My Book Reviews

Review of The Ghosts of  Rome  (Vintage, 2026), by Joseph O'Connor. One of the recurring and enduring phrases in philosophy, both ancient and modern, is “ memento mori ,” “remember you must die,” or “remember death.”  Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca viewed the contemplation of death as one of the best ways to prioritise one’s actions and to learn to live in the present moment.  In the medieval period, the Christian Church used the catchphrase memento mori and its representations to shift focus away from earthly desires and pleasures and towards the afterlife and divine judgment. It was also a central, haunting theme for 17th-century metaphysical poets, who blended intense spiritual anxiety with intellectual wit to confront mortality.  I remember well studying poets of this school back in the late 1970s at college. For example, John Donne and Andrew Marvell used complex metaphors ( conceits ) to meditate on death, decay, and the soul’s j...

Review of My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor (Vintage, 2024) It is great to take a break from the deeper and heavier types of books I have been reviewing in these pages.  My brother, Patrick, keeps reminding me that I should read more novels and collections of short stories, and indeed, I know that this sage advice is just what the doctor orders for good mental well-being.  I have read this novel by Joseph O’Connor over the past weekend.  It is a magnetic book that keeps the reader so engaged that he cannot wait to conclude the chapter and begin the next to find out where the story will lead.  What thoroughfare or street or wonderful palazzo or ancient church or even miasmic sewer or dusty attic will we find ourselves in next?  What is the fate of this or that character?  Will he or she complete the mission? I mention these details because the novel is set in Rome in 1943 and the reader is brought on a journey through such mesmeric and wondrous, and o...

I have underlined the fact many times in these posts that human nature, or what is often called the human condition, is a complex one.  Such a general statement would also imply logically that the particular subset of humanity with psychological, neurotic, psychiatric, or psychotic ailments or difficulties is also, by definition, complex.  Indeed, it is more so, as it deviates so spectacularly from the norm in terms of perception of reality and behaviour.  I have also emphasised often the accepted opinion that the genesis of psychosis is multifactorial with a medically proven biochemical malfunction at base, but have also gone to pains to assert that there are many other compounding and exacerbating factors such as early experiences of dysfunctionality of family and social surroundings that include all forms of abuse, poor attachment to and early separation from the mother, and so on.  All these factors compound and exacerbate the psychosis.  Furthermore, in the...

Human nature is extremely complex.   We run the risk of much misunderstanding, if not considerable trouble, if we simplify that reality too much in every field from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic, from interpersonal to international relationships.   Interpersonal relationships, and indeed the relationship of individuals with their own self, that is, their self-identity, are often critical, if not very tortured ones. This we have seen in my last three posts on mental disturbances, especially psychotic disorders, as represented mostly in schizophrenia .   In general, apart altogether from such disorders, quite often the behaviours of so-called normal individuals within their own families and communities are often hard enough to understand, and when we magnify such interactions to a global one between nations, we cannot be too surprised that disagreements can escalate quite unreasonably and very quickly into war.   It would seem that we have depraved depths within u...

Reviewing Schizophrenia 3: The Divided Self : R.D. Laing How far does our family of origin shape our personality, mental state and behaviour?  How far do our genetics form those same realities?  It is that age-old , often-repeated question about the  nature-versus-nurture  debate .  A balanced approach answers that they both do.  Before I discuss R.D. Laing’s contribution to psychiatry and psychotherapy, let me begin with an exceptionally cynical poem by Philip Larkin (1922 – 1985), which presents the misanthropic and fatalistic view that parents ruin their children, passing on misery that deepens "like a coastal shelf," advising that one should avoid having children to stop the cycle of abuse.  I think it provides a fitting epigraph for the life and times as well as the thoughts and teachings of the exceptional and eccentric psychiatrist, Ronald Laing: This Be The Verse (1971) They fuck you up, your mum and dad.     ...