Phoenix Rising - Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto

THE BOOKWORM
TURNS
reviewed by Carla McKague
It may seem odd for Pheonix Rising
to be reviewing a book written 25
years ago, and no longer in print
(though available at the Toronto
Public Library). We are doing so
because the author is a member of
ON OUR OWN and, more importantly,
because the story is a fascinating
one.
Its protagonist, Lieutenant
Michael Gill, is a Canadian officer'
in the Second World War, who is
wounded in combat in Italy. At first
it appears that his injuries are only
physical: a few flesh wounds, an
infection and a fractured foot. But
the foot does not heal properly and
becomes more and more painful,
and at the same time his mind seems
to speed up and become unbelievably
powerful. He feels he has
found the answers to most of the
world's problems, and demands a
chance to pass them on before he
dies. He becomes so agitated that he
must be sedated, but even then
sleeps only fifteen minutes after
what a nurse calls "a shot to flatten
ahorse!"
He writes voluminously, in
English and Italian. His psychiatrist
tells him that as a result of an infection
in his leg he has "hyperactivity
of the brain .... Your mind is in a
flash flood." He writes letters to all
the.world leaders and insists that
they be sent out immediately by
diplomatic pouch. One is to
Churchill:
At present, I am incarcerated in
our military hospital at Caserta,
and I am unable to carry out vital
plans both for the production of
an invulnerable tank, and for the
internal overthrow of the enemy
in northern Italy. I know that if I
could be free to direct these projects
the war would end in a very
few months, and perhaps a million
lives would be saved ...
Arrangements are made to take
him to England by ship. During the
voyage, he decides that the military
discipline on board the ship is being
overdone, and suggests that the
other wounded soldiers being transported
protest against it. He is
moved to the "mental ward"-a
cabin with three beds, the other two
unoccupied. He raves about doctors,
and is unable to remember
doing so. He is sporadically angry
and violent, and is beaten by orderlies
and almost constantly drugged.
He imagines he is on an experimental
ship, where the patients are
undergoing breeding experiments.
He fantasizes-or is it fantasy?­
being placed in a harness and lowered
into the ocean, then hauled
aboard to lie on the deck in the sun.
At the Liverpool hospital to
which he is transferred, he undergoes
insulin coma treatment. He
continues to feel excruciating pain
in his foot. But in the midst of his
suffering, he is still able to make
jokes. When the nurse comes to give
him his injection of penicillin every
three hours, he mutters, "These
conscientious injectors!" He introduces
himself to a fellow patient
from the Dental Corps with, "I'm
in the Mental Corps, myself ...
formerly anti-tank."
When he finally begins to return
to normality, he tries to make sense
of his experience:
The region, the realm he had been
in was acknowledged, unendurable.
Only a few lunatics, a few
tortured men, a few geniuses had
entered there. In the normal world
man dilutes reality. By the very
weakness of his senses and the
very littleness of his soul he
shields himself from true reality,
from the full potency of beauty
and evil ...
In the Forests of the Night is a
moving and sensitive account based
on Martel's own experience, and
merits being re-issued and widely
read.
39 / Phoenix Rising