if you ignore it long enough, it might disappear.

Admittedly, being preoccupied with the upcoming holiday, reading “Hearing Voices” wasn’t on the top of my list; which actually might be a good thing with the entire break reading I’ll get to do in the car ride to Iowa. Four hours of fun with a pile of books.
Anyways, the main part of the story I reached this week was about Smith’s father’s major hallucinatory experiences and Smith’s emotions about his father’s condition. The author took the reader back into a (I couldn’t tell if it was a childhood memory or a teenage memory) remembrance. Smith recalled his father arguing with his mother, and his father shouting at his mother to “shut up” when she was not talking. Smith wondered why the memory stuck with him for such a long time. He analyzed it as a weak point in his father’s paternal career, and his young mind felt vulnerable without a strong father figure. Later, Smith finds it strange that his mind seemed to “pick out” the one idea of his father hearing voices. The author also theorized that the memory might not have been so dominant in his brain until after he became fascinated with the subject of hearing voices, and his brain called upon a familiar memory. Smith feels very aggravated over his lack of control of his brain and fears slipping into insanity like his father.
I have also decided that I quite enjoy Smith’s style of writing. He has a very subtle way of combining facts with the plotline that most fiction writers cannot master.

i hear the voices too.

So far into Madmen, Muses and Prophets, it’s different from what I thought. It’s definitely much better than I expected. Most of the psychology books I have read are just facts, facts, anecdote, facts, and notes. It’s quite like smashing your head against a particularly thick wall and just as fun! But Daniel B. Smith weaves his own experience with hearing voices into the novel. I did not realize the books if about half research, a quarter proving his point and the last bit his own story.
As it turns out, Smith’s father and grandfather both heard voices. (From a psych note, this is most likely why Smith is so obsessed with the subject). When Smith discovers this, he has a panicked moment, worried this genetic line of insanity will soon hit him too. Though as he digs deep into journals, he realizes this is very unlikely.
So enlisted his father and grandfather into his service, he begins to dive deep into the peculiar world of the human brain. After reading their personal diaries, Smith learns both his father and grandfather heard the voices from a young age, but his father attempted to conceal the voices while his grandfather did not particularly care if people thought he was crazy. Smith believed this was probably why his father eventually had a mental breakdown.
I shared this bit because I found it fascinating how the voices, when not shared, began to destroy Smith’s father’s brain. Maybe this could be worked into a thesis statement of some sort.

quarter two: the voices inside your head are not sent by God.

The book I am reading for my Outside Reading is “Muses, Madmen, and Prophets” by Daniel B Smith. If you kept up with blog (probably not) you will easily notice the pattern of psychology books. I decided to keep up with the pattern with this novel, about “Hearing Voices and the Border’s of Sanity” (the subtitle of the book)
I apologize for the late entry, I have many excuses but I believe they can be mentioned later.
I have not begun reading yet, at least not farther than the preface and the prelude (yes this book has both). The book itself is quite boring, so far. I have not yet hit the main part of the novel at all, so I do hope it livens up a bit.
I do enjoy Smith’s “voice” though; he uses a very descriptive tone while writing his anecdotes, which helps spruce up the millions of repeated facts. I could easily see if you were not fascinated by the subject, the book would be a monotonous mess.
The book is about auditory hallucinations, and the “voices” people can hear “inside” of their head. Smith’s idea is that a majority of the world’s greatest thinkers suffered from auditory hallucinations.
Smith discusses the idea of Christianity being a sort of a “scape goat” for the hallucinations the intellectual would have. It made more sense, for the people of the time, if “God” was talking to this man and all his acquired brilliance was “God’s” will.
Overall, all I’ve decided I will like this book as the plot thickens.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is the book I selected this week. It was noted as a “Barnes and Noble Classic” and this summer I attempted to read all books on the “Classics” list. As noted by last week’s “Dracula”, the books did not get read before summer ended. Back on topic, the book is by Oscar Wilde, who always seems to have random quotes floating around inspirational topics.
The book itself was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed the creepiness and very dark ideas throughout the book, strangely enough. I find I tend to like scary books better than scary movies, but even then “The Picture of Dorian Gray” wasn’t so scary as much as making you feel uncomfortable with issues such as beauty, sinning, vanity and life in general. The ending of the book is particularly disturbing and very enjoyable when Dorian Gray finally went insane and accidentally killed ‘himself’ or, as it really was, the idea of himself.
An interesting part of the book, once I had finished the book and began reading the introduction, was the play with homosexuality. There was plenty of women, and men, who fell ‘in love’ with Dorian because of how beautiful he was. This was unacceptable in the time period, and it struck as me as peculiar, why would Wilde write a random bit of information into the plotline? Then after reading Oscar Wilde’s life story in the introduction, it mentioned Wilde being possibly homosexual and I found this small piece of information very fascinating; relating to the plot.