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"I wrote the story myself. It's all about a girl who lost her reputation but never missed it."
What It Takes to Be Human
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What It Takes to Be Human
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1 journaler for this copy...
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My 1,000th book registered on BookCrossing.com! A Christmas 2006 gift from Mr. Goatgrrl.(Left: Colquitz Mental Hospital, Wilkinson Road, Victoria, 1963, courtesy British Columbia Archives Visual Records Catalogue.) |
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What It Takes to Be Human is set in the real-life Colquitz Mental Hospital, a Saanich, British Columbia facility that in the mid-20th century housed men diagnosed with mental illnesses who were acquitted of their crimes by reason of insanity, or transferred from correctional institutions post-conviction. (For a non-fiction description of Colquitz during approximately the same time period as the action in What It Takes occurs, see criminologist Robert Menzies' 1999 paper "I Do Not Care for a Lunatic's Role": Modes of Regulation and Resistance Inside the Colquitz Mental Home, 1919 - 1933.) The novel tells the story of Alexander "Sandy" Grey, a nineteen year old Vancouver Island man who -- as WWII is breaking out -- would like to join the Canadian airforce, but whose fundamentalist father forbids him to do so. Although the details are sketchy in the first half of the book, it's clear that Sandy has committed a violent act against his father, and that it is this which has earned him a place at Colquitz. What's not clear is whether Sandy's psychiatric diagnosis (whatever it is) is apt on the facts of his case, or whether his father just had it coming to him. En route to Colquitz on the Brentwood, Sandy meets the older and gin-soaked Georgina Jones-Murray. They share a cigarette and a kiss immediately before Sandy jumps ship and -- fantastically -- is discovered by Georgina some time later near her wealthy father's waterfront home. Again the details are sketchy, or perhaps magical: while still catching his breath from his long ride on the ocean currents Sandy encounters a sea serpent calving on the beach. Georgina tries to help him evade capture, but Sandy nonetheless finds himself incarcerated at Colquitz. Sandy's parents are not, he tells his therapist Dr. Frank, his "real" parents. Dr. Frank (whose character may have been modeled after real-life visionary Colquitz supervisor Granby Farrant, who died from complications of diabetes in 1933) notes this claim, but insists that Sandy try to connect with the actual parts of his past that may be contributing to his mental state. To facilitate this process, Frank treats Sandy with regular doses of sodium pentothal, generating painful revelations. Around this time Sandy also takes up writing, inspired by a book on writing Georgina has delivered to another inmate ("The Storehouse of Thought and Expression"), and begins to write the story of Alan Macaulay, a man wrongfully executed on the grounds of Colquitz back when it was a jail and prison farm. Sandy begins to identify strongly with a situation in which people have come to believe one thing, when in fact the truth was something else altogether. Because Sandy -- a potentially unreliable narrator -- may have more experience than we realize in this area. What It Takes to Be Human was named one of the Globe & Mail's Top 100 Books of 2006. I enjoyed the novel -- particularly the Vancouver Island history, and what I take to be a reasonably faithful account (particularly paired with Menzies' non-fiction piece, linked above) of what life was like in an early 20th century British Columbia mental hospital. On the down side, I found the magical undercurrents (including appearances by the sea-serpent, tales of flying, Georgina's sporadic and improbable appearances and the book's final mystery, involving Sandy's actual destiny) unsatisfying. This could have been a great novel, but in the end there was too much reliance on fantasy and a kind of magical realism for my liking. (Top left: Official Closing of Colquitz Mental Hospital, January 29, 1965, courtesy British Columbia Archives Visual Records Catalogue.) |
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