# Is the author of the book you are reading insane? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2007, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431 "2007-09-08T01:52:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/41 "2007-09-08T13:31:19Z")
I think Piers Anthony is probably mentally imbalanced. I also have my doubts about Leo Frankowski. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/42 "2007-09-08T13:50:58Z")
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder] True, he was a heavy drug user, but he [had some episodes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_k_dick#Visions_and_psychological_problems) that weren’t always attributable to drugs, and also speculated on whether he might be schizophrenic. [/QUOTE] In my mind, there is a huge gap between thinking you might be schizophrenic, and being insane. Are all mental illnesses insanity? Is a layman the best judge of mental illness? Is a drug user the best judge of whether he is under the influence? ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/43 "2007-09-08T14:12:41Z")
[QUOTE=Koxinga] …BTW, I knew a white girl who had a lot of black friends, to the extent that I was once horrified to hear her repeatedly say the “N word” in a friendly way–to their faces. She explained to me that it was was OK, and their nickname for her was “White Chocolate”. [/QUOTE] That was the name of a character in a skit on the very short-lived “Cedric the Entertainer Presents…” TV show. A white guy who grew up in a black neighborhood, and his friends all call him White Chocolate. But, since he’s white, they actually make him say things like, “Wassup, my N-words?!?” They decide, while all out drinking, that it’s high time they got over any lingering anxieties about using the actual N-word. He uses it for the first time, the rest realize their mistake too late and reflexively beat the snot out of him. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/44 "2007-09-08T14:26:49Z")
Oh, and as an attempt at clarifying the recurring theme of the thread… WHICH black man’s penis, precisely? Jaleel White’s? Thurgood Marshall’s? I keep reading things about Barack Obama and “not black enough”, or I might guess his… ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/45 "2007-09-08T15:27:02Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] In my mind, there is a huge gap between thinking you might be schizophrenic, and being insane. Are all mental illnesses insanity? Is a layman the best judge of mental illness? Is a drug user the best judge of whether he is under the influence? [/QUOTE] Insanity is generally considered a legal term, not a psychological one. Being insane would only come up in a criminal context. Someone who is schizophrenic can, however, be described as mentallly ill. It’s been a long time since I read the Bluest Eye. I do remember it being very odd. At the time, it didn’t occur to me to think anything of the author, but I suppose I’d have to reread it. Also, wasn’t the narrator a friend of Pecola, not Pecola herself? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/46 "2007-09-08T16:40:18Z")
I’ve read L. Ron Hubbard, but that doesn’t really count, since his books scream “NUTS” from page one. ---
**Author:** ![A.I.Wintermute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@A.I.Wintermute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.Wintermute)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/47 "2007-09-08T16:59:03Z")
[QUOTE=cricetus] To answer the original question, few people could read Nikolai Gogol’s _Dead Souls_ without realizing the poor man was losing his mind as he wrote it. [/QUOTE] I guess I’m one of those few, then. _Dead Souls_ didn’t strike me as especially strange. The first volume, the part that was actually published in his lifetime, didn’t seem crazy at all to me. If the translation you read included the fragmented further chapters he wrote, then perhaps I can see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think that’s too unusual for an unfinished work. Now Gogol’s short stories, some of those were weird. _The Overcoat_’s ending was pretty bizarre, but the crown has to go to _The Nose_. Rather than insanity, I prefer Vladimir Nabokov’s take on him: “Gogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange.” ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/48 "2007-09-08T17:20:45Z")
In combination, the SDMB, Google, and Wikipedia lead me to join Johnny Carson in saying, “I did not know that”, e.g., the existance of [Hypergraphia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergraphia), which is “not itself a disorder, but can be associated with temporal lobe changes in epilepsy and mania”. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/49 "2007-09-08T17:32:52Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes] I’ve frequently gotten pings on the crazy-dar with philosophers. Some of them can get so far up their own asses or so obsessive about an idea that their prose can turn into psychobbble. Nietzsche gives me a lot of that kind of obsessive, disordered vibe. [/QUOTE] I came into this thread specifically to mention Nietzsche, who happens to be one of my favorite authors. Calling him a lunatic is not a hard sell. He not only contradicted himself frequently, he reveled in this contradiction, and he seemed to be incapable of separating his personal life from his philosophy, which yielded often ludicrous results (‘‘The Birth of Tragedy’’ vs. ‘‘Nietzsche Contra Wagner’’ for example.) And as if we still needed more convincing, in ‘‘Twilight of the Idols’’ he uses chapter titles like, ‘‘Why I Write Such Great Books’’ and ‘‘Why I Am a Destiny.’’ When I read Nietzsche, I kind of got the feeling I was reading the 19th century equivalent of a crazy person’s Livejournal. No offense against Nietzsche, of course. He was just batshit insane, that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/50 "2007-09-08T17:38:50Z")
I’ve generally found that reading interviews with your favorite novelists can be dissapointing, especially when they start going on about the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything. Something crazy inevitably comes out. It’s an occupational hazard of living inside your own head, I guess. Also, no need to speculate on Nietzche. He was quite literally insane, and died in a sanitorium. Dude still had some good insights though. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/51 "2007-09-08T17:43:18Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] But I like white chocolate. Honestly! [/QUOTE] Sounds to me like you’re trying a little _too_ hard to show that you’re not obsessed with the black man’s penis. Hmmm. I’m trying to think of a good example for the OP while I’m compulsively sucking on a fudgesicle. (Why do I do that? There’s got to be a reason.) ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/52 "2007-09-08T17:47:31Z")
I think I had that feeling while reading _Moonchild_ by Aleister Crowley. Actually, that guy proved that you can be crazy and boring at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/53 "2007-09-08T17:50:36Z")
Nietzche was who I thought of too when I first saw the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/54 "2007-09-08T18:52:47Z")
Dave Sim’s sanity was eroded pretty badly by his 25 year run on the _Cerebus_ comic. He had some pretty crazy misogynistic rants in the last few years of it. Sounded sort of like General Ripper, except his obsessive paranoia was about vaginas instead of communists. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/55 "2007-09-08T19:44:38Z")
I’d like to add S.M. Stirling to the list of fantasy/SF authors whom I wonder about their sanity. I can’t point to a single book of his that tipped the scale, but overall, the number of times that he’s had a main female character gang raped went from being shocking to being banal and idiotic. ---
**Author:** ![toadbriar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bb73d2/32.png) [@toadbriar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadbriar)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/56 "2007-09-08T20:31:03Z")
I think I get what you mean, **Nzinga**. To me it has to do with empathy. An author has to get inside his character’s head, and has to use his own experiences to make it real, to walk in that character’s shoes to depict him. ‘I have thought these crazy things’ or ‘I could imagine these crazy things’ - the reader can’t really tell which one the author is saying. It might be that a good writer can explain a character’s behaviors, and people often mistake ‘excusing the behavior’ for explaining it. It’s hard to tell which side of the line the author might fall on. Heck, it’s even hard to tell which side someone I _know_ might fall on. Is this genius overlapping madness in some sort of venn diagram? I can forgive a lot of stuff easier if I can relate to why people do it, and it’s an interesting exercise to try on someone else’s shoes as best I can. Authors must do this a lot better than I can - not for personal reasons only but to tell their stories and create imaginary but realistic people whose interior monologues sound as authentic as my own. So I can never tell if an author is nuts, or is just playing nuts. Maybe the line is fuzzy, and we do have to heed the warning about looking into the abyss. And for the record, I think about _everyone’s_ penis - a veritable rainbow of them, devoting at least 30 seconds or so to at least one specific penis per day. I don’t know if this counts as an obsession with The Penis, black or otherwise, or Penisery in general. But I like to devote a thought to them individually when I can. Even Burgess Meredith’s! When was the last time you reminded yourself that Burgess Meredith had a penis, hm? The mere notion makes me dizzy. I can’t call this madness, but the Ringworld series had lots of episodes of various humans having various sexual dalliances with assorted alien species, and as a whole I got the strong visual image of the author way too transfixed and enchanted by this notion, and his upper lip all glistening with sweat at the titillation of it. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/57 "2007-09-08T20:35:00Z")
[QUOTE=toadbriar] . . . . The mere notion makes me dizzy. [/QUOTE] You say that like it’s a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/58 "2007-09-08T21:40:46Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji] Nietzche was who I thought of too when I first saw the thread title. [/QUOTE] I haven’t read much Nietzche, but the little I have read does make me question his sanity. But not more so than the other philosophers I have read. But the authors of fiction really intrigue me the most. Because it is sort of like I could detect the madness, even though she wasn’t trying to dislay it at all. It was leaking out through her imagination. (Morrison, I mean.) I haven’t read a lot of Lovecraft, but I have read some. I am reminded of him now, that we discuss this. Those stories seemed like the writings of a madman! It seemed to me that a disturbed mind had conjured that stuff up. Still, I separate that from The Bluest Eye. Because The Bluest Eye was attempting to tell a story that was not about fantastic, mythical creatures, but instead a tragic, simple story. And the book was very well written. And somehow, it seemed to me that the author’s madness was seeping through… ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/59 "2007-09-08T22:49:43Z")
[QUOTE=Zoggie] Someone who is schizophrenic can, however, be described as mentallly ill. [/QUOTE] OK. Is\* thinking \*you might be schizophrenic the same thing as _being_ schizophrenic? Because that’s all that the link said. It said nothing about Dick being diagnosed as schizophrenic. I have a friend who’s brother is diagnosed as schizophrenic. He has a job, drives a car, etc. He’s a bit hard to talk to, but is quite clearly not insane. I have read extensively about Dick. I have read most of what he has written, AFAIK. Until today, I have never heard it even suggested that he was insane. And the OP asked about insane, not mentally ill. Which, by all accounts, Dick wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431/60 "2007-09-08T23:48:14Z")
I know a lot of poets, so my threshold for thinking someone is insane based on their writing is very high. 😃 Freud always struck me as a few peanuts shy of a PayDay. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-author-of-the-book-you-are-reading-insane/418431.md?page=4)