Tag Archives: mental illness

Quick hits

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First up, an idea to limit our carbon footprint, save companies money, and heat homes for free, all in one brilliant idea:

TO satisfy our ever-growing need for computing power, many technology companies have moved their work to data centers with tens of thousands of power-gobbling servers. Concentrated in one place, the servers produce enormous heat. The additional power needed for cooling them — up to half of the power used to run them — is the steep environmental price we have paid to move data to the so-called cloud…

If a home has a broadband Internet connection, it can serve as a micro data center. One, two or three cabinets filled with servers could be installed where the furnace sits and connected with the existing circulation fan and ductwork. Each cabinet could have slots for, say, 40 motherboards — each one counting as a server. In the coldest climate, about 110 motherboards could keep a home as toasty as a conventional furnace does.

And secondly, a phenomenal piece in the New York Times on caring for a wife with mental illness:

When suicidal thoughts made her happy, I knew it was my cue to remind her of other reasons to feel happy. So I told her I loved her. And that so many other people loved her, too. That she was so strong for holding on. That none of this was her fault. That the feelings would go away. That she just had to keep holding on.

These suicidal conversations could be quick or they could be slow. One time we were biking to yoga together, and we had to pull over and sit on the sidewalk for almost two hours while she sobbed and begged me to let her kill herself. I pleaded with her to just hang on through this moment, and that it would pass, and that she would someday, somehow, start to feel better again.

#11: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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I have just learned something: there does not seem to be a character limit on blog post titles. If for no other reason, British author Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, has been helpful in this regard. (In the spirit of generosity, I will also attest to Haddon’s wisdom in neglecting to include a subtitle.)

Fortunately, the virtues of this work extend far beyond its function as a test of software capabilities, as Haddon lends a powerful voice to a mentally disabled boy living in England. At once a mystery novel and a compelling journey into the mind of a very unique child, The Curious Incident is savvy enough to allow the reader wide room for interpretation while still relating an extraordinarily accessible tale (and in the first person, no less). Christopher John Francis Boone is an autistic child living with his father in Swindon. (In an interview, the author preferred to define the protagonist’s condition somewhat more ambiguously, stating that “there is a very true sense in which there is something more wrong with the people around Christopher than with him.” A bit trite, yes, but not without validity.)

Throughout the course of the story, it becomes obvious that — surprise, surprise — not all is as it seems in Christopher-land. And yes, it is as if he inhabits an alternate world, likely one of his own making or, at the very least, bounded by the despotic tics that frequently shut down both his mental and physical faculties. When composed, however, Christopher is something of a math prodigy, and his embrace of sheer logic (however illogical his idea of rationality may be) is as heartwarming as it is frightening. In a rather characteristic example, Christopher postulates on the difference between his memory and the imagination of his peers: “Other people have pictures in their heads, too,” he writes. “But they are different because the pictures in my head are all pictures of things which really happened. But other people have pictures in their heads of things which aren’t real and didn’t happen.”

Like many children, Christopher is often funny without intending to be, but his limited mental agility renders his many evaluations of his experiences extremely affecting. It is not what he takes note of, but instead what he does not, that exudes the beauty and sadness of a life lived within the constricting walls of mental illness. And in a strange way, Mark Haddon’s seemingly cliched remark about Christopher is spot-on: the childlike gravitation towards (il)logical deduction provides a far more elegant form of commentary than do the voices of those surrounding him. Christopher concludes his journey secure in the knowledge that “[he] can do anything.” Readers will have little trouble believing that, but Mark Haddon’s challenge with his next novel will be attempting to live up to Christopher’s high standards.

#9: The Unnamed

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About halfway through reading The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris, I found myself perusing its review online at the New York Times. Jay McInerney was less than glowing in his evaluation, deeming Ferris’ first novel, Then We Came to the End, a “masterly debut,” before lamenting that “it’s difficult to believe that ‘The Unnamed’ and ‘Then We Came to the End’ come from the same laptop.” The review concludes on a wistful note, with McInerney willing the author to “return to the kind of thing at which he excels.”

So then, perhaps he’d like a sequel? It is true that The Unnamed marks a sharp departure from Then We Came to the End, which was a highly comical yet ultimately shallow plunge into office hijinks and melodrama. (In fact, Ferris’ first book was probably a closer — and slightly older — cousin to Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, which arrived on bookshelves late last summer, than it is to The Unnamed. Both books awkwardly mingle frivolity with heavier matters of the soul, with many passages leaving readers simultaneously laughing and yet unsure of whether that was an appropriate response to, say, the protagonist sleeping with his brother’s wife. I’ve seen Adam Sandler movies with more emotional verve.) But these differences are hardly a knock on Ferris’ progression as an author. In fact, while I was contemplating buying The Unnamed on Amazon.com, I noticed that the book’s page featured a video conversation between Ferris and David Sedaris. At the time, this meeting of the minds seemed apt, but the congruency disappeared upon completing The Unnamed.

Unlike Jay McInerney, I do not find it unthinkable that Joshua Ferris’ two novels share the same author. In both books he displays his keenness for irony and wit, and in both books his characters seem ever so slightly unbelievable, even while their antics compel you — inevitably and without hesitation — to keep turning the pages. In the case of The Unnamed, the main character is Tim Farnsworth, a partner at a prestigious Manhattan law firm. Farnsworth has a mysterious condition: at times and without warning, he starts walking. And doesn’t stop. Or at least not for several hours, until his body gives way and the enigmatic force propelling him forward suddenly yields its mastery over his limbs. By the time he finally regains control over his forward motion, he is overtaken by an otherworldly slumber and often finds himself in unlikely places, such as crumpled in a heap by the East River, or even somewhere in New Jersey (which, I’ve learned, is so much farther away for a self-respecting Manhattanite than the actual geographical distance traversed).

Tim’s wife, Jane, has been his stalwart ally throughout his ordeals, which, as the story opens, have surfaced for the third time. While desperate for a cure, in his darker moments Tim knows he would almost be content just to find someone else with the same affliction, as vindication, proof that his is a purely physical aberration and not reflective of mental vulnerability. In despair, Tim tells his wife, “I’m the only one, Jane. No one else on record. That’s crazy.” However, the couple’s daughter, Becka, a maladjusted teenager with delicate weight issues, is skeptical of her father’s illness. In one exchange with her mother, she asks, “Have you ever Googled it? Google it and see what comes up.” “Google what?” Jane asks. “Exactly,” Becka replies, and it is immediately clear that Ferris has his finger on the pulse of filial dynamics.

Read simply, The Unnamed is a compelling love story — not in the traditional sense, but in an arguably purer form. There is nothing remotely sexy or alluring about Jane’s tireless efforts to rescue her husband (more from himself than from his illness), nor are Tim’s attempts to break free from his family to prevent their self-destruction at all representative of popular romantic themes. As a family, the Farnsworths are failures in many respects — Tim’s illness persists, Jane succumbs to alcoholism, and even Becka resigns herself to living with the body she has. Disappointment permeates every part of their lives, yet there is always the potential for a miracle, a reversal; and it is this paradox that characterizes their predicament. Joshua Ferris has combined his talent for lively dialogue and quirky characters and infused his narrative with a profound emotional depth and complexity that was simply not present in Then We Came to the End. That earlier novel claimed the hearts of legions of new fans, and The Unnamed has since broken them. Given the ease with which Ferris has already transported us through these two distinct worlds, it seems safe to expect more pleasant surprises down the road.