Thoughts on the Normal
19 June 2007 13:51After I finished Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, I dug up my Malkavian Clanbook and began going through their list of recommended sources that illustrate deception, alternate realities, mental illness, and insight. I was only able to see one of their film recommendations - The Shining, which I found neither scary nor very good - as I've already watched The Sixth Sense and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and our local library's copy of Jacob's Ladder (which was also recommended by Thief's sound master, Eric Brosius, in this article) has gone missing.
It's in White Wolf's book recommendations that I've truly enjoyed myself. I finished The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson in one day; excellent book once you make it through the languid descriptions of the first part. The Ray Bradbury mentioned in the proceeding post is also part of this project.
The other book I've completed is the script of the play "Equus" by Peter Shaffer. Also excellent, and the fact that I was able to guess the ending less than half-way through the play surprisingly didn't hurt it at all. The part which I found most interesting in "Equus" was Doctor Dysart's commentary on the Normal and the merits - and demerits - of psychiatry. Below are two quotes which particularly struck me:
-"The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes--all right. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills--like a God. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his Priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also--beyond question--I have cut from them parts of individuality repugnant to this God, in both his aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful Gods. And at what lenght . . . Sacrifices to Zeus took at the most surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months."
-"All right, he's sick. He's full of misery and fear. He was dangerous, and could be again, though I doubt it. But that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life. And let me tell you something: I envy it. [...] Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created."
It's in White Wolf's book recommendations that I've truly enjoyed myself. I finished The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson in one day; excellent book once you make it through the languid descriptions of the first part. The Ray Bradbury mentioned in the proceeding post is also part of this project.
The other book I've completed is the script of the play "Equus" by Peter Shaffer. Also excellent, and the fact that I was able to guess the ending less than half-way through the play surprisingly didn't hurt it at all. The part which I found most interesting in "Equus" was Doctor Dysart's commentary on the Normal and the merits - and demerits - of psychiatry. Below are two quotes which particularly struck me:
-"The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes--all right. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills--like a God. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his Priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also--beyond question--I have cut from them parts of individuality repugnant to this God, in both his aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful Gods. And at what lenght . . . Sacrifices to Zeus took at the most surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months."
-"All right, he's sick. He's full of misery and fear. He was dangerous, and could be again, though I doubt it. But that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life. And let me tell you something: I envy it. [...] Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created."
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