomes infatuated with inmate Edgar Stark, who is being treated for severe mental illness culminating in the murder (and decapitation) of his wife. Stella embarks on an obsessive relationship with Stark, which, the reader is told in the opening pages, has devastating consequences. Finding out just what happens to all involved, spread out over three separate locations including the asylum, London, and a facility in North Wales, makes for some very interesting reading.

Ultimately, like some other reviewers here, I was left a little disappointed in some areas of the story. While Stella is clearly the focus of the novel, and of the narrator's attentions, I was a bit surprised that Edgar's presence in the latter half of the novel was so limited. And while I thought little Charlie and Max's mother Brenda were interesting characters, Max was so repressed and stoic as to be almost comical. I also have a hard time believing that nobody would have thought to follow Stella, in order to locate Edgar. All in all, I enjoy McGrath's writing, and look forward to digging into his latest novel, Martha Peake. He has an engrossing style that forces the reader to pay attention, as he skillfully tells his tragic tales of the grotesque in human nature.

Rating:
Summary: Tragic Story, Beautiful Writing
Review: "Asylum" was my first Patrick McGrath novel and it's so good it's definitely turned me into a total "McGrath junkie." I fully intend on reading every work of fiction this very talented man has published.

"Asylum" is the story of beautiful but damaged Stella Raphael, a woman who, it would seem, has much to live for. Stella's decisions, however, as well as her solutions to her problems, are far from the best and she caues herself and those around her both tragedy and pain.

This is a book that could have so easily spilled over into melodrama...but it didn't. McGrath's cool, highly-controlled writing keeps this book believable even at its most tragic points.

I think readers should be warned that even though "Asylum" is a masterpiece, it is a bleak, dark and depressing book. The darkness is not only unrelieved, it grows as one reads on to the ultimate, shattering end. Readers who need something lighter or a book with a "feel good" ending should probably choose something else.

While "Asylum" is a deeply psychological novel, it isn't at all claustrophobic. McGrath's choice of an (almost) impartial narrator (and one who isn't quite reliable) keeps us from ever entering Stella's mind or the mind of Edgar Stark, the madman who so cunningly takes advantage of Stella's vulnerability.

McGrath's masterful use of locale only adds to the rich atmosphere of this book. We meet Stella in high summer in the gentle landscape of southern England when she seems to "have it all." Her seedy affair and descent into depression occur in Cockney London (within the sound of Big Ben). A tragic turing point occurs on the desolate Welsh moors and the book concludes back where it began just as the chestnut trees are beginning to blossom, bringing everything full circle.

I really can't praise this book highly enough. If you like dark, melancholy, tragic novels, psychological studies (without all the psychological jargon) and wonderful, controlled writing, you will probably love "Asylum" just as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, Intense Tale of Infidelity and Sexual Obsession
Review: Set in rural England during the summer of 1959, Dr. Peter Cleave narrates the consuming affair between his disturbed patient and the wife of a fellow coworker. Stella Raphael is the straying spouse, married to a fairly successful forensic psychiatrist, Max Raphael. She meets her soon-to-be lover, Edgar Stark, when she moves with her husband and 10-year-old son (Charlie) to a nearby mental hospital, where her husband has accepted a job as deputy superintendent. Edgar is hired to reconstruct the Raphael's run-down conservatory, but finds more interest in seducing the doctor's wife instead. What follows is a tangled web of madness and murder that will hook you until the very last page.

I read "Asylum" during my senior year in high school, and it's still one of my favorite "obsession" books. I highly recommend it if you like psychological, erotic novels. The only complaint I have about this book is the viewpoint of Dr. Cleave. He wasn't a very necessary character. Other than that, I thought this book was great. I also recommend "Damage" by Josephine Hart if you like sexual obsession. (...)

Rating:
Summary: Psychologically claustrophobic
Review: I picked up this book about a month ago after reading that Stephen King had written the screenplay for the upcoming Jonathan Demme film adaptation (King's first script not based on his own material). I was curious to see what the book was like.

Before I was more than a couple of pages into "Asylum," I had already been grabbed by the magnetic pull of McGrath's darkly elegant narrative style. He's quite talented at setting a gloomy mood, the kind that, if you're a fan of Poe or Lovecraft, you just can't get enough of.

The gloom that hangs over the opening pages just builds and builds as you progress through this book. There's no escape, no asylum from the psychological claustrophobia of the characters' dark minds and ruined hearts. The psychiatrist who narrates the story of Stella and Edgar's destructive love affair gone horribly wrong proves to be much less distanced from all this obsessive madness than he would like to think. I came away from the book feeling that the narrator, in his calm, balanced way of trying to proclaim his sense of reason is probably the most unbalanced of all the unbalanced characters in this book.

This book is very well written and quite perceptive. If it weren't also so damned depressing, I would have given it five stars. Still, I would recommend it to readers who like their fiction dark, brooding and psychologically compelling.

Rating:
Summary: Why is "Asylum" so praised?
Review: Having never read Patrick McGrath before, I decided to buy "Asylum" based on the positive reviews here and after seeing the terrific film based on his book "Spider". I do not usually write reviews but I felt I had to balance the praise this book has received. The detached narration does not allow you to connect to any character, let alone understand their motivation through the ridiculas plot turns. It is a novel less about "obsession" than it is about stupidity. If you were looking for a "gothic thriller", leave this book behind - it reads more like a supermarket romance novel.

Rating:
Summary: HORRID but not horror
Review: I agree with all the other one and two star reviews.
Just adding my one star to the pot.

Rating:
Summary: A very unique book
Review: This book is dark, but what I like about it is that it doesn't seem to fill any cliche's. I am easily turned off by books like this once they delve into certain, overdone areas. This book is briliantly written and has a tone of stark maturity throughout. It is a joy to read as much as to behold the plot. This is the firt book I have read by McGrath. I will read more. He knows how to reveal human horror and cruelty in a very lucid manner. This book stands out.

Rating:
Summary: Very intelligent gothic
Review: This is the most subtly layered of all of McGrath's books. I like them all -- I love his gothic style and deadpan humor. There is a feminist theme in this one, as the questionable narrator leads us through his vision of an intense (obsessional) love affair -- which also illuminates the complete subjugation of the woman to possession and object...or perhaps that's just how he sees her...

Rating:
Summary: A Hellish Marriage is the Real Asylum
Review: A psychiatrist narrator recounts how his "friends" (we begin to wonder the narrator's true motives as the novel moves along), fellow psychiatrist Max and Max's wife Stella, suffer a failed marriage. Max is effete, inept, egotistical, completely lacking in passion and intimacy. His whole life is defined by his work at an asylum for criminal patients. Stella's marriage to Max in a way is the real asylum. Tormented by passions and lusts, Stella begins a completely irrational affair with one of the patients, thus beginning a whole new kind of torture. This is a novel of extremes--extreme loneliness, extreme passion, extreme repression, extreme self-abandonment. Humans were not designed for healthy relationships, the narrator seems to be saying, and thus are doomed to a life of imprisonment whether it be that of the frosty cell of a passionless marriage or the mercurial tumult of illicit sexual passion. McGrath has created an assured, suspensful novel wrought with psychological complexity and universal themes, which makes it one of the best novels in the last ten years or so. If you enjoy this novel, I hope you will try James Lasdun's The Horned Man, another great novel about repression told by a dubious narrator, and a perfect complement to Asylum.