Dear Shirley:

Regarding Girl Interrupted, the book. My comments will be in parenthesis inside the quote of what you wrote: “Everyone at Mclean hospital (world!) has some mental disorder of varying degrees. One character Lisa seems almost normal as she is always trying to escape the hospital for a sense of freedom, (escape the prison cell of our childhood) yet she is always admitted back (it is not easy or possible to escape that prison cell) because she has no money and not sure how she can survive. Lisa barely eats and sleeps and is calmer at night and I feel sorry for her. The only form of entertainment for the patients at Mclean hospital is the tv which only features bland things like depressives and things. I think Lisa knows more about the world than the other patients and she has a sense she wants to be part of it, but isn’t sure how. In the novel, Lisa says “Lisa never watched tv and had scorn for those who did. She believed it made people like more like robots than they already were.” (I agree, this is why I do not watch TV or even have a TV service… same is with books or news, everything is filled with so much non-realness to me, marketing manipulations etc). Lisa seems to understand the condition of the patients in Mclean hospital and how they just drift through life and aren’t sure how to live in the real world (There is no real world outside Mclean hospital, the real world is a mental institution, really). Also Lisa says “It’s a mean world out there. There’s no one to take care of you.” (The childhood fantasy is a fantasy and we can never make it real, I mean when you don’t feel safe as a child you are always afraid..). Lisa seems to understand the world more than the other patients in the hospital and how people have to fend for themselves and those who can’t are locked away. Girl, Interrupted is a very moving book exposing the sufferings of people who don’t know what the real world seems like (I do believe healing is about seeing what reality is. Whenever we do not, we remain in sickness). There is one character, Polly who tried to burn herself and Susanna thinks she is courageous since she never complains, smiles and doesn’t talk, but Polly is like a comforting presence for others. Susanna believes that Polly built herself a new skin of scar tissue that never wears out to cover and protect what is underneath (this protection is indeed skin deep and is very, very limited); she burned the sadness out of her (can’t do that; can only push the sadness down, repress it, but it will keep hurting until she hears the message in her sadness). Yet, Polly makes me sad because she like the others is also covering herself, hiding in a world of darkness not really in reality. (Most people are in the world of darkness, seeing only what is not too painful to see).

anita