By Adam Foulds
In response to genuine occasions in Epping wooded area at the fringe of London round 1840, The Quickening Maze centres at the first incarceration of the nice nature poet John Clare. After years suffering from alcohol, severe forget and melancholy, Clare unearths himself in excessive seashore deepest Asylum – an establishment run on reformist rules which might later develop into referred to as occupational treatment. while one other poet, the younger Alfred Tennyson, strikes close by and turns into entangled within the lifestyles and catastrophic schemes of the asylum's proprietor, the abnormal, charismatic Dr Matthew Allen.
For John Clare, a guy who had grown up steeped within the freedoms and exhilarations of nature, who suggestion ‘the fringe of the realm used to be a day’s stroll away’, a locked door is a type of loss of life. This intensely lyrical novel describes his vertiginous fall, via hallucinatory episodes of madness and dissolving identification, in the direction of his ultimate madness.
Historically actual, yet brilliantly imagined, the closed global of excessive seashore and its a number of inmates – the health care provider, his lonely daughter in love with Tennyson, the brutish employees and John Clare himself – are introduced vividly to lifestyles. open air the partitions is Nature, and Clare’s paradise: the birds and animals, the gypsies dwelling within the wooded area; his dream of domestic, of redemption, of get away. Rapturous but exact, exquisitely written, wealthy in personality and aspect, it is a notable and deeply affecting publication: a visionary novel which includes a world.
From the exchange Paperback edition.
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Extra info for The Quickening Maze
Sample text
The admiral released one hand from behind his back and gestured out at the woods. Like a dog, John looked at the hand, not at the direction indicated. He’d forgotten how twisted and swollen the admiral’s hands were, fingers like lengths of ginger root. John wondered that he didn’t wear gloves, but perhaps he couldn’t get them on. ‘Yes,’ the admiral said, ‘it’s the fine sort of autumn weather. I have an invitation in town,’ he announced. John bowed at the fact. ’ The admiral smiled. John also smiled.
When he saw John he started towards him, his face raw with rage, but two attendants were with him. One sprang up from a log on which they were playing with a pack of old, bent cards, and raised his arms. The lunatic pretended not to see him, but stopped where he was. ‘Move on there,’ the attendant told John. It was Stockdale. ‘Move on. No harm done. Had a bit of a morning, that one. ’ The other attendant, whom John didn’t quite recognise, smiled through his pipe smoke. John hurried on, removing his hat, wiping out the brim dampened by sudden fear, and setting it firmly back on his head.
Well, no doubt you’ll be a great addition to Epping society, such as it is. ’ Tennyson inclined his head at the mention of his suffering brother. The blush of enthusiasm left him, dwindling down painfully to a small heat of embarrassment. That often came after too intense a disclosure of self with somebody; now it was made the more intense by the thought of Septimus. The wide line of his mouth hardened. Allen saw and sought to reassure him. ‘I’ve no doubt that Septimus has very fine prospects of recovery.