The Asylum of Dr. Caligari

Not many write as intelligent fiction as does Morrow. Mashing /psychiatry and film history in a compellingly different and fascinating novel is no small feat and Morrow pulls it off with aplomb. Read it!

So thoroughly enjoyable it almost convinces me that the film industry would be justified in remaking the Hammer Horror classics. Well written, inventive, and a great throwback to classics of the genre.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a deft little novel is a perfect fit for people who are not just interested in fantasy, but also history, art, geography and linguistics. If you are a man, and appreciate an elegant woman wearing lace and jewelry more than a bronze bikini-clad babe with a vacuous stare, you might also appreciate the work of James Morrow.
Like T. Coraghessan Boyle, but with more palatable characters, and less heft, James Morrow draws on actual historical figures in his novel. While there was no country of Weizenstaat, which would mean “Wheat State”, there was certainly a Blue period for Pablo Picasso, and a painting by Duchamp called “Nude Descending a Staircase.” As a German speaker, and someone who grew up in an apartment filled with my father’s art books, I got a lot of knowing chuckles out of terms such as “Farbenmensch” which refers to a man who comes to life out of a painting, or the description of Picasso throwing the narrator, an aspiring artist, down the stairs.
I would say this is less a fantasy novel, in the usual modern sense, than an allegory about war and the patriotic frenzy that inspires men to lay down their life. Set at the outbreak of World War I, the novel contrasts those who see the true horror of war, including the narrator, a lunatic, and a gay couple, with those who wish to profit from it. It’s clear that Morrow, an elderly gentleman, has strong pacifist leanings which were probably exercised as far back as the Vietnam war. The famous poet Wilfred Owen implied ironically in his anti-war poem “Dulce e Decorum est,” that it was sweet to die for one’s country in the trenches, choking on chlorine gas. That Morrow seems to agree is indicated in passages such as this rant ascribed to Caligari, the villain:
“…at long last the architects of the Great War can look back on their many accomplishments: a devastated France, a demoralized Britain, a ransacked Germany, a receiving line of corpses stretching from Armentières to Zanzibar.”
The construction of the sentences is often intricate, like the example above. Many phrases are a delight, and I was amused, edified, and illumined. Be aware the pleasures in this book are more to be found in the musings on art, history, and philosophy. The plot is an elegant scaffolding on which to hang these gems of observation.

In the summer of 1914, Francis Wyndham, a pretentious American painter with a high opinion of himself and his talent finds himself rejected by the great and the good of the art world (spectacularly adding to his credentials by having been thrown down the stairs by no less a figure than Picasso). Finally he gains employment in the establishment of Dr Caligari, teaching his inmates art as a therapy. But the mysterious and sinister doctor is up to no good, having produced a masterpiece so mesmerizing it induces a bloodlust and patriotism in troops urging them to rush into battle without a second thought.
Only Wyndham and his eclectic band of artistic asylum inmates stand between the madness Caligari is inflicting on the world.
The Asylum of Dr Caligari is exquisite, inventive madness of epic proportions, laced with wicked humour.
Wyndham’s initial arrival in the country of Caligari’s asylum resoundingly echoes Johnathan Harker’s experiences in Bran Stoker’s Dracula. The mere mention of Caligari sets up a shudder in the local residents. It is soon evident that something is definitely wrong despite the luxuriant surroundings and Wyndham is as much a prisoner as Caligari’s patients.
The inmates and their artwork are wonderfully crackers and significant, as we later find out in the story. The power of art is central to the story and used in a most novel way. There is real tension as Wyndham and his band tried to outwit Caligari.
To me The Asylum of Dr Caligari comes under the same category of taking something and running with it as Bruce Sterling’s splendidly off kilter Pirate Utopia, published last year by Tachyon Publications. Both authors allow the strange to get stranger, yet never once losing control of the plot or where it is going. The two books should sit side by side on their own shelf, lest the energy radiating from them knocks the rest of your collection flying.

***This book was reviewed for the San Francisco and Seattle Book Reviews, and via Netgalley

The Asylum of Dr Caligari by James Morrow, spun from the 1920s silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, is a commentary on duality- life and death, war and peace, science and art, reason and mysticism, sanity and insanity- and how things are often not as dualistic as first they seem, for they are connected. Like the yin-yang, there is always a bit of one in the totality of the other. Beyond that, it is an admonishment against war, the foolishness that starts it, and the lust that fuels it.

A young artist, Francis Wyndham, sets off from America, headed to Europe to learn from the masters. Unfortunately, poor Francis cannot find a place as an apprentice, and he begins to need to consider focusing on a trade in order to survive. He is spared from brickmason’s schooling when he is unexpectedly offered a job working as an art therapist for Dr Caligari at his asylum in Weizenstaat. Caligari is a mesmerist and alienist with unconventional methods including sex therapy and heteropathy. Francis accepts and begins teaching four gifted 'lunatics’.

On his initial tour, Francis is shown artwork done by his new students, which is held on display at a museum attached to the asylum. Shrouded in one section is a painting Dr Caligari has done. Francis asks about it and is pretty much told to mind his own business. Not only does Francis go back to see the picture, but he takes Ilona, one of his students, with him. What they find defies explanation. Using alchemy, Caligari has created a painting to arouse bloodlust in all who view it. As World War One looms on the horizon, Caligari begins to charge governments, and exposing soldiers to the painting, priming them for fighting. Francis and Ilona have to stop him, but how? Thankfully, Caligari isn't the only paint mystic around. Question is, can they pull off a peace painting to counter the lust for war?

This is a satire for the ages, a skillful blending of the history of World War One, and the fantastical realm of alchemy and magic. There's so much going on in this book, philosophy and spiritual-wise. With Caligari, Francis, and Ilona, you have both Creator and Destroyer in each. The art they create can incite intense emotion, and it's a lesson that such power should be handled with care. Art, and creativity itself, in any form is a gift and a chance to give beauty back to the world. Abuse of that gift is tragic. Jedermann is a liminal guardian, and a psychopomp, in a quite literal way for Francis, and for countless soldiers in a more figurative fashion.

The wry, tongue-in-cheek amusement of Morrow’s writing reminds me of reading Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal many moons ago (and reread a few years past). I'm not a huge fan of satire, but this tale is eminently readable.

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