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Asylum Piece
This collection of stories, mostly interlinked and largely autobiographical, chart the descent of the narrator from the onset of neurosis to final incarceration in a Swiss clinic. The sense of paranoia, of persecution by a foe or force that is never given a name, evokes The Trial by Kafka, a writer with whom Kavan is often compared, although her deeply personal, restrained, and almost foreign —accented style has no true model. The same characters who recur throughout—the protagonist's unhelpful "adviser," the friend and lover who abandons her at the clinic, and an assortment of deluded companions—are sketched without a trace of the rage, self-pity, or sentiment that have marked more recent accounts of mental instability.
212 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
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About the author
Anna Kavan
40Ìýbooks433ÌýfollowersAnna Kavan was born "Helen Woods" in France on April 10, 1901 to wealthy expatriate British parents.
Her initial six works were published under the name of Helen Ferguson, her first married name. These early novels gave little indication of the experimental and disturbing nature of her later work. I Am Lazarus (1945), a collection of short stories which explored the inner mindscape of the psychological explorer, heralded the new style and content of Kavan's writing. The change in her writing style and physical appearance coincided with a mental breakdown. During this time, Helen also renamed herself Anna Kavan after a character in her own novel Let Me Alone.
Around 1926 Anna became addicted to heroin. Her addiction has been described as an attempt to self-medicate rather than recreational. Kavan made no apologies for her heroin usage. She is popularly supposed to have died of a heroin overdose. In fact she died of heart failure, though she had attempted suicide several times during her life.
Her initial six works were published under the name of Helen Ferguson, her first married name. These early novels gave little indication of the experimental and disturbing nature of her later work. I Am Lazarus (1945), a collection of short stories which explored the inner mindscape of the psychological explorer, heralded the new style and content of Kavan's writing. The change in her writing style and physical appearance coincided with a mental breakdown. During this time, Helen also renamed herself Anna Kavan after a character in her own novel Let Me Alone.
Around 1926 Anna became addicted to heroin. Her addiction has been described as an attempt to self-medicate rather than recreational. Kavan made no apologies for her heroin usage. She is popularly supposed to have died of a heroin overdose. In fact she died of heart failure, though she had attempted suicide several times during her life.
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February 5, 2013
�And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this � that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.�
History has not been kind on those deemed mentally ill. As with any aberration from the social conventions of ‘normalcy�, or anything we do not fully understand, there is a tendency to reduce the outlying subject to being considered less than human � a technique used to assuage any moral qualms with removing the subject from sight, or to treat them with any sort of indecency as a method of combating our inner fears of the unfamiliar. Asylum Piece, the first novel written under the name Anna Kavan, allows a shamelessly honest view into the mindset of those who’s inner wiring sets them apart from the standard, socially functional public, those who, for reasons beyond them, are herded away from the sun of society and into the darkness of 1940’s psychological care. Kavan, who suffered bouts of severe depression and was familiar with the inner inpatient world of asylums, is the Virgil whom takes the reader by the icy hand through the depths of suffering, solitude and systematic dehumanization experienced throughout Asylum Piece. The emotional roller coaster of the inner world of these patients evinces a collection of wills and desires not unlike those found in even the most ‘sane� of people. Keeping a calm, unshakable poise on her unsettling visions, Kavan remains detached and allows the reader to witness first-hand the emotional self-reflections of the mentally ill as they suffer the oppression of their fellow man while trying to find their way in the world.
These shadowy exhibits of mankind would be far more repelling if it weren’t for the succulent prose that pours from Kavan. Each monstrous thought, each cold-hearted action, each emotionally draining cry from the depths is wrapped in poetic expression that pulls the reader along, always craving more and more of these horrific experiences just for the taste of her words. It is a shame that her name isn’t familiar in the minds of more readers, as she is a writer of great merit who cannot be forgotten after taking the first sip. Each word is both a dark weight upon the soul, yet a feathery wing lifting the reader towards the heavens. Kavan keeps a detached voice throughout much of the book, calmly, and clinically relaying these sights, sounds and smells of the asylum and the threatening outer world to the reader. By avoiding any obvious push towards an opinion through her prose, refraining from allowing her narrator to give a voice of instilling a great pity or disdain through emotionally charged passages about either the inmates, the people in society, or the asylum staff, Kavan allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. When the reader feels horror at the cold treatment of the narrator or a patient, or feels great pity for the woman abandoned by her husband, that horror or pity comes from within the reader, growing from the readers own convictions and insights into the sights that are shown and making Kavan’s exposition on mental illness all the more poignant. She deftly implant cryptic messages across these short vignettes (the book is technically billed as a collection of short stories, yet the way they all tie together and push forward with a frightening cohesive message gives the impression that this is a disjointed novel and presents the possibility that the format is indicative of the erratic mental states suffered by the narrator, however, more shall be spoken on that later) that cut multiple paths of interpretation through the wild, dark wilderness of her book. Always moving, always gyrating from high energy and lightness down to sinister oppression and sorrow, Kavan builds a horror novel out of every day observations and reality.
There is much discussion of an invisible enemy, someone foe who has not revealed himself to her that has set her fate in motion. The comparisons to are rather valid, Kafka’s works being a stated influence on Kavan, as she frets over thoughts that �some secret court must have tried and condemned me, unheard, to this heavy sentence.� The real tragedy lies in the treatment of those like the narrator, vomited out in a place kept from the sun and society without their consent. The reader witnesses how cruel one human can be towards another, simply for seeing them as inferior or damaged. The cruelest of actions are seen as coming from the ones that are the closest to us, and the betrayal of love cuts deeper than any wound inflicted by a stranger. In the asylum we see wives discarded by their husband, long grown tired and embarrassed of their behavior, and members that truly want to rejoin society but are held down by their own inner blockages. Their inner worlds reflect the same desires and understanding as any common person, yet, something out of their control has left them branded as unworthy of human dignity and a loving place in the world. �Shall I be able to endure my self condemnation now?� she asks herself. �[A]lthough it is difficult to live with so much unhappiness and so many failures, to die seems to be harder still.� They suffer, yet do not want to give up. However, the callousness of those purported to be sane gives pause to wonder whom the truly sane ones are?
The effects of mental illness do not just assault the inner world of the individual suffering from the illness, but it casts its shadow on all those who are near to them. While there are scenes of heart-wrenching callousness directed at the patients, those that love the patients are also given moments inspiring great pity and heartbreak in the reader as well. A mother wishes to visit her daughter, but is kept away from her by the staff and a husband takes his wife on a day trip which ultimately leads to more tragedy. While it can be seen as cruel that he abandons her despite her belief that he was taking her away for good, the reader feels the inner suffering of those that love the patients, yet are pushed away by the illness. The pain and coldness goes both ways, victimizing everyone, especially those that still hold love in their hearts. Everyone wants to be loved, the sane and damaged alike, and if we could see past fears and come to a better understanding of one another, much of our pains could be assuaged.
In the first half of the book (this particular edition used for the review is the 1972 Michael Kesend Publishing edition), each story has a blank page separating it from the preceding story, and each story has a unique title. After moving into the second phase of the book, each story bears the title ‘Asylum Piece� followed by a Roman numeral, and the stories are not spaced by a blank page. This is an interesting technique that bears weight with one of the many motifs of the book, that of dehumanization and submission. Upon entering the asylum, the inmates loose their sense of identity, and submit to their authorities to the point of seeming to twitch at their commands.
Asylum Piece, while being a quick read, is one that hovers over the reader long after they have escaped the horrors that hide between the book’s covers. There is much auto-biographical information at play here, which allows the reader a look into the mind that crafted such a piece of art and ultimately brings Kavan deeper into the recesses of the heart. Her ambiguity and elusiveness are some of her finer qualities, as she leaves a world of interpretation available for the reader’s enjoyment, allowing for a variety of impressions and an incentive to revisit the book. This is an excellent work that seems to offer insight and commentary into her other novels, many of which reflecting similar themes and also containing scraps of autobiography. This novel is a powerful scream that never leaves the throat, instead leaving the reader in an eerie stillness where the silence is deafening.
4/5
�How can one ever hope to prove one’s innocence when there is no means of knowing of what one has been accused? No, there’s no justice for people like us in the world: all that we can do is to suffer as bravely as possible and put our oppressors to shame.�
History has not been kind on those deemed mentally ill. As with any aberration from the social conventions of ‘normalcy�, or anything we do not fully understand, there is a tendency to reduce the outlying subject to being considered less than human � a technique used to assuage any moral qualms with removing the subject from sight, or to treat them with any sort of indecency as a method of combating our inner fears of the unfamiliar. Asylum Piece, the first novel written under the name Anna Kavan, allows a shamelessly honest view into the mindset of those who’s inner wiring sets them apart from the standard, socially functional public, those who, for reasons beyond them, are herded away from the sun of society and into the darkness of 1940’s psychological care. Kavan, who suffered bouts of severe depression and was familiar with the inner inpatient world of asylums, is the Virgil whom takes the reader by the icy hand through the depths of suffering, solitude and systematic dehumanization experienced throughout Asylum Piece. The emotional roller coaster of the inner world of these patients evinces a collection of wills and desires not unlike those found in even the most ‘sane� of people. Keeping a calm, unshakable poise on her unsettling visions, Kavan remains detached and allows the reader to witness first-hand the emotional self-reflections of the mentally ill as they suffer the oppression of their fellow man while trying to find their way in the world.
These shadowy exhibits of mankind would be far more repelling if it weren’t for the succulent prose that pours from Kavan. Each monstrous thought, each cold-hearted action, each emotionally draining cry from the depths is wrapped in poetic expression that pulls the reader along, always craving more and more of these horrific experiences just for the taste of her words. It is a shame that her name isn’t familiar in the minds of more readers, as she is a writer of great merit who cannot be forgotten after taking the first sip. Each word is both a dark weight upon the soul, yet a feathery wing lifting the reader towards the heavens. Kavan keeps a detached voice throughout much of the book, calmly, and clinically relaying these sights, sounds and smells of the asylum and the threatening outer world to the reader. By avoiding any obvious push towards an opinion through her prose, refraining from allowing her narrator to give a voice of instilling a great pity or disdain through emotionally charged passages about either the inmates, the people in society, or the asylum staff, Kavan allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. When the reader feels horror at the cold treatment of the narrator or a patient, or feels great pity for the woman abandoned by her husband, that horror or pity comes from within the reader, growing from the readers own convictions and insights into the sights that are shown and making Kavan’s exposition on mental illness all the more poignant. She deftly implant cryptic messages across these short vignettes (the book is technically billed as a collection of short stories, yet the way they all tie together and push forward with a frightening cohesive message gives the impression that this is a disjointed novel and presents the possibility that the format is indicative of the erratic mental states suffered by the narrator, however, more shall be spoken on that later) that cut multiple paths of interpretation through the wild, dark wilderness of her book. Always moving, always gyrating from high energy and lightness down to sinister oppression and sorrow, Kavan builds a horror novel out of every day observations and reality.
�Lying peacefully curled up on a sunny day, the new house looks like a harmless gray animal that would eat out of your hand; at night the old house opens its stony, inward-turning eyes and watches me with a hostility that can scarcely be borne. The old walls drape themselves with transparent curtains of hate. Like a beast of pretty the house lies in ambush for me, the victim it has already swallowed, the intruder within its ancient structure of stone.The narrators emotions and mental states seem tied to the world around her. Pleasantness viewed in the world allows a pleasant mental state, such as a bright spring day giving rise to euphoria and happiness, whereas just the opposite, such as an unwelcoming clinic waiting room or strangers glass allows her self-doubt to accrue to the point of near suffocation. Her image of the exterior world is also mirrored by her interior world.
Coiling itself round me it knows I cannot escape. Imprisoned in its very fabric, I am a small worm, a parasite, which the host harbors not altogether unwillingly. The time has not yet come to eject me. A few more months or years the house will nourish me like an owl’s pellet into the arches of infinite space through which my husk of skin and crushed bones will fall for ever and ever.�
�No sooner had I discovered this than a change seemed to come over everything. It was as though, in some mysterious way, I had become the central point around which the night scene revolved�. The windows lighted or unlighted, were like eyes more or less piercing, but all focused upon me. The houses, the traffic, everything in sight, seemed to be watching to see what I would do.�The narrator, thwarted by her over self-consciousness, finds herself victimized by the world around her to the point of holing up in herself, becoming �inexorably imprisoned behind my own determination to display no emotion whatever.� There is this downward spiral of cognitive misinterpretation to any stimulus, interior and exterior working together, that leads her (her serving well as an archetype for many others) to this self-imposed, submissive prison. The earlier passage of the house works on several levels. There is the house as a metaphor for society, seemingly welcoming to all yet pushing her towards her cruel fate of institutionalization, a world that �will soon cast me out like vomit, like dung� for being an aberration from the norm. The house is also an outward projection of herself, the shifting states representative of her alternating mental states.
There is much discussion of an invisible enemy, someone foe who has not revealed himself to her that has set her fate in motion. The comparisons to are rather valid, Kafka’s works being a stated influence on Kavan, as she frets over thoughts that �some secret court must have tried and condemned me, unheard, to this heavy sentence.� The real tragedy lies in the treatment of those like the narrator, vomited out in a place kept from the sun and society without their consent. The reader witnesses how cruel one human can be towards another, simply for seeing them as inferior or damaged. The cruelest of actions are seen as coming from the ones that are the closest to us, and the betrayal of love cuts deeper than any wound inflicted by a stranger. In the asylum we see wives discarded by their husband, long grown tired and embarrassed of their behavior, and members that truly want to rejoin society but are held down by their own inner blockages. Their inner worlds reflect the same desires and understanding as any common person, yet, something out of their control has left them branded as unworthy of human dignity and a loving place in the world. �Shall I be able to endure my self condemnation now?� she asks herself. �[A]lthough it is difficult to live with so much unhappiness and so many failures, to die seems to be harder still.� They suffer, yet do not want to give up. However, the callousness of those purported to be sane gives pause to wonder whom the truly sane ones are?
The effects of mental illness do not just assault the inner world of the individual suffering from the illness, but it casts its shadow on all those who are near to them. While there are scenes of heart-wrenching callousness directed at the patients, those that love the patients are also given moments inspiring great pity and heartbreak in the reader as well. A mother wishes to visit her daughter, but is kept away from her by the staff and a husband takes his wife on a day trip which ultimately leads to more tragedy. While it can be seen as cruel that he abandons her despite her belief that he was taking her away for good, the reader feels the inner suffering of those that love the patients, yet are pushed away by the illness. The pain and coldness goes both ways, victimizing everyone, especially those that still hold love in their hearts. Everyone wants to be loved, the sane and damaged alike, and if we could see past fears and come to a better understanding of one another, much of our pains could be assuaged.
In the first half of the book (this particular edition used for the review is the 1972 Michael Kesend Publishing edition), each story has a blank page separating it from the preceding story, and each story has a unique title. After moving into the second phase of the book, each story bears the title ‘Asylum Piece� followed by a Roman numeral, and the stories are not spaced by a blank page. This is an interesting technique that bears weight with one of the many motifs of the book, that of dehumanization and submission. Upon entering the asylum, the inmates loose their sense of identity, and submit to their authorities to the point of seeming to twitch at their commands.
�The long, lank, match-thin limbs with their enlarged joint mechanisms jerk into forlorn obedience to the Professor’s wires as, like a smiling puppet-master, he hurriedly takes control. And from behind the three pairs of dark spectacles large tears roll over the painted marionette cheeks and slowly drip onto the stone terrace.�The lack of separation seems to represent both the blurring of days, weeks and years into the monotony of routine as well as the breakdown of individuality causing the patients to become one giant mass, an expressionless group unhindered by uniqueness and individual will. The lack of unique titles and the number system is also reflective of this dehumanizing technique. The narrator even looses her ‘I�, the Asylum Piece stories being told from a detached third-person narration as she submits to the obdurate authorities. Machinery serves as a strong motif in this book, connoting both clockwork mechanism without individual identity and the inner minds of the patients, a machinery that starts and stops without their control, machinery that takes control of their actions and habits of which they are merely victims, helpless souls trapped in a machine mind that is indifferent to their wills and desires.
Asylum Piece, while being a quick read, is one that hovers over the reader long after they have escaped the horrors that hide between the book’s covers. There is much auto-biographical information at play here, which allows the reader a look into the mind that crafted such a piece of art and ultimately brings Kavan deeper into the recesses of the heart. Her ambiguity and elusiveness are some of her finer qualities, as she leaves a world of interpretation available for the reader’s enjoyment, allowing for a variety of impressions and an incentive to revisit the book. This is an excellent work that seems to offer insight and commentary into her other novels, many of which reflecting similar themes and also containing scraps of autobiography. This novel is a powerful scream that never leaves the throat, instead leaving the reader in an eerie stillness where the silence is deafening.
4/5
�How can one ever hope to prove one’s innocence when there is no means of knowing of what one has been accused? No, there’s no justice for people like us in the world: all that we can do is to suffer as bravely as possible and put our oppressors to shame.�
April 18, 2013
My heart falls into my boots while I am speaking. I am plunged into despair because I see that neither of my hearers is capable of comprehending my appeal. I doubt if they are even listening to me. They do not know what it means to be sad and alone in a cold room where the sun never shines.
When she returns to the cold, foggy streets she belongs in as belief in a cruel God, unloving holder of the keys, she is returning and having never left. See the twisted smirk undisguised by the cold eyes in everything you see. Its shape in everyone. I squinted with her into a false sun stared into for too long. Please let me believe, give me your light. She would say give me and that is important. A warm world, a word alone. Denied, is it going to be cold and dark forever? Why wouldn't they listen to her? I listened for the they are not laughing with you they are laughing at you. Too small to notice. Why wouldn't they look at her?
What would happen if the lights came on? If the patrons suffered you to sit in their warm house?
The book jacket describes Asylum Piece as "one of the most extraordinary and terrifying evocations of human madness ever written".
I don't want to call it madness. I want to call it the door between the warm and the cold. I want to call it the feeling when you struggle against it, when you cannot find the handle. You try every one and they won't turn. Not for a prayer. The dark and the light are natural places to be and if you are one side it is the wrong side. The loss of time becomes a prison sentence. No one will tell you when you have repented enough.
Who shall describe the slow and lamentable cooling of the heart? On what day does one first observe the infinitesimal crack which finally becomes a chasm deeper than hell?
It is the birds you watch outside of your work window. It isn't so bad, if it is one day. If you think too long about the next day, and the next. It is sunny outside and when you get off for the day it will go down. Soon you will set and it will start again. But the birds fly over my car I am sitting in on my work lunch breaks. I have to be me, then a real live me, outside. I can't think about the next day, and the next day stretching out like a to be decided after a later time sentence, when I watch those birds. They are too fast for me to really see and that might be the best part about it. She wonders if the woman who works for her senses the doom over her head. I feel that when I pull myself away from what I need more and more each day. The time at the window in front of the birds is not enough. I feel the pressure of not wanting to not be able to get back if I forget who else could see. I have to leave.
I've had/read some interesting discussions about Anna Kavan and biography. I had this feeling when reading of the breathes money cannot buy you everything great divide. The woman of the secret world of the rich is embraced in the secret world when people say that a person is too stupid to be unhappy. If the world was like when people say stuff like that (a world I want no part of. The one where people would call anyone "white trash", as if there were kinds of trash instead of just people). She holds her. She could be a switched at birth baby in this moment. The nostalgia for a home. It doesn't have to be that way.
I had this feeling about Anna Kavan when I read about the older lady who watches her pet of a younger patient. Her husband will not be coming to family day any longer. The hope, the stealing into their window. If you love someone set them free. I had the feeling like I wasn't alone when I am turning my door knobs inside and looking for windows into others.
If I'm in any kind of a waiting place. Airports, hospitals, the dmv. The Mariel lights dim and the other voices must be what blind or deaf people mean they say that their other senses take the lead. I listen to conversations in an out of time place. I will wish that I had someone with me to live this too. I'll look around at the waiting faces that look turned off over ancient magazines and the voices will darken if I imagine (or was it really there?) a cold face. A smile makes all of the difference. They take the lead.
Not too long ago in the hospital I picked up frequencies of a grown man sobbing over a nothing at all pain. His mother spoke to him in enabling tones that it would all be over soon. I sensed a little bit of shame for him, a what would others think. She told the nurse that when he was a boy he was so good that they called him "the second coming". I think this wins out. I followed their voices to a prospective trip to Burger King. They left me with my point of pride to never flinch over pain, no matter how great, since my first shot at four years of age. It was the story my mother would repeat to praise me with, if she was in the mood to praise me. "The doctor said you weren't normal you were so stoic." You don't need anyone, Mariel, you're self-reliant. You asked for no one, you didn't ask for me. I sometimes imagine a wistfulness, sometimes it is adopted out. Pin it to my chest in vivid colors I see dulled behind glass. I felt for this overgrown infant at once envious of what he used to have, and horrified that if he screamed like that over that then what would happen to him. I have this feeling about Anna Kavan of the point when I could see what it would look like when you know how to look from the almost.
I have this feeling about Anna Kavan. In her novel A Scarcity of Love there is a young nurse who spares herself from deeper knowledge. The Pandora's box of what lays on the other side of the world shut and left under a stone. She must be a hummingbird or a shark and never stop breathing. I don't know which it is because I don't know what would happen if people stopped breathing and threw open their doors for someone else. Here is my light. In a story in Kavan's I Am Lazarus a doctor wishes he had never come. He wishes he had never seen the despair that becomes the air to be breathed. The eyes of a corpse open and beseech. Save me? See me? If the worlds orbit closer than at any other time of the year (is it an every fifty years phenomenon? Who can say) what would happen. Would worlds collide? The patients are buried alive in psychotropic drugs. He will leave and did anyone ever really know.
I have this feeling of Anna Kavan that she is in the waiting room before what would happen. If someone else could be you and you could be them. What would happen if someone sensed that you sometimes felt as if you were being chased down. Someone else was there and they were not looking over a magazine of the news of the world that is some place far away from you. I felt it when the older lady wanted the younger girl to eclipse her own dark world. Playing house. I didn't sense judgement but a living it. Living in another world when you look into other windows. Worrying about them, trying to understand it. Because you wouldn't stop flying if you saw them.
I had read that Kavan wrote A Scarcity of Love to cope with her mother. I don't know if she felt freed. Virginia Woolf had written that writing To the Lighthouse to exorcise her own mother's eternal hold on her let go the ghosts. I don't know that I will ever be able to pass through completely but I believe in leaving the foggy streets. I believe in being able to get through by this way of seeing others and seeing different parts of yourself. I struggle with this. I didn't want to write about A Scarcity of Love and when I did I didn't go near the black woods of my mother. It has been so hard to write once I believed I had let myself down. I had felt shredded inside over my review of Ice that I'd written last year (I'd deleted it and later brought it back) from not wanting to touch the knife edges of a life long addiction to self-mutilation. Self-injury since the cradle. I wasn't capable of rationality. I raised myself in this way. I told myself that I couldn't be close to Anna Kavan because I couldn't forget myself when I read her, that I was blinded to some truth. My inborn mountains of loneliness seemed insurmountable. Maybe I take this too seriously but I had felt normal when reading Asylum Piece. A normal that I don't feel when standing around others. I want to dim myself around others. If I feel anything but free when I write about her it is devastating to me. When I try to find the words I don't feel normal anymore. I only want to be free.
I read in Peter Owen's introduction of this edition that Kavan destroyed a manuscript of a novella after it had been rejected for his publication. I can understand that action with no trouble at all. The afterwards is hard and living too much for the afterwards is when the imaginings of footsteps and hounds starts. I would guess that she felt free when writing and then it is the waiting room. Then it hurts to turn yourself down. Then you find out what you really believed when you felt you could have hope for the end of the letting go fall. Then she kept writing. I feel something for Anna Kavan. I feel it anywhere I have ever been.
September 2, 2024
Haunting vignettes of alienation and paranoia and an ice-cold examination of the horrors of having a mental illness before people understood mental illness. Stunning, chilling prose.
July 2, 2013
What the heck happened to me? I used to be able to sit down & write my reactions to a book, make them have some relevance, make them mildly entertaining... Lately, I find myself with nothing to say.
Hello, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ? Yeah, I’m phoning in another reviewâ€�
I don’t know what to say about this novel. I’m still not sure if I loved it or felt ‘meh� about it. But there were moments� Moments I will not forget. Like the birds outside the window, and the feeling of calm that can only come from watching their freedom, wishing to be the bird. Just to be a little bird without any irrational fears getting in the way of my flight.
I wasn’t immediately sucked in to Kavan’s stark, emotionless style, but after a couple of chapters, it started taking on a bit of a Marksonian feel for me and I was reeled right in. I found myself relating to the narrator, her anguish, her paranoia, her self-consciousness � I mean, my wiring doesn’t make the right connections all the time either. I understand the paranoiac all too well. I understand the iron bars of fear that keep us safe in our homes � even though sometimes we’re not even safe there. Not safe in our own heads due to faulty wiring. I know that when I go off the rails, my own mind is the last place I want to be. There’s no comfort there; no control. My mind has a mind of its own. I know what it’s like to swim to freedom only to find myself lost, and returning to the comfort of the shackles.
Better the devil you know.
I understand the need to worry because of all the bad things that might happen if I don’t. If I worry all the time, I can make the bad things stay away, right?
Anyway, I think what has me on the fence is that while I was very much engaged in the parts of the story told in the first person, when she switched to the third person, I became disconnected. She lost me for awhile there and never managed to pull me back in.
Still, I hope she is able to leave the iron bars and shackles behind, leave the cold & the darkness and the isolation. I hope she’s outside on a blanket under a tree watching the birds fly off in the bright blue sky.
3.75/5 - rounded up
October 27, 2024
Wow. I finished this a few days ago, and then went back and read it again as I absolutely loved Kavan's writing style. Some could point out the comparisons with the work of Kafka - paranoia; surrealism; a clammy shivering sense of living in a nightmare; the cruel apparatus of bureaucracy - but I personally found these comparisons only slight, as Kavan is pounding and piercing rather than weaving; descending with an embedded realism, into the turmoil of living with a mental illness. Being so overwhelmed with feelings you can't describe; being driven to insanity by forces unknown: the lack of sleep; the loneliness; the confusion; the inability to cope; the feeling the world is against you; the feeling of disappearing. What is quite masterful here, is that whilst chapters are short and abstract, it is extraordinary how Kavan left such a depth impression on me with such few words. A devastating and hauntingly beautiful work of art.
April 17, 2022
El descenso: Anna Kavan o el prodigioso redescubrimiento de la oscuridad
En este mundo extraño de la literatura ocurren, demasiadas veces, cosas raras. Por ejemplo: escritores de enorme talento que pasan inadvertidos sin que podamos deleitarnos con sus grandes obras hasta que alguien insiste en ellos, los reivindica y termina por recuperarlos. A veces pasa, como en el caso de la escritora inglesa Anna Kavan, que anteriormente ya habÃa sido publicada en español, pero se habÃa instalado en el limbo del olvido. Autora minoritaria y poco conocida para nosotros, se nos ha revelado de nuevo con el libro de relatos El descenso, editado por Navona y magnÃficamente traducido por Ainize Salaberri.
Aunque soy de los que defiende la inmanencia del texto, es decir, que lo escrito debe entenderse (incluso interpretarse) sin necesidad de interferencias externas —me refiero a las biográficas, fundamentalmente�, me veo en la obligación de puntualizar algunos aspectos sobre Anna Kavan que terminan por darle sentido (todo su sentido pavoroso) a El descenso.
Las metamorfosis de Anna Kavan
Kavan, británica que nació en Cannes (aunque no se conoce con exactitud su fecha de nacimiento, posiblemente en 1901), se llamaba originalmente Helen Emily Woods. Por tanto, Anna Kavan es un pseudónimo, algo que tampoco resulta nada extraño en el mundo de la literatura, y ahà están los casos de Pablo Neruda, Isaak Dinesen, los hispanos ClarÃn y AzorÃn, Gabriela Mistral, George Orwell, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, y un larguÃsimo etcétera.
¿Entonces, qué tiene de interesante este Anna Kavan? Pues mucho: el primer libro que firmó con ese nombre fue una colección de cuentos, Asylum Piece, publicado en 1940, y que es este El descenso que ahora nos ocupa, pero antes habÃa escrito y editado ya varios libros como Helen Ferguson, tomando el apellido de su marido. Un total de seis novelas en ocho años. Esa primera tirada creativa se fundamentó en obras de caracterÃsticas románticas que algunos crÃticos, de forma despectiva, pueden calificar como novelitas rosas, pero que, a pesar de hablarnos de paisajes y vidas bucólicas, dejan entrever extrañas familias que son presa de la angustia y de la amargura.
El descenso es otra cosa: es un texto basado en las experiencias de la escritora como interna en pabellones psiquiátricos, de la asistencia a clÃnicas y de los interminables procesos de psicoanálisis. La mujer se habÃa convertido en alguien inestable que necesitaba de este tipo de ayudas, sumida en un proceso de deterioro que la conducÃa a la enfermedad mental.
Asà que Anna Kavan nace del alejamiento del mundo bucólico e ideal del condado de Home Counties, en donde vivÃa con su adinerado primer marido. La deriva hacia los problemas mentales bien pudo ser producto de varias circunstancias traumáticas: el suicidio de su padre en 1911 —se tiró por la borda de un barco en Méxicoâ€�, lo que la llevó a varios internados; después llegó su más que coqueteo con la heroÃna, el divorcio de su primer marido, el descubrimiento de la vida bohemia, la muerte de una hija al poco de nacer y, tras su segundo divorcio, un intento de suicidio.
Con ese primer intento de suicidio (aún lo intentarÃa dos veces más), apareció la clÃnica de Suiza en donde fue internada y que es fácilmente reconocible en El descenso. Desde entonces pasarÃa toda su vida luchando contra la depresión y la adicción a las drogas, sin éxito. Cuando se decide a publicar El descenso ya no se parece en nada a la lejana Helen Emily Woods, y tampoco a Helen Ferguson, por lo que elige llamarse como la protagonista de dos novelas suyas anteriores, Let Me Alone (1930) y A Stranger Still (1935). Acaba de nacer Anna Kavan para la literatura.
Anna Kavan se tiñó de rubio (era morena) en un intento de abandonar por completo una imagen del pasado que la horrorizaba. Entendida por propia experiencia en procesos psiquiátricos, trabajó con soldados que parecÃan neurosis durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una contienda que le trajo el episodio más amargo de su vida con la muerte de su hijo en 1944, paracaidista abatido sobre Alemania.
Todo ello se concretó en sus inquietantes textos redactados con un estilo hipnótico y difuso producto de su transformación (sÃ, como si protagonizase La metamorfosis de Kafka) y por la influencia que algunos crÃticos atribuyen a su descubrimiento del autor praguense. Especulan con que, incluso, ese Kavan se hermane con la k de Kafka o con el mismÃsimo Josef K.
Motivos para un destierro
Comparar a Anna Kavan con Kafka es un poco gratuito. Puede parecer necesario (desde un punto comercial-editorial lo es), porque es cierto que dialogan, y que muchos aspectos de El descenso recuerdan a El proceso, pero Anna Kavan creo que solo es comparable con Anna Kavan, es decir, es única. Y ese puede ser otro motivo de su ostracismo.
No suelo extenderme tanto en los asuntos biográficos de un autor, pero en este caso me parecen, por lo desconocido de la escritora, y la importancia que poseen para completar la comprensión de El descenso, cruciales. Y en efecto, ser Anna Kavan resultó uno más de los impedimentos para que su obra fuera descollante.
Anna Kavan fue considerada por la crÃtica como excesivamente innovadora, demasiado compleja y vanguardista, a pesar de los elogios de autores consagradÃsimos, tales como Doris Lessing, Anaïs Nin (una de las primeras en compararla con Kafka) o J. G. Ballard. Anna Kavan cayó en la oscuridad, en el cruel destierro literario.
A pesar de gozar de cierto prestigio literario, a su muerte desapareció por completo del panorama —por cierto, una muerte polémica: ¿sobredosis o infarto?, al año de publicar su obra Hielo la encontraron en su casa de Kensington; habÃa fallecido completamente solaâ€�. No aparecerÃa, desde entonces, en ninguna reseña, ni en trabajos, ni estudios, ni en antologÃas, brutalmente desgajada de maestras del relato como pueden serlo la neozelandesa Katherine Mansfield, o las británicas Angela Carter, Elizabeth Bowen o la mismÃsima Virginia Woolf. La crÃtica decidió que no pertenecÃa este grupo exquisito.
Otro problema fue que las obras publicadas como Anna Kavan cayeron en manos de un editor minúsculo e independiente, Peter Owen, lo que no favoreció su distribución. Si tomamos en serio la manifestación de Harold Bloom en su Canon, cuando afirma que el mundo editorial está compuesto por una serie de obras que luchan unas con otras por sobrevivir, la pertenencia a esta editorial significó para Kavan un fracaso en el concepto de la selección natural bloombesca.
A ello hay que añadir que Kavan no es una escritora de fácil lectura, trufada de momentos incómodos, oscuros y desagradables, a lo que contribuyó con su propia personalidad cambiante, poliédrica, complicada, enigmática, turbadora. No fue una escritora sencilla para sus lectores.
El descenso o la imaginerÃa del extrañamiento
Anna Kavan no es una escritora sencilla para sus lectores. El motivo radica en la sensación de bloqueo y pavor que producen los relatos, y ya me ciño a los que se contienen en este prodigioso volumen de El descenso. Lees uno y te dices sorprendido: “un momento, un momento, ¿cómo puede ser esto as��. Entonces, vuelves a leerlo para verificar los angustiosos elementos que se contienen y nos oprimen en una habitación, en unas manzanas, en un paisaje o en unos pájaros que evolucionan sobre la nevada.
Lo que nos deja sin habla, estupefactos, son esos finales tremendos con los que clausura las piezas, como erigiendo un muro de ladrillos contra el que nos golpeamos arrojados a gran velocidad por la prosa de la autora. A medida que leÃa El descenso me iba dando la sensación de encontrarme ante un armadillo literario, un libro blindado, pero solo aparentemente blindado, porque puedes penetrar hasta su núcleo blando. Y es allà en donde Anna Kavan te cautiva, para destrozarte después.
Estamos ante una novela en forma de relatos unidos por un mismo hilo conductor. Pero es una novela, a mà no me caben dudas, y en ella se nos narra el proceso de desintegración mental de la protagonista, ese descenso a los infiernos de la enfermedad que se va manifestando con evidentes sÃntomas: visiones, manÃa persecutoria y conspiratoria delirios, evocaciones de mundos extraños, angustias, crisis nerviosas, insomnioâ€�.
Mientras la protagonista va experimentando todo ese desastre psicótico, Anna Kavan nos habla en primera persona. Al ser ingresada en la clÃnica, en el relato largo dividido en ocho partes y que se titula como el libro en español, El descenso, nos ofrece una visión de narradora omnisciente para mostrarnos el cuadro del psiquiátrico —un cuadro cruel y terrorÃficoâ€� proyectado desde la distancia, recurriendo a la maniobra del extrañamiento romántico que trataron escritores alemanes como E. T. A Hoffmann o Von Chamisso, entre otros.
Pero Anna Kavan enlaza, o dialoga, mediante la alienación de sus personajes, y en concreto de su protagonista, con la MarÃa Luisa Bombal de La última niebla o la Sylvia Plath de La campana de cristal. Respecto a la Bombal, entronca directamente con la exposición de un universo soñado que, sin embargo, resulta tremendamente real en la mente de la protagonista.
En El descenso se establece un combate entre el individuo y el enemigo. Ese enemigo es la enfermedad psiquiátrica, que progresivamente va abriéndose paso hasta conseguir el triunfo absoluto. El mensaje es desesperanzado, y convierte a la protagonista en una especie de alma en pena, de muerta en vida.
La literatura de Anna Kavan en El descenso es una escritura frÃa como el hielo, por momentos aséptica, y por momentos hirviente como la caldera plena de máquinas ruidosas que bulle en su cabeza. Las escenas relatadas son siempre inquietantes, aunque se refieran a momentos tranquilos, y una buena muestra de ello la encontramos en la narración larga del sanatorio psiquiátrico, con una serie de personajes que viven internos en una continua represión, acogotados por el horror de unas situaciones que les resultan incomprensibles.
El mensaje que parece transmitirnos la autora del libro es que, una vez que has descendido, ya no podrás, jamás, subir a la superficie, tal y como ocurre en una de sus piezas claves: Ascendiendo al mundo. Solamente por este relato ya merecerÃa la pena el redescubrimiento de Anna Kavan, porque es una autora que debe ser necesariamente leÃda. Algunas piezas de El descenso pertenecen a las mejores páginas de la literatura. Y eso es algo que no puede pasarse por alto alegremente.
Hemos tenido fortuna con esta recuperación de la mano de Navona y de su traductora, Ainize Salaberri. Siempre he creÃdo que uno de los motivos principales de una editorial es la difusión de autoras como esta. Un diez para editorial y traductora, que nos han traÃdo un inmenso e inesperado regalo literario.
En este mundo extraño de la literatura ocurren, demasiadas veces, cosas raras. Por ejemplo: escritores de enorme talento que pasan inadvertidos sin que podamos deleitarnos con sus grandes obras hasta que alguien insiste en ellos, los reivindica y termina por recuperarlos. A veces pasa, como en el caso de la escritora inglesa Anna Kavan, que anteriormente ya habÃa sido publicada en español, pero se habÃa instalado en el limbo del olvido. Autora minoritaria y poco conocida para nosotros, se nos ha revelado de nuevo con el libro de relatos El descenso, editado por Navona y magnÃficamente traducido por Ainize Salaberri.
Aunque soy de los que defiende la inmanencia del texto, es decir, que lo escrito debe entenderse (incluso interpretarse) sin necesidad de interferencias externas —me refiero a las biográficas, fundamentalmente�, me veo en la obligación de puntualizar algunos aspectos sobre Anna Kavan que terminan por darle sentido (todo su sentido pavoroso) a El descenso.
Las metamorfosis de Anna Kavan
Kavan, británica que nació en Cannes (aunque no se conoce con exactitud su fecha de nacimiento, posiblemente en 1901), se llamaba originalmente Helen Emily Woods. Por tanto, Anna Kavan es un pseudónimo, algo que tampoco resulta nada extraño en el mundo de la literatura, y ahà están los casos de Pablo Neruda, Isaak Dinesen, los hispanos ClarÃn y AzorÃn, Gabriela Mistral, George Orwell, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, y un larguÃsimo etcétera.
¿Entonces, qué tiene de interesante este Anna Kavan? Pues mucho: el primer libro que firmó con ese nombre fue una colección de cuentos, Asylum Piece, publicado en 1940, y que es este El descenso que ahora nos ocupa, pero antes habÃa escrito y editado ya varios libros como Helen Ferguson, tomando el apellido de su marido. Un total de seis novelas en ocho años. Esa primera tirada creativa se fundamentó en obras de caracterÃsticas románticas que algunos crÃticos, de forma despectiva, pueden calificar como novelitas rosas, pero que, a pesar de hablarnos de paisajes y vidas bucólicas, dejan entrever extrañas familias que son presa de la angustia y de la amargura.
El descenso es otra cosa: es un texto basado en las experiencias de la escritora como interna en pabellones psiquiátricos, de la asistencia a clÃnicas y de los interminables procesos de psicoanálisis. La mujer se habÃa convertido en alguien inestable que necesitaba de este tipo de ayudas, sumida en un proceso de deterioro que la conducÃa a la enfermedad mental.
Asà que Anna Kavan nace del alejamiento del mundo bucólico e ideal del condado de Home Counties, en donde vivÃa con su adinerado primer marido. La deriva hacia los problemas mentales bien pudo ser producto de varias circunstancias traumáticas: el suicidio de su padre en 1911 —se tiró por la borda de un barco en Méxicoâ€�, lo que la llevó a varios internados; después llegó su más que coqueteo con la heroÃna, el divorcio de su primer marido, el descubrimiento de la vida bohemia, la muerte de una hija al poco de nacer y, tras su segundo divorcio, un intento de suicidio.
Con ese primer intento de suicidio (aún lo intentarÃa dos veces más), apareció la clÃnica de Suiza en donde fue internada y que es fácilmente reconocible en El descenso. Desde entonces pasarÃa toda su vida luchando contra la depresión y la adicción a las drogas, sin éxito. Cuando se decide a publicar El descenso ya no se parece en nada a la lejana Helen Emily Woods, y tampoco a Helen Ferguson, por lo que elige llamarse como la protagonista de dos novelas suyas anteriores, Let Me Alone (1930) y A Stranger Still (1935). Acaba de nacer Anna Kavan para la literatura.
Anna Kavan se tiñó de rubio (era morena) en un intento de abandonar por completo una imagen del pasado que la horrorizaba. Entendida por propia experiencia en procesos psiquiátricos, trabajó con soldados que parecÃan neurosis durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una contienda que le trajo el episodio más amargo de su vida con la muerte de su hijo en 1944, paracaidista abatido sobre Alemania.
Todo ello se concretó en sus inquietantes textos redactados con un estilo hipnótico y difuso producto de su transformación (sÃ, como si protagonizase La metamorfosis de Kafka) y por la influencia que algunos crÃticos atribuyen a su descubrimiento del autor praguense. Especulan con que, incluso, ese Kavan se hermane con la k de Kafka o con el mismÃsimo Josef K.
Motivos para un destierro
Comparar a Anna Kavan con Kafka es un poco gratuito. Puede parecer necesario (desde un punto comercial-editorial lo es), porque es cierto que dialogan, y que muchos aspectos de El descenso recuerdan a El proceso, pero Anna Kavan creo que solo es comparable con Anna Kavan, es decir, es única. Y ese puede ser otro motivo de su ostracismo.
No suelo extenderme tanto en los asuntos biográficos de un autor, pero en este caso me parecen, por lo desconocido de la escritora, y la importancia que poseen para completar la comprensión de El descenso, cruciales. Y en efecto, ser Anna Kavan resultó uno más de los impedimentos para que su obra fuera descollante.
Anna Kavan fue considerada por la crÃtica como excesivamente innovadora, demasiado compleja y vanguardista, a pesar de los elogios de autores consagradÃsimos, tales como Doris Lessing, Anaïs Nin (una de las primeras en compararla con Kafka) o J. G. Ballard. Anna Kavan cayó en la oscuridad, en el cruel destierro literario.
A pesar de gozar de cierto prestigio literario, a su muerte desapareció por completo del panorama —por cierto, una muerte polémica: ¿sobredosis o infarto?, al año de publicar su obra Hielo la encontraron en su casa de Kensington; habÃa fallecido completamente solaâ€�. No aparecerÃa, desde entonces, en ninguna reseña, ni en trabajos, ni estudios, ni en antologÃas, brutalmente desgajada de maestras del relato como pueden serlo la neozelandesa Katherine Mansfield, o las británicas Angela Carter, Elizabeth Bowen o la mismÃsima Virginia Woolf. La crÃtica decidió que no pertenecÃa este grupo exquisito.
Otro problema fue que las obras publicadas como Anna Kavan cayeron en manos de un editor minúsculo e independiente, Peter Owen, lo que no favoreció su distribución. Si tomamos en serio la manifestación de Harold Bloom en su Canon, cuando afirma que el mundo editorial está compuesto por una serie de obras que luchan unas con otras por sobrevivir, la pertenencia a esta editorial significó para Kavan un fracaso en el concepto de la selección natural bloombesca.
A ello hay que añadir que Kavan no es una escritora de fácil lectura, trufada de momentos incómodos, oscuros y desagradables, a lo que contribuyó con su propia personalidad cambiante, poliédrica, complicada, enigmática, turbadora. No fue una escritora sencilla para sus lectores.
El descenso o la imaginerÃa del extrañamiento
Anna Kavan no es una escritora sencilla para sus lectores. El motivo radica en la sensación de bloqueo y pavor que producen los relatos, y ya me ciño a los que se contienen en este prodigioso volumen de El descenso. Lees uno y te dices sorprendido: “un momento, un momento, ¿cómo puede ser esto as��. Entonces, vuelves a leerlo para verificar los angustiosos elementos que se contienen y nos oprimen en una habitación, en unas manzanas, en un paisaje o en unos pájaros que evolucionan sobre la nevada.
Lo que nos deja sin habla, estupefactos, son esos finales tremendos con los que clausura las piezas, como erigiendo un muro de ladrillos contra el que nos golpeamos arrojados a gran velocidad por la prosa de la autora. A medida que leÃa El descenso me iba dando la sensación de encontrarme ante un armadillo literario, un libro blindado, pero solo aparentemente blindado, porque puedes penetrar hasta su núcleo blando. Y es allà en donde Anna Kavan te cautiva, para destrozarte después.
Estamos ante una novela en forma de relatos unidos por un mismo hilo conductor. Pero es una novela, a mà no me caben dudas, y en ella se nos narra el proceso de desintegración mental de la protagonista, ese descenso a los infiernos de la enfermedad que se va manifestando con evidentes sÃntomas: visiones, manÃa persecutoria y conspiratoria delirios, evocaciones de mundos extraños, angustias, crisis nerviosas, insomnioâ€�.
Mientras la protagonista va experimentando todo ese desastre psicótico, Anna Kavan nos habla en primera persona. Al ser ingresada en la clÃnica, en el relato largo dividido en ocho partes y que se titula como el libro en español, El descenso, nos ofrece una visión de narradora omnisciente para mostrarnos el cuadro del psiquiátrico —un cuadro cruel y terrorÃficoâ€� proyectado desde la distancia, recurriendo a la maniobra del extrañamiento romántico que trataron escritores alemanes como E. T. A Hoffmann o Von Chamisso, entre otros.
Pero Anna Kavan enlaza, o dialoga, mediante la alienación de sus personajes, y en concreto de su protagonista, con la MarÃa Luisa Bombal de La última niebla o la Sylvia Plath de La campana de cristal. Respecto a la Bombal, entronca directamente con la exposición de un universo soñado que, sin embargo, resulta tremendamente real en la mente de la protagonista.
En El descenso se establece un combate entre el individuo y el enemigo. Ese enemigo es la enfermedad psiquiátrica, que progresivamente va abriéndose paso hasta conseguir el triunfo absoluto. El mensaje es desesperanzado, y convierte a la protagonista en una especie de alma en pena, de muerta en vida.
La literatura de Anna Kavan en El descenso es una escritura frÃa como el hielo, por momentos aséptica, y por momentos hirviente como la caldera plena de máquinas ruidosas que bulle en su cabeza. Las escenas relatadas son siempre inquietantes, aunque se refieran a momentos tranquilos, y una buena muestra de ello la encontramos en la narración larga del sanatorio psiquiátrico, con una serie de personajes que viven internos en una continua represión, acogotados por el horror de unas situaciones que les resultan incomprensibles.
El mensaje que parece transmitirnos la autora del libro es que, una vez que has descendido, ya no podrás, jamás, subir a la superficie, tal y como ocurre en una de sus piezas claves: Ascendiendo al mundo. Solamente por este relato ya merecerÃa la pena el redescubrimiento de Anna Kavan, porque es una autora que debe ser necesariamente leÃda. Algunas piezas de El descenso pertenecen a las mejores páginas de la literatura. Y eso es algo que no puede pasarse por alto alegremente.
Hemos tenido fortuna con esta recuperación de la mano de Navona y de su traductora, Ainize Salaberri. Siempre he creÃdo que uno de los motivos principales de una editorial es la difusión de autoras como esta. Un diez para editorial y traductora, que nos han traÃdo un inmenso e inesperado regalo literario.
August 27, 2021
I just read for the first time Anna Kavan’s remarkable Ice (1967), her best known and reviewed book, published just before her death, so I consulted my friends here on what else to read and several seemed to lean to this early work, Asylum Piece (1940) that is a kind of linked collection of autobiographical short stories based on her own experience of being “institutionalized� (what a chilling phrase) for different stretches of time for mental illness.
Anna Kavan was born Helen Woods to wealthy expatriate British parents in France. Her mother didn’t want her to attend Oxford, so she arranged for her daughter to meet with her former lover, Donald Ferguson (what a bizarre and terrible series of dinner conversations they must have had, eh?), who became the first of the two husbands (no, not at the same time!) in 1920, both marriages ending in divorce. She was a lifelong heroin addict, and this might have been connected to her periodic mental collapses, but in spite of these challenges she was remarkably prolific, giving us sharply etched and lyrical portraits of desolation, of madness, of rich emotional experience. She is often associated with the work of Kafka, and some people called her Anna K.
The Trial is evident here and in her other works:
“I know that I'm doomed and I'm not going to struggle against my fate. I am only writing this down so that when you do not see me any more you will know that my enemy has finally triumphed.�
The early stories in this collection are kind of straightforward (and powerful) nightmares of paranoia:
“All at once I feel desperate, outraged. Why am I alone doomed to spend nights of torment, with an unseen jailer, when all the rest of the world sleeps peacefully? By what laws have I been tried and condemned, without my knowledge, and to such a heavy sentence, too, when I do not even know of what or by whom I have been indicted?�
“Sometimes I think that some secret court must have tried and condemned me, unheard, to this heavy sentence.�
One of the most remarkable of the early stories is “The Birds,� in which we see she is sustained by nature, and here in particular by birds, while in the “asylum.�
“While I am watching the birds I believe that I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life.�
Another early story, “Machines in my Head,� is particularly chilling:
“In a polished surface of metal I happen to notice my reflected face; it wears a pale, beaten lonely look, eyes looking out at nothing with an expression of fear, frightened and lonely in a nightmare world. Something, I don’t know what, makes me think of my childhood; I remember myself as a schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this � that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.�
The masterpiece of this short book is the title piece, in seven parts where we experience the asylum from multiple perspectives, all of the desolate and desperate “inmates.� I was reminded of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, where he documents how “civilization� began to incarcerate, to imprison, the mad, the insane. The locked door, the iron bars, the attendant despair. Haunting, chilling, deeply sad. I thought of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. All these women locked up in asylums/prisons primarily by men.
“The note of almost unbearable irritation sounding through the deliberately calm tone in which he has just spoken penetrates her child's heart like a cruel needle of ice. Her face falls grotesquely, her mouth trembles, tears - the sudden, despairing tears of a hurt child - fill her eyes to the brim.�
So vulnerable, so sad, yet so beautifully and lyrically rendered. I should think that this short work, capturing so well the emotional experience of mental illness, of vulnerability, would be required reading for psychologists.
Anna Kavan was born Helen Woods to wealthy expatriate British parents in France. Her mother didn’t want her to attend Oxford, so she arranged for her daughter to meet with her former lover, Donald Ferguson (what a bizarre and terrible series of dinner conversations they must have had, eh?), who became the first of the two husbands (no, not at the same time!) in 1920, both marriages ending in divorce. She was a lifelong heroin addict, and this might have been connected to her periodic mental collapses, but in spite of these challenges she was remarkably prolific, giving us sharply etched and lyrical portraits of desolation, of madness, of rich emotional experience. She is often associated with the work of Kafka, and some people called her Anna K.
The Trial is evident here and in her other works:
“I know that I'm doomed and I'm not going to struggle against my fate. I am only writing this down so that when you do not see me any more you will know that my enemy has finally triumphed.�
The early stories in this collection are kind of straightforward (and powerful) nightmares of paranoia:
“All at once I feel desperate, outraged. Why am I alone doomed to spend nights of torment, with an unseen jailer, when all the rest of the world sleeps peacefully? By what laws have I been tried and condemned, without my knowledge, and to such a heavy sentence, too, when I do not even know of what or by whom I have been indicted?�
“Sometimes I think that some secret court must have tried and condemned me, unheard, to this heavy sentence.�
One of the most remarkable of the early stories is “The Birds,� in which we see she is sustained by nature, and here in particular by birds, while in the “asylum.�
“While I am watching the birds I believe that I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life.�
Another early story, “Machines in my Head,� is particularly chilling:
“In a polished surface of metal I happen to notice my reflected face; it wears a pale, beaten lonely look, eyes looking out at nothing with an expression of fear, frightened and lonely in a nightmare world. Something, I don’t know what, makes me think of my childhood; I remember myself as a schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this � that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.�
The masterpiece of this short book is the title piece, in seven parts where we experience the asylum from multiple perspectives, all of the desolate and desperate “inmates.� I was reminded of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, where he documents how “civilization� began to incarcerate, to imprison, the mad, the insane. The locked door, the iron bars, the attendant despair. Haunting, chilling, deeply sad. I thought of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. All these women locked up in asylums/prisons primarily by men.
“The note of almost unbearable irritation sounding through the deliberately calm tone in which he has just spoken penetrates her child's heart like a cruel needle of ice. Her face falls grotesquely, her mouth trembles, tears - the sudden, despairing tears of a hurt child - fill her eyes to the brim.�
So vulnerable, so sad, yet so beautifully and lyrically rendered. I should think that this short work, capturing so well the emotional experience of mental illness, of vulnerability, would be required reading for psychologists.
Read
December 27, 2024DNF @20%
Para quem gostou de “Gelo� de Anna Kavan (1901-1968), a editora Cutelo editou recentemente “Auto do manicómio e outras histórias�.
Para quem, como eu, distingue o esquisito em bom do esquisito literal, estes contos saÃdos da mente perturbada e adulterada desta autora são demasiado frustrantes.
Para quem gostou de “Gelo� de Anna Kavan (1901-1968), a editora Cutelo editou recentemente “Auto do manicómio e outras histórias�.
Para quem, como eu, distingue o esquisito em bom do esquisito literal, estes contos saÃdos da mente perturbada e adulterada desta autora são demasiado frustrantes.
July 30, 2013
Anna Kavan's Asylum Piece,
as reviewed by Petey, the great tit
Interesting book, I'll give it that. The woman has a tendency to blather, that's for sure, but then so do I -- what with my incessant tweeting and twittering -- and as anyone prone to such diarrhea of the mouth (or beak) knows, sometimes it's necessary to talk a WHOLE lotta shit before coming to the point. If you wanna see a good example of this propensity on display, look no further than that jag-bag of a GR reviewer, Arthur Graham!
Tweet tweet!
There's a story in this book called "The Birds", and as you may have already guessed, this one struck a special chord with me. Not so much just because I am a bird, but because even one of Kavan's fellow humans would surely marvel at her ornithological obsession. She really seems to think we're the cat's pajama's, apparently, and I guess I can't blame her for admiring or even envying us a little, given her own perspective. Still, there were moments reading this where I was like "whoa, lady -- us birds ain't got it THAT good!"
Take flying, for instance. You wanna know what flying's like? Sure, it's pretty cool I guess, soaring all around and shit, but you wanna know what would be even cooler? Walking! Man, I can't even tell you what a pain it is trying to walk anywhere on these short-ass, spindly-ass legs of mine.
Grass is always greener, babe.
Tweet, tweet tweet!
So what's up with this lady, then? I know that she spent some time in a mental institution, I know for a FACT that she laughed out loud on page 46 where she catalogs all the various birds with the word "tit" in their name (I know this, because I SAW her laughing through the window), AND I also have it on good authority that the woman was a heroin addict. Now, I don't mention all this for the purpose of discrediting the gal or besmirching her good writing. Lord knows how much time I've spent in the ol' cuckoo's nest, and I'd be the first one to tell you how ridiculous it is to be called a "tit", let alone a "great" tit, when you don't even have any tits to begin with. Also, it's not as if I don't enjoy some intoxicating substances of my own. Why, just last night, I got so fucked up on fermented buckthorn berries, I nearly wrapped myself around a tree on the way home!
Yup, no one's perfect -- not even birds.
As for the rest of this book, I couldn't really get into any of the stories not featuring birds (call me chauvinist), but despite my complaints about this one, it was still good enough to warrant a ten on its own, hence my four-star rating overall.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some things to poop on. Thank you all for reading my silly, bird-brained review. For a more serious, human discussion of Asylum Piece, I'll refer you over to GR's consumate reviewer and all-around hot momma, the lovely Ms. .
Tweet!
March 25, 2011
It's sort of amazing that Anna Kavan can write so coldy and so compassionately at the same time. Coldly because of the clinical observational detachment she's able to turn on herself, and compassionately because she's able to render insanity so believably and so sympathetically. It's never too hard to recognize why her characters have been institutionalized, but it's also completely obvious that only a hairs breath separates them from the usual fears, anxieties, obsessions, and uncertainties of the supposedly sane. Insanity is not typically the territory of visions and voices, but that over everyday life rendered subtlety unbearable, it seems. And in most cases it seems that all these characters really need to pull them back from the brink is a shred of human contact or understanding which they are continuously denied. Totally chilling in its simply-conveyed believability, a crystal mirror of the phantasmorgic inner life she conveyed in Sleep Has His House.
January 4, 2015
What a marvelous book - or better, how amazing that Kavan was able to get all these experiences down on paper. She manages, in what I suppose were her lucid moments, to chronicle her "descent into madness"; but that cliché is insufficient for this book. It's more like a calm, unpleasant journey - no screaming, no violence, just a bewilderment as events unfold and she finds herself incarcerated in an asylum in Switzerland.
Written as a collection of what first appear to be short stories, it becomes clear fairly quickly that the stories are just a formal choice and that we are reading a cohesive, continuous narrative. The control and restraint, and perhaps the quietness of the telling is what makes the book powerfully chilling. She realizes what is happening and the futility of resistance, and yet she maintains her composure, going quietly to the gallows without complaint.
Quite an amazing book and my first exposure to Kavan. Will be reading her more famous book, Ice, next.
Written as a collection of what first appear to be short stories, it becomes clear fairly quickly that the stories are just a formal choice and that we are reading a cohesive, continuous narrative. The control and restraint, and perhaps the quietness of the telling is what makes the book powerfully chilling. She realizes what is happening and the futility of resistance, and yet she maintains her composure, going quietly to the gallows without complaint.
Quite an amazing book and my first exposure to Kavan. Will be reading her more famous book, Ice, next.
November 16, 2022
2nd time through, I'm left with the same feeling as the 1st—the multi-part title piece (Asylum Piece 1, Asylum Piece 2, etc.), while not at all bad, is the weakest part of the book. The preceding chapters along with the final two are excellent—precise, minimal yet poetic, and devastating, providing what seems to be a highly succinct view into Kavan's affliction. I'm not entirely sure why these are so compelling to read. Kavan doesn't have the detachment of Unica Zürn. She's very much immersed in her plight. I can only conclude that it's the perfect economy of each chapter that makes them so appealing. They have the weight of zen koans or sufi parables, each one so skilfully organized that it's impossible not to admire them despite the paranoid anguish they express. They encapsulate the elegant sparsity of some of the earliest electronic arcade games, achieving a sort of exquisite self-sufficiency through limitation. The Asylum Piece chapters, on the other hand, somehow just miss the mark, coming off as somewhat sterile and truly despairing, without the redeeming poetry of the other pieces.
October 26, 2024
I had been meaning to read Anna Kavan for a long time; when Asylum Piece arrived in the mail I did not hesitate and started it immediately. I read it in the span of two days, rather breathlessly. What a great first encounter—I'll definitely be collecting and reading all of her work. Not all the stories were equally good/gripping, but some of them really got to me (especially chapter II of Asylum Piece, which was brilliant), and overall the pieces put together a product, a vision, of rare quality.
"A human being can only endure depression up to a certain point; when this point of saturation is reached it becomes necessary for him to discover some element of pleasure, no matter how humble or on how low a level, in his environment if he is to go on living at all. In my case these insignificant birds with their subdued colourings have provided just sufficient distraction to keep me from total despair. Each day I find myself spending longer and longer at the window watching their flights, their quarrels, their mouse-quick flutterings, their miniature feuds and alliances. Curiously enough, it is only when I am standing in front of the window that I feel any sense of security. While I am watching the birds I believe that I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life. The very indifference to humanity of these wild creatures affords me a certain safeguard. Where all else is dangerous, hostile and liable to inflict pain, they alone can do me no injury because, probably, they are not even aware of my existence. The birds are at once my refuge and my relaxation." (48-49)
January 17, 2023
Update: This benefited from a reread.
Original (2014) review:
To wait � only to wait � without even the the final merciful deprivation of hope.
Some authors start out messy and learn to edit. Some start out spare and airy and then gradually let their leaves unfurl. I'd place Anna Kavan in the latter category.
This novel was Kavan's first truly modernist piece and her first work published under that name. Told in a series of floating and fragmented vignettes, it feels crisp, chill and is, in fact, highly effective in conveying a sense of isolation. The remove is appropriate—if not altogether satisfying.
In later years, she would learn to convey that sense of strangeness and otherworldly remove in a way that felt somehow complete: giving substance to the phantasmal, a name to namelessness; ultimately creating a narrative frame all her own. Here, she's only just beginning.
It's a beautiful book.
There is no love here, nor hate, nor any point where feeling accumulates. In this nameless place nothing appears animate, nothing is close, nothing is real; I am pursued by the remembered scent of dust sprinkled with summer rain.
Outside my window there is a garden where nobody ever walks: a garden without seasons, for the trees are all evergreens. At certain times of the day I can hear the clatter of footsteps on the concrete covered ways which intersect the lawns, but the garden is always deserted, set for the casual appreciation of strangers, or else for the remote and solitary contemplation of eyes defeated like mine.
Original (2014) review:
To wait � only to wait � without even the the final merciful deprivation of hope.
Some authors start out messy and learn to edit. Some start out spare and airy and then gradually let their leaves unfurl. I'd place Anna Kavan in the latter category.
This novel was Kavan's first truly modernist piece and her first work published under that name. Told in a series of floating and fragmented vignettes, it feels crisp, chill and is, in fact, highly effective in conveying a sense of isolation. The remove is appropriate—if not altogether satisfying.
In later years, she would learn to convey that sense of strangeness and otherworldly remove in a way that felt somehow complete: giving substance to the phantasmal, a name to namelessness; ultimately creating a narrative frame all her own. Here, she's only just beginning.
It's a beautiful book.
There is no love here, nor hate, nor any point where feeling accumulates. In this nameless place nothing appears animate, nothing is close, nothing is real; I am pursued by the remembered scent of dust sprinkled with summer rain.
Outside my window there is a garden where nobody ever walks: a garden without seasons, for the trees are all evergreens. At certain times of the day I can hear the clatter of footsteps on the concrete covered ways which intersect the lawns, but the garden is always deserted, set for the casual appreciation of strangers, or else for the remote and solitary contemplation of eyes defeated like mine.
January 11, 2020
Kavan's brief, lucid stories have the quality of remembered nightmares. The first work published under the name of Anna Kavan rather than Helen Ferguson, Asylum Piece - a patchwork of interlinked vignettes that could be considered a novel or a short story collection - is sometimes brilliant, but a little patchy. The title story, made up of eight mini-stories, is somewhat hit and miss - while it's the longest and most complete piece, it's also the only one to deviate from the first-person narrative (seemingly always belonging to the same person) Kavan uses elsewhere, and it suffers for that. The motifs used throughout the rest of the stories build up themes of oppression, paranoia and the impossibility of escape familiar from .
Stories in this book: 'The Birthmark', 'Going Up in the World', 'The Enemy', 'A Changed Situation', 'The Birds', 'Airing a Grievance', 'Just Another Failure', 'The Summons', 'At Night', 'An Unpleasant Reminder', 'Machines in the Head', 'Asylum Piece' (i-viii), 'The End in Sight', 'There is No End'
Stories in this book: 'The Birthmark', 'Going Up in the World', 'The Enemy', 'A Changed Situation', 'The Birds', 'Airing a Grievance', 'Just Another Failure', 'The Summons', 'At Night', 'An Unpleasant Reminder', 'Machines in the Head', 'Asylum Piece' (i-viii), 'The End in Sight', 'There is No End'
September 13, 2021
Published in 1940, this was written when its author was in her late thirties and marks a complete change of direction in both her writing and her life. Until then she had produced a series of more conventional novels under her married name Helen Ferguson, but with Asylum Piece (now writing as Anna Kavan) took to the increasingly experimental style which would eventually culminate in .
ÌýÌýÌý This book’s first half consists of a series of short stories or sketches, interlinked and describing some undefined, distressing and clearly unstoppable process which is engulfing the narrator. There’s a feeling of helplessness running through them, of struggling in an invisible web, tortured by endless waiting for news which never comes. Then, on page 118, we come to this: ‘In a polished surface of metal I happen to notice my reflected face; it wears a pale, beaten lonely look, eyes looking out at nothing with an expression of fear, frightened and lonely in a nightmare world. Something, I don’t know what, makes me think of my childhood; I remember myself as a schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this—that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.â€�
ÌýÌýÌý Thereafter, during the book’s second half, the fog lifts both literally and metaphorically—suddenly we understand what had been happening to her and where she now is: in a psychiatric hospital in a country with lakes and mountains. That undefined but unstoppable process had been a slide downhill through deep depression and insomnia into Nothing, because that was what was waiting for her at the bottom of the slope: no feelings, no thoughts, like being dead while still alive. Now, looking out at the clear mountain air, she describes with fellow feeling and compassion some of the other patients stranded there too.
ÌýÌýÌý Such was Helen Woodsâ€� own life; it was from this same Swiss clinic that she was to re-emerge as, in effect, a different woman with a new persona, the new pen name Anna Kavan (taken from the main character of one of her earlier novels) and new style of writing. What an unusual, honest and understated book; and what an author.
ÌýÌýÌý This book’s first half consists of a series of short stories or sketches, interlinked and describing some undefined, distressing and clearly unstoppable process which is engulfing the narrator. There’s a feeling of helplessness running through them, of struggling in an invisible web, tortured by endless waiting for news which never comes. Then, on page 118, we come to this: ‘In a polished surface of metal I happen to notice my reflected face; it wears a pale, beaten lonely look, eyes looking out at nothing with an expression of fear, frightened and lonely in a nightmare world. Something, I don’t know what, makes me think of my childhood; I remember myself as a schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this—that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.â€�
ÌýÌýÌý Thereafter, during the book’s second half, the fog lifts both literally and metaphorically—suddenly we understand what had been happening to her and where she now is: in a psychiatric hospital in a country with lakes and mountains. That undefined but unstoppable process had been a slide downhill through deep depression and insomnia into Nothing, because that was what was waiting for her at the bottom of the slope: no feelings, no thoughts, like being dead while still alive. Now, looking out at the clear mountain air, she describes with fellow feeling and compassion some of the other patients stranded there too.
ÌýÌýÌý Such was Helen Woodsâ€� own life; it was from this same Swiss clinic that she was to re-emerge as, in effect, a different woman with a new persona, the new pen name Anna Kavan (taken from the main character of one of her earlier novels) and new style of writing. What an unusual, honest and understated book; and what an author.
February 18, 2024
Algo va a pasar. Algo va a pasar.
No.
Algo está pasando.
Ya está.
No es perfecto. No es propio. Es mÃo.
No.
Algo está pasando.
Ya está.
No es perfecto. No es propio. Es mÃo.
September 23, 2020
This was my third book by Kavan, and I found it to be just as good as whose structure is quite similar: visionary vignettes forming a fragmented autobiography in which the author bares her soul with all its nightmares and ghosts.
There was indeed plenty of ghosts in Kavan's soul. Childhood traumas, non-affective or intimidating parental figures, troubled relationships, a catastrophic marriage, all sorts of insecurities and fears - and a heroin addiction to top it off.
All her work is haunted by such recurring images, which are fully developed in her most famous novel , where the author's identity is clearly projected onto The Girl and her mysterious background of physical and psychological abuse. What never fails to delight the readers is Kavan's ability to put it all into words while keeping her lucidity all along, thus turning her nightmarish memories/fantasies into disturbing tales of violence, unfathomable characters and events, psychological riddles and a subtle sense of twisted sexuality.
These short stories are no exception. In her impeccable writing style, Kavan depicts her inner world through symbols and metaphors that - although being either deceivingly simple or impossible to decipher - do strike a chord in the reader, ranging from disquiet to painful empathy, from bewilderment to identification.
Anna Kavan's greatest achievement might very well be the uncanny ability to portray her own condition (lifelong depression, addiction, mental illness, loneliness, phobias) without ever losing control over her writing. She's a lucid narrator of hallucinations, starting off as commonplace events that inexorably turn into dark surrealism. Her story telling is a blend of reality and dream in which narration, introspection, memory and delirium melt into each other without in the least affecting the poised composure of her writing. All in all, her writing can only be defined through oxymorons and juxtapositions.
This collection is more than an exercise in style; it's an allegorical self-portrait as well as an outstanding work of experimental fiction. No doubt Anna Kavan was among the key literary figures of her time, among the first female writers to set off on an entirely personal path towards new horizons and hitherto unthinkable directions. Also, she was one of the rare geniuses who burnt themselves without burning their talent, so that her last work is still regarded by many critics as the best example of female postmodern fiction.
And rightly so.
There was indeed plenty of ghosts in Kavan's soul. Childhood traumas, non-affective or intimidating parental figures, troubled relationships, a catastrophic marriage, all sorts of insecurities and fears - and a heroin addiction to top it off.
All her work is haunted by such recurring images, which are fully developed in her most famous novel , where the author's identity is clearly projected onto The Girl and her mysterious background of physical and psychological abuse. What never fails to delight the readers is Kavan's ability to put it all into words while keeping her lucidity all along, thus turning her nightmarish memories/fantasies into disturbing tales of violence, unfathomable characters and events, psychological riddles and a subtle sense of twisted sexuality.
These short stories are no exception. In her impeccable writing style, Kavan depicts her inner world through symbols and metaphors that - although being either deceivingly simple or impossible to decipher - do strike a chord in the reader, ranging from disquiet to painful empathy, from bewilderment to identification.
Anna Kavan's greatest achievement might very well be the uncanny ability to portray her own condition (lifelong depression, addiction, mental illness, loneliness, phobias) without ever losing control over her writing. She's a lucid narrator of hallucinations, starting off as commonplace events that inexorably turn into dark surrealism. Her story telling is a blend of reality and dream in which narration, introspection, memory and delirium melt into each other without in the least affecting the poised composure of her writing. All in all, her writing can only be defined through oxymorons and juxtapositions.
This collection is more than an exercise in style; it's an allegorical self-portrait as well as an outstanding work of experimental fiction. No doubt Anna Kavan was among the key literary figures of her time, among the first female writers to set off on an entirely personal path towards new horizons and hitherto unthinkable directions. Also, she was one of the rare geniuses who burnt themselves without burning their talent, so that her last work is still regarded by many critics as the best example of female postmodern fiction.
And rightly so.
October 31, 2017
The stories in this volume comprise two discrete types. The collection begins with a series of first-person pieces, many of which conjure up strong parallels to Kafka’s The Trial (Kafka was one of Kavan's key influences in her shift of name and writing style), and in general portray a narrator consumed with the interior life, specifically its decay under the apparent assault of depression, while being oppressed by some unidentified official body (as in Kafka’s work, the faceless nameless authority never explains itself).
Full review .
October 31, 2024
Kavan's writing is a mixture of first and third perspectives that are mostly interlinked, about a woman in a psychiatric hospital. the short stories that are of a nameless main character set in her paranoid delusions are my most loved, however, the short stories that are of observational story telling complete the book in its entirety. Kavan's words are why I love her work. she has a way of convincing me to read into every word written by her. finding the meaning behind each metaphorical story is the best part, in saying that, my summaries might be hazy because they are based on my own interpretations without any outside opinions to affect me.
I'll be stating my second read of certain stories, choosing my favourite quote and a brief summary from each one.
the birthmark:
"how can I convey the strange sense of nullification that accompanied her?"
the nameless main character observes "H" while at her boarding school. this is a one-sided connection. years later, when visiting an ancient museum building that houses a "prison for offenders of a certain type," she comes across an underground vent, hoping her eyes deceive her, she sees someone. she is quickly escorted away by security. Kavan alludes that this person might have been "H."
going up in the world: (second read)
"in fact, he is not to be trusted."
in her paranoid state of despair, the main character is boxed inside a lonely, cold, miserable room in the fog. she seeks help from her "patrons," setting up a meeting with them. she states how sad she is alone in the fog, yet her patrons show her no sympathy due to her past behaviours that are never mentioned.
the enemy: (second read)
"he will never be satisfied until he has destroyed me utterly."
the main character is becoming comfortable in her paranoid state. she has an enemy, but doesn't know who this person might be. she is scared she will be injected with a hypodermic syringe and taken away during the night, only writing her notes to prove her enemy is the reason for this, if she disappears.
a changed situation:
"I imagine that an entirely different system of laws must apply to them."
after strong suggestions from her family to sell her house, the main character refuses. the house starts haunting her in its callous ways at night. a metaphor for herself, she relents to her house as it swallows her.
the birds:
"a human being can only endure depression up to a certain point."
the main character falls into a deep depressive episode. she can no longer eat, work or engage in conversation anymore. those around her start to avoid her. in her absent-minded state she wonders if the lady looking after her notices a change in her. the only thing that brings her happiness is the birds in her garden outside.
airing a grievance: (second read)
"alone here, all my depression, briefly banished by the sun, began to return."
the main character forces herself to have trust in her advisor, "D." paranoia consumes her to the point where she thinks she has seen him before, a photo of him labelled as an assassin. she attempts to change her advisor and waits weeks for a response. the answer arrived in a pale blue letter, no. she travels far to meet her advisor, he keeps her waiting even longer and when they do meet, he informs her he will be going on leave indefinitely.
just another failure:
"was I capable of accepting emotionally the situation to which, in discussion, I had already given an intellectual acceptance?"
after the main character's failed meeting, she thinks only about her options and what to do. she is advised to use her own initiative. she walks as she thinks and loses her sense of time. she believes death is still harder than to live with her unhappiness and failures.
the summons: (second read)
"the affectionate touch, so full of sympathy and compassion, demoralised me even more than his words."
the main character meets a friend, "R." they have dinner, and she feels hatred towards the bartender for seemingly no reason. she hears about R's success on his latest book, and feels disappointed within herself about her own life in comparison. she is called away outside due to a charge made against her. the official's try to contain her, showing a pale blue letter to her that haunts her again. she claims there has been a mistake, returning to R to tell him the story. R gently tells her to go with them.
at night: (second read)
"how can one ever hope to prove one's innocence when there is no means of knowing of what one has been accused?"
the main character experiences sleepless nights in her bed. her thoughts are endless and exhausting. she is confused about what she has done to deserve all of this.
an unpleasant reminder:
"I realised that the whole episode had been a cruel hoax, just a reminder of what is in store for me."
the main character starts her day as normal, with a few minor inconveniences that occur. she plays a game of tennis with a distracted partner and returns to her room to find an unknown woman waiting for her. the woman's elusive nature drives her insane until she eventually presents a box of pills for her. she is to be taken away. in her frantic state, she swallows them, using a soap dispenser she fills with water to help. she leaves the bathroom, only to find the woman never existed.
machines in the head: (second read)
"I haven't really done anything wrong. I feel terribly ill. I can hardly open my eyes."
the main character is awakened abruptly, begging herself for more sleep. like machinery in her mind, she feels the levers and wheels turning inside her. she desperately does not want to be awake.
asylum piece:
"the most striking thing about them is their silence."
this story is from a third person perspective. the observing narrator describes a confusing scene involving several people sitting outside a mansion. there is minimal conversation between them. this story was really obscure.
asylum piece II: (second read)
"I had a friend, a lover. or did I dream it? so many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false."
with this opening line, this short story is my favourite of Anna's. the main character reminisces on a memory of a person close to her, questioning whether or not he was a dream. she remembers him to be irrevocably intertwined with her. "[his] heart and mind had grown into [hers]." soon enough, their connection breaks, when he takes her to the asylum. he leaves her. years after, she still waits for him, with only envisions of him flashing every now and then, to comfort her. she stills hopes he will return, she can't face the truth that is being told to her. her hopelessness eventually allows her to accept that he will not return for her. she concludes he was only a dream.
asylum piece III:
"I can't sleep, I can't eat. I can't make decisions. I can't even think properly anymore."
from a third person perspective, we meet "Hans," the first character to have a full name. we observe his movements and thoughts within his day at the clinic. a letter from his brother stating the money keeping him there is running out, he cannot think straight and his business partner has been ghosting him. he meets a girl, who is seemingly "well" as his jealousy for her stay is to be continued, unlike his, is evident.
asylum piece IV:
"couldn't I please, doctor, see her just for a minute before we go?"
in this story we meet "Zèlie." her parents visit the clinic to have an update on their daughter. her doctor claims she is well and happy. her mother begs to see her. the doctor doesn't allow them to see her, in fear of causing a relapse. Zèlie is told about her parents visit by another patient. she feels hurt that her mother had not come to see her. in a frantic state she rushes to the doctor's office, to find her parents are not there. she runs outside, stumbling on pine needles. she crashes into the fence, clutching the pine needles into her skin.
asylum piece V:
"he's leaving me here. he's going away. without telling me."
this story tells of a couple that arrive at the clinic. the woman, seemingly well, has no objections to entering. when a doctor sees them, he asks the woman if she would like to stay at his clinic. in her altered consciousness, she declines, stating her presence was forced. eventually, as the doctor and man converse, she is transferred to a room. the man leaves her, as she perceives him from the window. she cries out to him behind the locked door, banging on the unbreakable glass until someone notices her hysteria.
asylum piece VI:
"her tears have almost ceased falling."
within the clinic, a worker cleans an empty room until the owner of the room (a patient) appears. her muteness and motionless self intrigues the worker. she cannot leave the room without a response from the patient. the patient stands by the open window, only coming back to reality from the worker touching her. the patient cries, the worker comforts her. she puts her to bed, kisses her on the cheek and the patient stops crying.
asylum piece VII:
"all the days are alike in the wretched place."
this story is about Marcel. he wants to return home to his normal life as a barrister. he cannot stand being at the clinic anymore. thoughts of his wife paying for him to be there come over him. he ditches his tennis game to escape by a boat. unnoticed, he arrives at the bay but he can't seem to leave the boat. he returns back to the clinic.
asylum piece VIII:
"well, what did the doctors say? did they tell you how good I've been?"
in this story we meet Freda, a patient at the clinic. her husband Mr. Rushwood visits her. an attendant Miss. Swanson, that guards Freda's stay, is affectionate towards Freda, even possessive over her. after a meeting with doctors, Mr. Rushwood is greeted by Freda, in her euphoric state thinking she will be leaving the clinic with him, indefinitely. alone with Mr. Rushwood, Miss. Swanson confides in him with her personal thoughts about Freda, stating this place is not right for her. Mr. Rushwood is angered by this, only listening to the doctors opinions. he takes Freda out for the day, only to be embarrassed by her child-like behaviour in front of others. as the departure approaches, Mr. Rushwood informs Freda that he will be returning home without her. Freda experiences an episode, attacking him in the car. with the threat of a syringe by nurses, she willingly goes back inside to find Miss. Swanson waiting for her, to comfort her.
the end in sight: (second read)
"the hours pass, some slowly, some like flashes of light, but each one leading me inexorably nearer to the end."
the nameless main character starts her day optimistic, walking and appreciating the nature around her. what was waiting for her at home was another pale blue letter. these letters always deceive her, mainly forms for her to sign as she waits for her final result in anguish. the day has finally come, the result of her case. she sees her end creeping towards her. she has only days left. her mentally distressed behaviour is unnoticed by those around her.
there is no end: (second read)
"I admit, that possibly after all he is not my personal enemy, but a sort of projection of myself."
the main character sees glimpses of her enemy as she lies in her bed, in her room that is not locked nor has bars on the windows. in the evenings, he will briefly look into her room but she never has enough time to see his face. she questions his presence at her time of destruction. she has thoughts of self-reflections, realising her enemy is closer than she had thought, even there with her the whole time, even "related by blood and brain."
I'll be stating my second read of certain stories, choosing my favourite quote and a brief summary from each one.
the birthmark:
"how can I convey the strange sense of nullification that accompanied her?"
the nameless main character observes "H" while at her boarding school. this is a one-sided connection. years later, when visiting an ancient museum building that houses a "prison for offenders of a certain type," she comes across an underground vent, hoping her eyes deceive her, she sees someone. she is quickly escorted away by security. Kavan alludes that this person might have been "H."
going up in the world: (second read)
"in fact, he is not to be trusted."
in her paranoid state of despair, the main character is boxed inside a lonely, cold, miserable room in the fog. she seeks help from her "patrons," setting up a meeting with them. she states how sad she is alone in the fog, yet her patrons show her no sympathy due to her past behaviours that are never mentioned.
the enemy: (second read)
"he will never be satisfied until he has destroyed me utterly."
the main character is becoming comfortable in her paranoid state. she has an enemy, but doesn't know who this person might be. she is scared she will be injected with a hypodermic syringe and taken away during the night, only writing her notes to prove her enemy is the reason for this, if she disappears.
a changed situation:
"I imagine that an entirely different system of laws must apply to them."
after strong suggestions from her family to sell her house, the main character refuses. the house starts haunting her in its callous ways at night. a metaphor for herself, she relents to her house as it swallows her.
the birds:
"a human being can only endure depression up to a certain point."
the main character falls into a deep depressive episode. she can no longer eat, work or engage in conversation anymore. those around her start to avoid her. in her absent-minded state she wonders if the lady looking after her notices a change in her. the only thing that brings her happiness is the birds in her garden outside.
airing a grievance: (second read)
"alone here, all my depression, briefly banished by the sun, began to return."
the main character forces herself to have trust in her advisor, "D." paranoia consumes her to the point where she thinks she has seen him before, a photo of him labelled as an assassin. she attempts to change her advisor and waits weeks for a response. the answer arrived in a pale blue letter, no. she travels far to meet her advisor, he keeps her waiting even longer and when they do meet, he informs her he will be going on leave indefinitely.
just another failure:
"was I capable of accepting emotionally the situation to which, in discussion, I had already given an intellectual acceptance?"
after the main character's failed meeting, she thinks only about her options and what to do. she is advised to use her own initiative. she walks as she thinks and loses her sense of time. she believes death is still harder than to live with her unhappiness and failures.
the summons: (second read)
"the affectionate touch, so full of sympathy and compassion, demoralised me even more than his words."
the main character meets a friend, "R." they have dinner, and she feels hatred towards the bartender for seemingly no reason. she hears about R's success on his latest book, and feels disappointed within herself about her own life in comparison. she is called away outside due to a charge made against her. the official's try to contain her, showing a pale blue letter to her that haunts her again. she claims there has been a mistake, returning to R to tell him the story. R gently tells her to go with them.
at night: (second read)
"how can one ever hope to prove one's innocence when there is no means of knowing of what one has been accused?"
the main character experiences sleepless nights in her bed. her thoughts are endless and exhausting. she is confused about what she has done to deserve all of this.
an unpleasant reminder:
"I realised that the whole episode had been a cruel hoax, just a reminder of what is in store for me."
the main character starts her day as normal, with a few minor inconveniences that occur. she plays a game of tennis with a distracted partner and returns to her room to find an unknown woman waiting for her. the woman's elusive nature drives her insane until she eventually presents a box of pills for her. she is to be taken away. in her frantic state, she swallows them, using a soap dispenser she fills with water to help. she leaves the bathroom, only to find the woman never existed.
machines in the head: (second read)
"I haven't really done anything wrong. I feel terribly ill. I can hardly open my eyes."
the main character is awakened abruptly, begging herself for more sleep. like machinery in her mind, she feels the levers and wheels turning inside her. she desperately does not want to be awake.
asylum piece:
"the most striking thing about them is their silence."
this story is from a third person perspective. the observing narrator describes a confusing scene involving several people sitting outside a mansion. there is minimal conversation between them. this story was really obscure.
asylum piece II: (second read)
"I had a friend, a lover. or did I dream it? so many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false."
with this opening line, this short story is my favourite of Anna's. the main character reminisces on a memory of a person close to her, questioning whether or not he was a dream. she remembers him to be irrevocably intertwined with her. "[his] heart and mind had grown into [hers]." soon enough, their connection breaks, when he takes her to the asylum. he leaves her. years after, she still waits for him, with only envisions of him flashing every now and then, to comfort her. she stills hopes he will return, she can't face the truth that is being told to her. her hopelessness eventually allows her to accept that he will not return for her. she concludes he was only a dream.
asylum piece III:
"I can't sleep, I can't eat. I can't make decisions. I can't even think properly anymore."
from a third person perspective, we meet "Hans," the first character to have a full name. we observe his movements and thoughts within his day at the clinic. a letter from his brother stating the money keeping him there is running out, he cannot think straight and his business partner has been ghosting him. he meets a girl, who is seemingly "well" as his jealousy for her stay is to be continued, unlike his, is evident.
asylum piece IV:
"couldn't I please, doctor, see her just for a minute before we go?"
in this story we meet "Zèlie." her parents visit the clinic to have an update on their daughter. her doctor claims she is well and happy. her mother begs to see her. the doctor doesn't allow them to see her, in fear of causing a relapse. Zèlie is told about her parents visit by another patient. she feels hurt that her mother had not come to see her. in a frantic state she rushes to the doctor's office, to find her parents are not there. she runs outside, stumbling on pine needles. she crashes into the fence, clutching the pine needles into her skin.
asylum piece V:
"he's leaving me here. he's going away. without telling me."
this story tells of a couple that arrive at the clinic. the woman, seemingly well, has no objections to entering. when a doctor sees them, he asks the woman if she would like to stay at his clinic. in her altered consciousness, she declines, stating her presence was forced. eventually, as the doctor and man converse, she is transferred to a room. the man leaves her, as she perceives him from the window. she cries out to him behind the locked door, banging on the unbreakable glass until someone notices her hysteria.
asylum piece VI:
"her tears have almost ceased falling."
within the clinic, a worker cleans an empty room until the owner of the room (a patient) appears. her muteness and motionless self intrigues the worker. she cannot leave the room without a response from the patient. the patient stands by the open window, only coming back to reality from the worker touching her. the patient cries, the worker comforts her. she puts her to bed, kisses her on the cheek and the patient stops crying.
asylum piece VII:
"all the days are alike in the wretched place."
this story is about Marcel. he wants to return home to his normal life as a barrister. he cannot stand being at the clinic anymore. thoughts of his wife paying for him to be there come over him. he ditches his tennis game to escape by a boat. unnoticed, he arrives at the bay but he can't seem to leave the boat. he returns back to the clinic.
asylum piece VIII:
"well, what did the doctors say? did they tell you how good I've been?"
in this story we meet Freda, a patient at the clinic. her husband Mr. Rushwood visits her. an attendant Miss. Swanson, that guards Freda's stay, is affectionate towards Freda, even possessive over her. after a meeting with doctors, Mr. Rushwood is greeted by Freda, in her euphoric state thinking she will be leaving the clinic with him, indefinitely. alone with Mr. Rushwood, Miss. Swanson confides in him with her personal thoughts about Freda, stating this place is not right for her. Mr. Rushwood is angered by this, only listening to the doctors opinions. he takes Freda out for the day, only to be embarrassed by her child-like behaviour in front of others. as the departure approaches, Mr. Rushwood informs Freda that he will be returning home without her. Freda experiences an episode, attacking him in the car. with the threat of a syringe by nurses, she willingly goes back inside to find Miss. Swanson waiting for her, to comfort her.
the end in sight: (second read)
"the hours pass, some slowly, some like flashes of light, but each one leading me inexorably nearer to the end."
the nameless main character starts her day optimistic, walking and appreciating the nature around her. what was waiting for her at home was another pale blue letter. these letters always deceive her, mainly forms for her to sign as she waits for her final result in anguish. the day has finally come, the result of her case. she sees her end creeping towards her. she has only days left. her mentally distressed behaviour is unnoticed by those around her.
there is no end: (second read)
"I admit, that possibly after all he is not my personal enemy, but a sort of projection of myself."
the main character sees glimpses of her enemy as she lies in her bed, in her room that is not locked nor has bars on the windows. in the evenings, he will briefly look into her room but she never has enough time to see his face. she questions his presence at her time of destruction. she has thoughts of self-reflections, realising her enemy is closer than she had thought, even there with her the whole time, even "related by blood and brain."
February 14, 2014
It's funny, somewhere in the middle of this collection I thought to myself, "sure I like her stories, but I'm not sure I'm going to join the cult of Kavan." How many stories of paranoia can I handle, but we all know "just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not after you." It is a cult right? I never heard of this mysterious writer until two of her volumes showed up on the "Brain Pain" reading list.
I kept thinking back to Jane Bowles, who (16 years her junior) was publishing around the same time. Jane really nailed "crazy" in her novella "Two-Serious Ladies," but Kavan approaches crazy from a different angle. (Both women dealt with "mental illness" or what often seems to me "profound awareness.") Jane's women performed erraticly. Kavan's "I" seems so composed as the clutches of the machine lurk in every corner.
A couple of stories later and I was looking for someone to initiate me into the cult. Or perhaps "Asylum Pieces" is the initiation ritual. Her language deceived me. Every statement is delivered as a "matter-of-fact," but the details she chooses to include in her paranoid sketches surprise and please me.
In the heart of the collection as the character gets closer to capture, (her crimes a mystery to her and the reader), the machinery imagery starts to emerge. I couldn't help thinking of Big Chief vs. Ratched and her Fog Machine.
But there is no Ratched at this Asylum, just tennis dates and a clockwork tapestry of unease. The foes remain hidden, but their work is accomplished through therapists, laywers, and husbands.
I'm stoked to tackle "Ice" and some of her other works to see how she applies language to other themes/topics etc.
I kept thinking back to Jane Bowles, who (16 years her junior) was publishing around the same time. Jane really nailed "crazy" in her novella "Two-Serious Ladies," but Kavan approaches crazy from a different angle. (Both women dealt with "mental illness" or what often seems to me "profound awareness.") Jane's women performed erraticly. Kavan's "I" seems so composed as the clutches of the machine lurk in every corner.
A couple of stories later and I was looking for someone to initiate me into the cult. Or perhaps "Asylum Pieces" is the initiation ritual. Her language deceived me. Every statement is delivered as a "matter-of-fact," but the details she chooses to include in her paranoid sketches surprise and please me.
In the heart of the collection as the character gets closer to capture, (her crimes a mystery to her and the reader), the machinery imagery starts to emerge. I couldn't help thinking of Big Chief vs. Ratched and her Fog Machine.
But there is no Ratched at this Asylum, just tennis dates and a clockwork tapestry of unease. The foes remain hidden, but their work is accomplished through therapists, laywers, and husbands.
I'm stoked to tackle "Ice" and some of her other works to see how she applies language to other themes/topics etc.
October 31, 2010
a scary book from the frozen land of hopeless mental illness. it's hard to believe it was written in english; it reads like a pristine translation of something written on the other side of mars.
It's not as though the place has any special attractions. It is a house of no definite architectural design, half old, half new. The lines of the new part are straightforward and easily read like a sum in simple arithmetic; the old part is oblique, full of treacherous angles, with a roof that sags like the back of a worn-out horse and is blotched with scabrous patches of lichen. Paradoxically, the old part has only been added recently. When I first came to live here it was an entirely new house-- that is to say, it had certainly not been standing for more than ten or fifteen years. Now, at least half of it must have been built many centuries ago. It is the old part which has grown up during my occupation that I fear and distrust.
It's not as though the place has any special attractions. It is a house of no definite architectural design, half old, half new. The lines of the new part are straightforward and easily read like a sum in simple arithmetic; the old part is oblique, full of treacherous angles, with a roof that sags like the back of a worn-out horse and is blotched with scabrous patches of lichen. Paradoxically, the old part has only been added recently. When I first came to live here it was an entirely new house-- that is to say, it had certainly not been standing for more than ten or fifteen years. Now, at least half of it must have been built many centuries ago. It is the old part which has grown up during my occupation that I fear and distrust.
June 4, 2024
'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
anna kavan it´s just that girl
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
anna kavan it´s just that girl
May 10, 2010
'Asylum Piece', the debut collection of connected stories by Anna Kavan, was the first book by her that I've read. Originally looking for a nice edition of 'Ice', I managed to find this first, and decided to pick it up anyway.
A great decision, afterwards, as this modest volume contains a darkly dazzling collection of moody imaginative stories. As can be expected from the tile, Kavan's stories are dominated by themes of anxiety, neurosis, uncertainty, and gloomy moods. However, these grim psychological themes and dispositions are channeled into short stories that are touching and to the point. Compact in terms of composition, each piece says no more than is necessary, leaving much to the imagination, and focusing on the central emotions and motifs in a slightly Kafkaesque style.
In short, these pieces are not for the fainthearted in search of some light reading, nor for aficionados of complicated literature. Rather, it's for those readers who aren't afraid to come face to face with the dark side of the soul.
A great decision, afterwards, as this modest volume contains a darkly dazzling collection of moody imaginative stories. As can be expected from the tile, Kavan's stories are dominated by themes of anxiety, neurosis, uncertainty, and gloomy moods. However, these grim psychological themes and dispositions are channeled into short stories that are touching and to the point. Compact in terms of composition, each piece says no more than is necessary, leaving much to the imagination, and focusing on the central emotions and motifs in a slightly Kafkaesque style.
In short, these pieces are not for the fainthearted in search of some light reading, nor for aficionados of complicated literature. Rather, it's for those readers who aren't afraid to come face to face with the dark side of the soul.
August 30, 2023
Haunting and full of a melancholic finality which not only acts as an autobiographical window into Anna Kavan's condition and the treatment of ill people in the medical establishment which still disturbingly holds up to this day, but also an elegaic excursion into the thoughts and emotions of the interwar period [it's not pronounced, but there's no doubt the advent of WW2 is implicitly lurking in the background throughout every page here]. Kavan writes laconically but gorgeously and the whole thing is eclectic in its presentation and symbolism while always maintaining a clear connective tissue throughout these short stories - it's really more of a fragmented novel than an anthology, with much of the back half feeling like a disjointed-yet-whole collection of fiction writings put to pen during Kavan's institutionalization, all of them more or less seeming to fictionalize different parts of her experience. The book almost ends up being best read as a surreal memoir than outright fiction. Don't have a whole lot to say about, it's just very good and very touching as well.
January 22, 2025
A type of creeping paranoia, not of the conspiracy sort, but of the notion that there is something in the air that is trying to get you killed, something that is punishing you for something you did, something bad you threw into the world that is now seeking its revenge...
Perhaps I am the victim of some mysterious political, religious or financial machination—some vast and shadowy plot, whose ramifications are so obscure as to appear to the uninitiated to be quite outside reason, requiring, for instance, something as apparently senseless as the destruction of everybody with red hair or with a mole on his left leg.
Perhaps I am the victim of some mysterious political, religious or financial machination—some vast and shadowy plot, whose ramifications are so obscure as to appear to the uninitiated to be quite outside reason, requiring, for instance, something as apparently senseless as the destruction of everybody with red hair or with a mole on his left leg.
May 13, 2024
I'm not typically a huge fan of classic literature, so I was hesitant to pick this up, and I definitely wouldn't have if it hadn't been a pick for the Read Around the World book club. But I'm pleasantly surprised, because this was such a good read. Even though it was written in 1940, it felt almost timeless to me in setting and writing. I suspect especially the first story will stay with me forever.
Read as part of the Read Around the World book club (Switzerland)
Read as part of the Read Around the World book club (Switzerland)
December 5, 2021
‘El descensoâ€� de Anna Kavan es una obra que es difÃcil que pase sin pena ni gloria por tu vida. Relatos independientes en los que es fácil encontrar un hilo conductor y asumir que forman parte de un todo.
El nombre original, ‘Asylum Pieceâ€�, menos evocador y simbólico que ‘El descensoâ€�, da pistas de por donde nos llevarán estás historias, que tienen un fuerte componente autobiográfico. La paranoia, la soledad, el miedo, la enfermedad, la depresión, la manÃa persecutoria, el delirio y el abandono, están presentes de forma más evidente o simbólica en cada uno de los relatos.
De hecho, tras leer dos o tres, algo en mi cabeza hizo “clickâ€� y empecé a ver más allá de las apariencias y encontrar simbolismos en frases aparentemente inocentes. Nada es inocente, nada es casualidad cuando escribe Anna Kavan. AsÃ, volvà atrás y releÃ, disfrutando de descubrir nuevas capas y significados, quién sabe si acertados o no.
Los relatos de ‘El descenso� te dejan sin palabras ante su carga simbólica, tan sutil como clara. La naturaleza (ahora belleza, ahora amenazante), se convierte en reflejo del estado de ánimo de la narradora, quien también se mimetiza con su casa (con zonas oscuras y temibles y áreas claras y acogedoras); los objetos se insuflan con ánima para reflejar la realidad de alguien que sufre enormemente. Aún con eso, los relatos destilan realidad, lo hace que sean fáciles de leer y duros de digerir.
Anna Kavan atrapa con sus palabras, te mete en su delirio y onÃria, impidiéndote discernir qué es realidad y qué está en su cabeza. Un retrato asfixiante y angustioso de la enfermedad mental y la soledad.
Una obra cruda y desesperanzadora, donde quien sufre y padece, no tiene salida posible. Los muros que atrapan al enfermo no son fÃsicos, son mentales; y cómo Anna lo transmite, es poético, intenso y sobrecogedor. El pasado se presenta como algo bueno y perdido, que jamás volverá. Esta lectura de alguna forma es activa, no respeta las fronteras de las páginas y, sin piedad, los sentimientos y la asfixia de los personajes invaden el espacio y la realidad del lector.
El nombre original, ‘Asylum Pieceâ€�, menos evocador y simbólico que ‘El descensoâ€�, da pistas de por donde nos llevarán estás historias, que tienen un fuerte componente autobiográfico. La paranoia, la soledad, el miedo, la enfermedad, la depresión, la manÃa persecutoria, el delirio y el abandono, están presentes de forma más evidente o simbólica en cada uno de los relatos.
De hecho, tras leer dos o tres, algo en mi cabeza hizo “clickâ€� y empecé a ver más allá de las apariencias y encontrar simbolismos en frases aparentemente inocentes. Nada es inocente, nada es casualidad cuando escribe Anna Kavan. AsÃ, volvà atrás y releÃ, disfrutando de descubrir nuevas capas y significados, quién sabe si acertados o no.
Los relatos de ‘El descenso� te dejan sin palabras ante su carga simbólica, tan sutil como clara. La naturaleza (ahora belleza, ahora amenazante), se convierte en reflejo del estado de ánimo de la narradora, quien también se mimetiza con su casa (con zonas oscuras y temibles y áreas claras y acogedoras); los objetos se insuflan con ánima para reflejar la realidad de alguien que sufre enormemente. Aún con eso, los relatos destilan realidad, lo hace que sean fáciles de leer y duros de digerir.
Anna Kavan atrapa con sus palabras, te mete en su delirio y onÃria, impidiéndote discernir qué es realidad y qué está en su cabeza. Un retrato asfixiante y angustioso de la enfermedad mental y la soledad.
Una obra cruda y desesperanzadora, donde quien sufre y padece, no tiene salida posible. Los muros que atrapan al enfermo no son fÃsicos, son mentales; y cómo Anna lo transmite, es poético, intenso y sobrecogedor. El pasado se presenta como algo bueno y perdido, que jamás volverá. Esta lectura de alguna forma es activa, no respeta las fronteras de las páginas y, sin piedad, los sentimientos y la asfixia de los personajes invaden el espacio y la realidad del lector.
December 21, 2020
First published in 1940, Asylum Piece is a novel composed of short stories or vignettes that chart the course of apparent persecution, paranoia, and mental breakdown, as suffered and witnessed by the female narrator.
Anna Kavan’s extraordinary prose style � simple, almost clipped, even slightly alien � gives the novel a peculiar and unsettling edge. The vignettes are sometimes prosaic, sometimes fantastical. In one brief piece, the narrator feels threatened by her own house:
“When I first came to live here it was an entirely new house � that is to say, it had certainly not been standing for more than ten or fifteen years. Now, at least half of it must have been built many centuries ago. It is the old part which has grown up during my occupation that I fear and distrust.�
It’s an idea out of � but golly, what a difference in language. In another vignette, the narrator’s waking hours are plagued by the controlling and ever-busy cogs, wheels, and machines in her head:
“I remember myself as schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this � that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.�
Simple and chilling. Anna Kavan wrote from her own experience of breakdown. But there are passages in Asylum Piece that should resonate with anyone who has ever felt, just for a time, isolated or depressed or bewildered by circumstance. It is a memorable and remarkable piece of work.
Anna Kavan’s extraordinary prose style � simple, almost clipped, even slightly alien � gives the novel a peculiar and unsettling edge. The vignettes are sometimes prosaic, sometimes fantastical. In one brief piece, the narrator feels threatened by her own house:
“When I first came to live here it was an entirely new house � that is to say, it had certainly not been standing for more than ten or fifteen years. Now, at least half of it must have been built many centuries ago. It is the old part which has grown up during my occupation that I fear and distrust.�
It’s an idea out of � but golly, what a difference in language. In another vignette, the narrator’s waking hours are plagued by the controlling and ever-busy cogs, wheels, and machines in her head:
“I remember myself as schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this � that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.�
Simple and chilling. Anna Kavan wrote from her own experience of breakdown. But there are passages in Asylum Piece that should resonate with anyone who has ever felt, just for a time, isolated or depressed or bewildered by circumstance. It is a memorable and remarkable piece of work.
March 11, 2025
Notes from February 24, 1997
All of the stories revolve around a sort of insanity in the mind. Some are milder than others, yet all of the stories are very short and don’t get into much depth. The asylum pieces are stories from experiences in a mental institution, from different characters point of view. All of the characters are fairly much together, not extremely insane at all. The overall theme of those stories seems to be about how horrible it is to be in the hospital period, not that anything really bad happens. The other stories seem to be more about the author. They revolve around someone trying to ruin her, basically being paranoid. Overall the stories have a strange feeling to them, and all keep a similar style of writing, similar to the Brontte’s. The book is of smaller size, so it is a very quick read, only a few hours.
All of the stories revolve around a sort of insanity in the mind. Some are milder than others, yet all of the stories are very short and don’t get into much depth. The asylum pieces are stories from experiences in a mental institution, from different characters point of view. All of the characters are fairly much together, not extremely insane at all. The overall theme of those stories seems to be about how horrible it is to be in the hospital period, not that anything really bad happens. The other stories seem to be more about the author. They revolve around someone trying to ruin her, basically being paranoid. Overall the stories have a strange feeling to them, and all keep a similar style of writing, similar to the Brontte’s. The book is of smaller size, so it is a very quick read, only a few hours.
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