The Snake Pit by Mary Jane Ward 1946 HC First Printing; Mental Illness Novel

Description: In the bad old days, very long ago, when someone began to act queer they put him or her into a pit with a snake. Sometimes the snake bit and the patient died, but if not, he was cured — by the shock. It was a crude and cruel experiment in what we call the shock treatment now. The shock treatment, as is probably well known, consists of strong electric shocks which tend to restore the mental balance when it has been lost. Virginia, the heroine of this excellent novel, had been a good novelist. She had married a "practical man," which was fortunate since she was supposed to be a little flighty, and left her decorous small home town for Greenwich Village. Here the savings melted away, and the harder she worked on her new novel, the less she slept, until for weeks she did not sleep at all. One morning in February there was "some-thing wrong" with her head. When next she began consciously to look about her, it was August. It is a familiar pattern of nervous breakdown. Familiar! All of us have been through something like it, or have had friends or relatives who have been through it. But how often has a type experience been described by a writer able to see her heroine from first light of self-memory to complete recovery? Miss Ward does this: with wit and charm and keen observation. When Virginia "comes to," at the very beginning of the novel, she is sitting on a bench in a park talking to a girl badly dressed in what she calls a Hoover apron, and she doesn't know where she is, or how to get to her home. The memory of the immediate past is blank, her reasoning processes are slow and wandering. But acute. When suddenly they are all marched in by a woman who looked like a wildebeest, the half of her mind that is awake catches the significance at once. Robert (that was her husband) must have urged her to do a novel on prison life. Here she is, a voluntary observer, but when and how? Somebody had taken her glasses and faces were blurred, but already her novelist's sense was catching the in-dividualities. There was the "Countess," a vast woman who grabbed Virginia's food before she could eat it to save it for her, then threw it out the window to the birds; there was the lovely Italian girl who made a speech imitating Mussolini be cause someone had broken her perfume bottle; there was the beautiful young nurse who talked out of the corner of her mouth; "cut the shoving, la-dies," she said. "Cut-the-shove," Virginia decided she would call her. But it wasn't a prison, and she wasn't an observer. That came to her tragically. Something was still wrong with her head. And next morning they gave her no breakfast and she was taken in for Shock I do not suppose this novel has much scientific value, or is intended to. What happens in the various departments of the hospital, No. 3, No. 2, No. 1, to which Virginia is promoted, or trom which she is demoted, is just the routine of the modern treatment for nervous breakdown. No, this book is a good novel, not a case history, and the test of a good novel is that it finds the human, the in-dividual, the incongruous, the sympathetic, the antipathetic everywhere — whether in an office, in small-town society, in a hospital, or in an institution for mental therapy. All of these patients at least can get well. All of these doctors and nurses are trained to carry out their job. But in the meantime they are inrensely human. The nearest of Virginia's new friends goes to pieces because she thinks Virginia has fallen in love with her doctor— and scratches. The best of the doctors makes a false diagnosis or an error in treatment which sets Virginia back- for weeks. The nurses are not so good after a night off as on some other mornings. The disciplinarians sometimes become patients themselves. And the dramatic uncertainty, as to when your neighbor at table, or in the comfortable lounge, is going to come out with a heart secret or a mammoth and incredible lie or throw a meatball, prevents life (and the story) from ever becoming dull. Yet, of course, with everyone under-neath, is always the tension. When will I get out? Am I ready to go out? Will they find that I am ready to get out, or will I break down in some silly confusion again? Contrary to the natural expectations of some readers, there is nothing whatsoever "dreadful" about this book, though sometimes it is heart-rending; but it is lightened by a delicious humor and wit, which is always sympathetic and never cruel. This is a story of a brilliant, likable woman, overstrained, broken, and getting well. If it is somewhat edged in its account of nurses and doctors being all too hu-man, I can see a good deal of good and no harm in that. The doctor, who finally does get Virginia out and well again, is the one who bothers least about technical processes and prece-dents, a common-sense, percep-tive, good-humored fellow who makes it his business to under--stand her. HENRY SEIDEL CANBY This is from a “lot” of books donated to our Friends of Spanish Peaks Library District for our quarterly book sale. Proceeds go to our children’s summer programs, adult special programs and staff development. Thanks for looking. I’ll be happy to combine shipping please ask! Book is in good condition. Has previous owners information written on inside cover page, see photos for detail!

Price: 7 USD

Location: Walsenburg, Colorado

End Time: 2025-02-11T19:46:48.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.63 USD