Chandak Sengoopta
The Spy in the Straightjacket
The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and Hist Visionary Madness
By Mike Jay
Bantam Press 306pp £12.99
FEW PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS are as remarkable as the conviction that one's thoughts and actions are being controlled by some mysterious, malevolent machine. One of the earliest and most colourful examples of such a delusion was reported in the early nineteenth century by John Haslam, apothecary to the Bethlem Hospital in London, arguably the best-known madhouse of all time. Haslam's patient, James Tilly Matthews, claimed that an infernal machine called the Air Loom was controlling his thoughts and subjecting him to countless exquisite tortures. The Loom, which worked by releasing magnetic rays, could insert strange thoughts into his mind, induce specific dreams, or even 'stagnate his circulation, impede his vital motions, and produce instant death'. Over the two centuries since Matthews and Haslam were alive, similar machines have become common in science fiction and in conspiracy theories of all kinds. In Patient Zero this marvellous book, Mike Jay introduces us to the 'Patient Zero' of mind control.
Haslam's account of Matthews's delusions has always been hailed as a classic in textbooks of psychiatry and historians were introduced to the Air Loom by the late Roy Porter, who not only edited a reprint of Haslam's report but wrote with passion, affection and wit about Matthews in his many
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Paul Gauguin kept house with a teenage ‘wife’ in French Polynesia, islands whose culture he is often accused of ransacking for his art.
@StephenSmithWDS asks if Gauguin is still worth looking at.
Stephen Smith - Art of Rebellion
Stephen Smith: Art of Rebellion - Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux
literaryreview.co.uk
‘I have fond memories of discussing Lorca and the state of Andalusian theatre with Antonio Banderas as Lauren Bacall sat on the dressing-room couch.’
@henryhitchings on Simon Russell Beale.
Henry Hitchings - The Play’s the Thing
Henry Hitchings: The Play’s the Thing - A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare & Other Stories by Simon Russell Beale
literaryreview.co.uk
We are saddened to hear of the death of Fredric Jameson.
Here, from 1983, is Terry Eagleton’s review of The Political Unconscious.
Terry Eagleton - Supermarket of the Mind
Terry Eagleton: Supermarket of the Mind - The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act by Fredric Jameson
literaryreview.co.uk