This is why I go to Book Club. Normally I would never have picked this book to read, a dramatised version of the visit made in 1840 to Mathew Allen's private asylum in Epping Forest by young Alfred Tennyson. His brother Septimus is incarcerated there, and so is the poet John Clare who becomes almost the main character of separate but cleverly interwoven stories of Allen's family, the inmates and visitors. This is book that made me dawdle over the delicate prose that is quite poetic at times: "Forked or foliate, the flames themselves were as singular as the trees, eternal and vanishing in quick snaps".
I found the descriptions of the madness suffered by John Clare and others late on in the book to be more like the recollection of a dream but that was the only boring segment of this generally intriguing novel. Unfortunately, Allen's brother Oswald only makes two short appearances. I would have liked so much more.
No comments:
Post a Comment