4 posts tagged “shutter island”

29 March 2008

Present.alain, michelle, anne. maria, erlinda, marie christine,

Synopsis of book
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck Aule, he sets out to find an escaped patient, a murderess named Rachel Solando, as a hurricane bears down upon them. But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. And neither is Teddy Daniels.Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumors of Ashecliffe’s radical approach to psychiatry? An approach that may include drug experimentation, hideous surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against Soviet brainwashing. . . .Or is there another, more personal reason why he has come there?
As the investigation deepens, the questions only mount:

How has a barefoot woman escaped the island from a locked room?
1.      Who is leaving clues in the form of cryptic codes?
2.      Why is there no record of a patient committed there just one year before?
3.      What really goes on in Ward C?
4.      Why is an empty lighthouse surrounded by an electrified fence and armed guards?
The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more elusive it becomes, and the more they begin to believe that they may never leave Shutter Island. Because someone is trying to drive them insane. . . .
 
Discussion on Shutter Island,  by Erlinda Petersen
 
The consensus about the book was that the story was gripping and that the ending was surprising, unexpected.  Unlike the usual end of story where all the loose ends are knotted and there is either an unhappy ending or a glorious ending, the reader being allowed to accept the end presented neatly by the author. Lehane gets inside the reader's head and moves things around. Not only are expectations of plot development totally confounded, but the reader comes to realise that his whole perception of what is happening is not at all correct. At book’s end  the reader is drawn into a do-it-yourself post-narrative rehash of the events and the characters in order to determine the truth of the story.
After having read the final line of the book, the reader has to flick back through the pages to seek and recognize the clues to support any of the given possible truths. Of the 2 possibilities available to the reader, all felt that any of the two possibilities could be accepted and that, had there been a debate, all the pros and cons for each side would be as convincing as the other. The important thing is that this book forced a process upon the reader to reconsider the events, factors and characters to reach a conclusion. The conclusion by  itself is beside the point.   It is the process which is important.
For the reader, a compelling experience.
With regard to style,  this  book is written as a direct narrative, with not too many literary flourishes.  It is a tale well told, but it is far from deathless prose. The research into the practice of psychiatry  in the 50’s is comprehensive and succeeds in laying out the differing schools of opinion existing at that time with prophetic statements on the future of the science as we now witness it,  i.e. the supremacy of pharmaceuticals in the treatment of mental disorders in our day and age..
There were interesting symbols used throughout the book. The use of water as a symbol was notable, water being considered here in a negative light, being the source of  unpleasant  experiences  differing  from the usual perception of water as life-giving, fresh, buoyant. Water is an element that goes through the life of the main character from boyhood all the way to the present life and is presented in this book in a heavy, ominous manner as if warning the reader that the story deals with deep, dark secrets of an unpleasant nature.   The  warden   is  accurately portrayed as the sinister guardian of the establishment on Shutter Island, very much in the image of a Cerberus,  the hound of Hades.  Cerberus guarded the gate  to  Hades  and   ensured that spirits of the dead could enter, but none could exit .
The pace of the story is relentless, a real page turner, taking the reader through 3 days in the life of the protagonist, Ted Daniels,  through an unbelievable tempest, with a swift development of the plot with a destabilizing (for the reader) twist that leaves one in a state of uncertainty by the last page. 
Someone stated during the discussion that the germ of madness rests in each individual and that it requires certain factors to trigger the mental breakdown. Applying this to Ted Daniels, with such horrific events happening to him and, his inability to  admit to his role in these events,  he was  finally pushed over the brink of sanity. I often wonder myself  whether the factors are indeed the necessary trigger or whether the madness would be manifest regardless,  sooner or later?  Look at all those elderly eccentrics about us, for instance.

Wuthering Heights et autres romans

I found our yesterday that Shutter Island was going to made into a film, however I didn't know until today that the title "Shutter Island" has been changed and the film will be called Ashecliffe after the  mental hospital. I read that Dennis Lehane admires the  windswept moors of Gothic literature, and was trying to recreate some of that with his own approach. This lead me on to thinking about the similarities between Wuthering Heights and Shutter Island. 

I am a great fan of Wuthering Heights, I lived thirty minutes from where the story was written, where the Brontes lived. I walked on the moors most days, I loved the raw atmosphere felt whilst walking, the sheer isolation was frightening yet exhilarating.

Wuthering Heights and Shutter Island share the same atmosphere of isolation, both are isolated geographically either in  terms of the dark foreboding  moors or by being an island surrounded by the inhospitable ocean. Also isolation is felt in the characters, take Heathcliff and Ted for example.  Heathcliff's physical isolation fostered his mental isolation whereas Ted's isolation works in the opposite way, his mental isolation, his refusal to come to terms with the truth lead to his physical isolation.

In both books the wind and storms are important factors, bringing on change, pushing the story further. After storms in both books, major events  happen.  Heathcliff dies, Ted finds himself alone, his partner has disappeared without trace, the story takes on a new dimension.

Windows and doors are important too, they represent freedom or the lack of it. Take for example Rachel's cell, the door was locked from the outside and yet she had vanished without a trace, this is a real conundrum for the reader. In Wuthering Heights ( forgive me, last time I read it was about ten years ago) windows and doors portend both emprisionement and freedom. Either the characters are locked in, or out, access is limited with maybe just a window open to get in by or indeed to escape by.  Only at the end of the novel the gate and the door are open, maybe this denotes renewal for the estate (a new cycle can begin)  now that both Catherine and Heathcliff have found freedom in death. 

Well thats enough musings for now, if you have read Wuthering Heights too, I'd be happy to read your thoughts.

 Two photos, two moors, the first is of  Ilkley moors, I lived in Ilkley, the second is Haworth moors where the Bronte family once lived.

Shutter Island

To begin with, I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to all for coming and giving up a part of your weekend to discuss Shutter Island and sundries.

Erlinda is our newest member, she came notwithstanding her broken knee!

I hope our group lived up to her expectations.

Maybe  Erlinda would be so kind to write up a synopsis on the evening and the book in question  in the near future, when she has time, naturally.

Speaking in public, even in a small group like ours, can be a daunting experience, this can be made worst when one speaks in a language which isn't their own, however when one becomes more confident and more at ease in the company of others that they beginning  to get to know, barriers tumble down, and one begins to converse, and little by little, what seemed impossible is now feasible and even enjoyable.

The  threshold language barrier has been well and truly leapt over by one and all, there's no stopping you now, you can chit chat to your heart's content*.

Language evolves in sudden leaps, we all have our own particular style, and there's always room for improvement.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

 The  book  for April is A Thousand Splendid Suns

The date and the venue are still to be confirmed, updates will appear on the blog or via email.

UPDATE 

Next chat will take place the 25th April, at 19.00, Hotel des Bains 

Gilead

The book for May has been proposed by Erlinda.

Gilead

By Marilynne Robinson

I am very fond of American literature, however I am embrassed to say that this novelist is completely new to me.

If  The Washington Post is anything to go by, we are all in for a real treat.

They wrote  "so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it."  

.

* Heart's content meaning:-  as much as you want - one's complete inner satisfaction - until one's heart is content.

Origin (found here http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hearts-content.html) 

This phrase is first put into print in Shakespeare's plays and there's every reason to believe that he coined it. He used it in at least two plays:

Henry VI, 1593 - Her grace in Speech, Makes me from Wondring, fall to Weeping ioyes, Such is the Fulnesse of my hearts content.

The Merchant of Venice, 1596 - I wish your Ladiship all hearts content.

It is also found in a letter Shakespeare sent to the Earl of Southampton, as the dedication of the poem Venus and Adonis:

Right Honourable, - I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only, if your Honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But, if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your Honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the world's hopeful expectation,

Next Chat:  29th March.  Time:  18hrs.    Place: To be decided but probably Port Issol in the bar overlooking the bay.

We have chosen two books to read over the next two months, I am not sure in which order they are to be read but I surmise that first book will be

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

followed by

 
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

These books are available via amazon.fr and amazon.co.uk.