Enjoyed the ride. It was very odd. And left me thinking. Actually, it also made me do internet searches to figure out what I suspected I was missing. I got the old-school psychodynamic treatment stuff covered... but not so-up-to-date on the art world and film which the story was named after.

This one was another overdue review, and I am sorry to have waited so long before writing it, but, to be honest, this one was another meh reading and I was hoping to find something to write about it that was a little bit… well, that was more than “this was meh”. I can’t say I have found the words, but it’s not right to let it wait for ages. So, here we go!

It wasn’t a bad book, but it wasn’t good, either. And, even if it was a short one, it took some time for me to finish it, because every time I put it down I had a hard time to pick it up again. The idea wasn’t so bad, but I am not into magical realism, and I think that this book it has more to do with this genre that it has to do with the horror, for example. Anyway… interesting idea, and also interesting setting. I liked it. But the characters didn’t click with me. I have tried, because they were fascinating, in some ways, but they couldn’t interest me, at all.
The asylum was an interesting setting and Caligari was a creepy character, but the other ones were pretty dull. I think they could have been more interesting, especially Ilona. She has a lot of potentialities but, in the end, she was as dull as the rest of them.
I haven’t a lot to say about this book because even if I liked the idea (once I read the synopsis I requested it on NetGalley, after all, so I was interested in something!) it was a meh reading, quite boring. I wasn’t intrigued by the story and the characters were quite dull (I have written this word a lot in just a couple of sentences, sorry!) and I couldn’t find a single interesting thing.

I don't think there is anyone writing today like James Morrow. I've seen him compared to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and to Harlan Ellison, but Ellison is too pedestrian compared to Morrow, and Vonnegut not quite risky enough.

In <em>The Asylum of Dr. Caligari</em>, Morrow mixes art, war, and madness - which, when you think about it, is a pretty natural combination.

American artist Francis Wyndham, perhaps searching for his own raison d'être, is hired to provide art therapy at an asylum run by the renowned Alessandro Caligari. There, Wyndham meets Ilona - a beautiful inmate at the asylum whose talent with art is rivaled only by her intense sexual drive. She might be the perfect woman if she didn't also believe she was the Queen of all spiders.

But is Caligari a genius (who belittles Freud and other therapists of the day) or a madman? Is there a difference? Caligari has created his own painting, titled "Ecstatic Wisdom", which he keeps veiled most of the time. From around Europe regiments of soldiers are marched past the painting and the soldiers are imbued with a strong sense of duty and a renewed vigor to fight. Wyndham finds this despicable and with Ilona and others from the madhouse he schemes to stop the on-coming war with a new painting, rather than encouraging and profiting from it as Caligari does. But this will be no easy feat as Caligari's painting possesses a magical property that has it protecting itself from being destroyed.

Morrow provides his unique take on the cult classic horror film from the 1920's as only Morrow can - with wry humor and a wicked twist. And of course sex.

Morrow's prose is literate and smooth and it's like eating a delicious piece of chocolate candy slowly so that you can savor it. You just want to chew on his language and keep moving forward into each new sentence in order to find the next piece of nougat-y goodness. And as if slick writing weren't enough, Morrow paints characters that have great appeal. Even Caligari is someone you want to know more about and like, in his own way.

And of course a heady story with a deep philosophical undertone runs through this Morrow book, just as it does with everything I've read of his. This sort of fiction really appeals to me - something that you can read and enjoy just for the surface story but that has deeper implications if you look for it.

I was just a little disappointed in the very ending - though I couldn't tell you what I was hoping for - which is why it doesn't get a full five stars from me.

Looking for a good book? <em>The Asylum of Dr. Caligari</em> is another tour de force from James Morrow and is a delicious read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately I did not finish this book. I got about 51% through it but decided to put it down. The story revolves around a few main characters, primarily Dr. Caligari who runs an asylum with questionable methods, a few patients living there, and a man that has taken on the role of the art therapist, Francis.

Francis Wyndham wants to be a famous artist but continually is turned down as his work is deemed not yet good enough. Eventually he meets an artist that informs him that due to the impending war, he is unable to fulfill his role as the art therapist at a local asylum and needs to find a replacement. Francis quickly jumps on the chance to fill this role and discovers strange rumors about the man running the asylum, Dr. Caligiri.

The relationship that Francis has with the participants in his class is immediately inappropriate and not something I could get past. I know a bit about how therapy was done way back in the day and that there were definitely some inappropriate relationships between therapist and female patients, but I couldn't get past these ridiculous relationships.

I found the story interesting and the ideas that Dr. Caligiri had were fascinating, but ultimately there was too much that I didn't agree with for me to keep going.

3.5* The Asylum of Dr Caligari was bizarre. I can see how some would enjoy it, but it wasn't for me. Thank you for the chance to read something out of my normal reading choice.

Most people probably don't start pondering the power of art after seeing the classic German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But then author James Morrow isn’t your average person. After all, he spent the 1990s "killing God" in The Godhead Trilogy. A self-described "scientific humanist," Morrow’s last several novels explored the scientific worldview through the perspectives of the struggle between science and superstition in the early 17th century, genetic engineering and ethics, and evolutionary theory.

With his new book, The Asylum of Dr. Caligari, Morrow unmistakably moves from science to the humanities aspect of the definition of humanist. Morrow, who made 8mm and 16mm films in high school and college, uses the 1920 German silent horror film as inspiration and a foundation for the book. The movie is about a sideshow hypnotist, Dr. Caligari, who uses a somnambulist (Cesare) to commit murder and kidnap the narrator’s fiancee. When the narrator later follows Dr. Caligari, the hypnotist appears to be the director of an insane asylum. While some consider The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari the first true horror film, it’s best known for its visual style, one which has led many to proclaim it the quintessential cinematic example of German Expressionism.

The movie’s sets and objects deliberately and bizarrely distort perspective, scale and proportion. Sharp-pointed forms, such as grass that looks like knives, and oblique and curving lines dominate. Streets are narrow and spiraling while buildings and landscapes lean and twist in unusual angles. Some of the landscape is painted on canvas and shadows and streaks of light also are painted directly onto the sets, imbuing the film with a two dimensional aspect. While Dr. Caligari is central to Morrow’s book, The Asylum of Dr. Caligari is built around and focused on the extensive expressionist art motifs in the film. In fact, art is both a centerpiece and the vehicle of the book’s antiwar theme.

The story is told from the perspective of American artist Francis Wyndham, whose first name is also that of the film’s narrator. Through him, Morrow introduces art from the outset. Wyndham attends what is known as the Armory Show, a 1913 modern art exhibition in midtown Manhattan that introduced the American public to European avant-garde paintings and sculpture. Wyndham is so enthralled with what he sees there, he ends up setting out for France shortly before the outbreak of World War I. He dreams of being an apprentice to Pablo Picasso, who promptly throws him and his portfolio down a flight of stairs. Wyndham refers to his encounter as “Rube Descending a Staircase,” a takeoff on Marcel Duchamp's “Nude Descending a Staircase,” displayed at the Armory Show. Undeterred, Wyndham seeks out other cubist artists, such as Duchamp, Georges Braque and André Derain.

When Wyndham meets Derain, the artist is being mobilized into the French military. He asks Wyndham to undertake Derain’s new position as art therapist at Träumenchen, an insane asylum. Located in the neutral fictional country of Weizenstaat abutting Luxembourg and the German Empire, Träumenchen is run by Dr. Alessandro Caligari. Echoing the film, Caligari is a former sideshow hypnotist and now an alienist who considers Freud a charlatan. Caligari believes hypnosis is the future of psychiatry and all treatment at Träumenchen on is based on the theory of heteropathy, in which a patient’s mental condition is treated by inducing an opposite disorder. (Cesare also resides at the asylum but in Morrow’s tale he is a black cat. Caligari’s sideshow somnambulist here is Conrad Röhrig, now his private secretary.)

Caligari also dabbles in painting, completing his magnum opus the night Wyndham arrives. Called "Ecstatic Wisdom" based on a chance remark by Friedrich Nietzsche when he was a patient at Träumenchen, the work is some 30 feet long and 15 feet high. Looking forward to the war’s "aesthetic intensity" and believing it "transcendentally meaningless," Caligari created the painting with alchemical pigments. The alchemy enables "Ecstatic Wisdom" to brainwash men into kreigslust ("war lust").

Here, the book shares a common analysis of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Dr. Caligari represented the militarist German government during World War I and Cesare symbolized how, upon becoming a soldier, the common man is conditioned to kill. Seeing the painting as financial security for his asylum, Caligari charges each warring nation as they send a constant procession of troop trains to Träumenchen. The soldiers march by the painting and afterwards "radiated a boundless desire to find a battle, any battle, and hurl themselves into the maw." This artistic war machine doesn’t just create the fodder. Within a month, the asylum is full of soldiers suffering from shell shock,

Throughout, Wyndham is teaching art therapy to a paranoid, a former chess grandmaster constantly narrating classic matches, a man who says he’s traveled the solar system in his private spaceship, and Ilona Wessels, who hails from Holstenwall, the fictional town that is the setting of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. She believes she is the Spider Queen of Ogygia, the island in Homer's Odyssey, and she and Wyndham are immediately attracted to each other. Caligari encourages them to live together to provide Wessels "la cura amore" treatment. Knowing of Caligari’s painting and its effect, they form a cabal with other patients and employees to sabotage the scheme.

Morrow uses language consistent with a story being told by someone living in that period (‘batwinged incarnations of melancholia, catatonia, paranoia, and dementia praecox swirled all about me"), helping set the book’s narrative tone. A variety of Latin, French and German phrases dot the text so an online translator will aid readers. Likewise, due to the numerous art references, a reader is well-advised to have handy access to art history sources (or even Wikipedia). Surprisingly, though, Morrow’s pursuit of verisimilitude is undercut by either "artistic license" or an error in the first chapter. It has Wyndham meeting artist Henri Rousseau in Paris in the summer of 1914. Rousseau, though, died in September 1910.

That aside, the book is generally well-paced through Caligari’s discovery of the cabal, except for the space allotted to depicting the sexual adventures of Wyndham and Wessels. The last third of the book, however, feels a bit rushed and underdeveloped considering the cabal ends up on the Western Front and Wyndham, for example, doesn’t return for a month. The hurried feel is bolstered by the fact the run-up to and the ultimate denouement feel chimerical and even more fantastic than Caligari and his creation.

The Asylum of Dr. Caligari is an inventive homage to and extrapolation of concepts in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. At less than 200 pages, it’s also a pithy commentary on the power of art and the folly and hysteria of war. Ultimately, though, despite being a thoughtful read, the book does not wholly realize its aims.

Bizarre is the word that comes to mind when reading The Asylum of Dr. Caligari by James Morrow. The story and writing intrigue me enough to keep reading to see where the book goes. It ends up in an unexpected place, and that too is okay. This book is definitely one in which as a reader, I just go with the flow with no expectations and no disappointments, but a memorable reading experience regardless.

Read my complete review and the history of this book at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017/09/the-asylum-of-dr-calgari.html

Reviewed for NetGalley

This was is a very well written work. Meshing together the world of 1920s art, film and psychiatry, Marrow creates a very entertaining and rich world. Even though this book isn't necessarily my kind of book, I find satire wears thin after a while, I can definitely say that this is well done and can understand how others would find this enjoyable.

James Morrow’ novella picks up Dr Caligari, the main character from the classic silent movie The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and tell us about his next enterprise: an asylum in a small neutral country just as the beginning of the Great War.
I loved the film, and I’ve also very much enjoyed this novella, which blends an entertaining and well written fictional story, with real First World War historical facts. And although a clear anti-war message pervades the book, the story is brilliant in itself, not a mere instrument in the service of the message. The book also deals with many other “serious” issues (art, psychology…), but the humor is present at all times, the characters are engaging and original and the plot is witty (although there were a couple of details I found a bit unbelievable). On the whole, a quick and highly enjoyable read.

The Asylum of Dr. Caligari does a great job of setting the uncomfortable creepy feeling early. When a young man sets out to escape his fate by teaching art at a local insane asylum, he soon meets the oddly charismatic Dr. Cailgari and his group of inmates. The Dr. is working on the creation of a giant piece of artwork that has a strange effect on all that witness it. He hopes to take the art from the asylum to help control those outside of the asylum. The book is strangely unsettling and a wonderful place for fans of asylum horror.

Using a cult class silent horror film (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) as the template for a speculative fiction anti-war novel might be a weird idea, but James Morrow has made a career out of weird ideas (including several books on killing God) and that experience mostly pays off in The Asylum of Dr. Caligari, though I would have preferred a shorter version of the tale.

On the eve of WWI, Francis Wyndham, artist-wannabe, makes the European circuit to try and find a mentor. But after getting pushed down a flight of stairs by Picasso and not finding much success otherwise, he’s happy to take on the job of Art Therapist at an insane asylum. Once ensconced in the gothic institution, where he offers up art instruction to a bevy of patients, including one who thinks she’s the Spider Queen of Ogygia and another who travels the solar system visiting aliens, he soon learns that the institute’s head (the titular Caligari) is more than a proponent of odd psychiatric theories and fellow artist. He is in fact a mesmerist and a sorcerer who has far grander designs than curing a few sick minds. The vehicle for Caligari’s goals is a massive painting that evokes in those who view it an unwavering Kriegslust (war lust). Soon Caligari is parading troops of all sides (French, English, German—he has no loyalty to any particular nationality) by his masterpiece, ensuring the growing carnage of the war continues unabated while Wyndham, aided by a few patients, plots to destroy the painting.

If it sounds a bit over the top, well, it is. Morrow dives fully into gothic/surreal mode here, having fun with it even as he shows himself quite accomplished in its voice and tropes: the twisting, canted architecture; the purple and at times stilted prose; use of fire and shadow, classic types such as the mesmerist and sorcerer, and so forth. This is all wedded to the historical events of the time, such as the assassination of the Arch-Duke, the rolling in of one country after another due to alliances, specific military actions and strategy, the use of new weapons such as the flamethrower and the early tank. Morrow also raises the intellectual stakes with explorations of art’s power (or lack thereof) to affect human action, psychology, violence, propaganda, war profiteering, sexuality, the gross absurdity of warfare—either individually or as they are entwined in culture/human nature.

If you’ve seen the film or know a lot of early 20th Century/late 19th Century art, Morrow offers up a slew of allusions for you to revel in. If not, the book is still enjoyable for its prose style, big ideas, and especially for its humor. The Asylum of Dr. Caligari is peppered with lots of one-liners or funny dialogue bits. Not all the humor worked, and some would have stood better with a bit more subtlety (the line “Rube descending a staircase” would have been even funnier without the explanation just before of the painting itself I thought), but I laughed aloud a few times and chuckled many more. I’d offer up examples but don’t want to spoil the jokes (Freud and Nietzsche makes especially ripe targets here though).

I did think The Asylum of Dr. Caligari felt too long even though it comes in at just about 200 pages and would have preferred it as a long short story/short novella, maybe about 130-150 pages or so. But for such a short book this is a relatively minor complaint since the length of time to finish it was so minimal, making this an easy recommendation despite that one issue.

***This book was reviewed for the San Francisco and Seattle Book Reviews, and via Netgalley

The Asylum of Dr Caligari by James Morrow, spun from the 1920s silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, is a commentary on duality- life and death, war and peace, science and art, reason and mysticism, sanity and insanity- and how things are often not as dualistic as first they seem, for they are connected. Like the yin-yang, there is always a bit of one in the totality of the other. Beyond that, it is an admonishment against war, the foolishness that starts it, and the lust that fuels it.

A young artist, Francis Wyndham, sets off from America, headed to Europe to learn from the masters. Unfortunately, poor Francis cannot find a place as an apprentice, and he begins to need to consider focusing on a trade in order to survive. He is spared from brickmason’s schooling when he is unexpectedly offered a job working as an art therapist for Dr Caligari at his asylum in Weizenstaat. Caligari is a mesmerist and alienist with unconventional methods including sex therapy and heteropathy. Francis accepts and begins teaching four gifted 'lunatics’.

On his initial tour, Francis is shown artwork done by his new students, which is held on display at a museum attached to the asylum. Shrouded in one section is a painting Dr Caligari has done. Francis asks about it and is pretty much told to mind his own business. Not only does Francis go back to see the picture, but he takes Ilona, one of his students, with him. What they find defies explanation. Using alchemy, Caligari has created a painting to arouse bloodlust in all who view it. As World War One looms on the horizon, Caligari begins to charge governments, and exposing soldiers to the painting, priming them for fighting. Francis and Ilona have to stop him, but how? Thankfully, Caligari isn't the only paint mystic around. Question is, can they pull off a peace painting to counter the lust for war?

This is a satire for the ages, a skillful blending of the history of World War One, and the fantastical realm of alchemy and magic. There's so much going on in this book, philosophy and spiritual-wise. With Caligari, Francis, and Ilona, you have both Creator and Destroyer in each. The art they create can incite intense emotion, and it's a lesson that such power should be handled with care. Art, and creativity itself, in any form is a gift and a chance to give beauty back to the world. Abuse of that gift is tragic. Jedermann is a liminal guardian, and a psychopomp, in a quite literal way for Francis, and for countless soldiers in a more figurative fashion.

The wry, tongue-in-cheek amusement of Morrow’s writing reminds me of reading Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal many moons ago (and reread a few years past). I'm not a huge fan of satire, but this tale is eminently readable.

📚📚📚📚📚

Art, love, magic and insanity in an alternative history explanation for the outbreak of WW2.
A wannabe American artist, Wyndham, comes to a strange asylum to work as an art therapist after being turned away by every famous artist in Europe. The asylum is run by the strange and magical Dr Caligari, who uses unusual techniques to cure his patients. Wyndham is warned of Caligari's unorthodox methods and the odd goings-on before he accepts the job but he goes ahead regardless. The foolish Wyndham learns Caligari is also an artist, working on his own secretive masterpiece, which turns out to be magic woven into art with diabolical intentions.
Wyndham with his wild and sensual pupil and lover, Ilona, battle the evil schemes of Dr Caligari while considering magic and the true heart of art. Posing the questions of whether art is good or bad, whether art is forever or merely a transitory creation. Wyndham is foolish, while Ilona is the true hero of the tale, a goddess of her art.
Beautifully written and witty, told in the style of the period (think Grand Budapest Hotel), the Asylum of Dr Caligari is sumptuous and thought provoking, as well as good fun.

In the summer of 1914, Francis Wyndham, a pretentious American painter with a high opinion of himself and his talent finds himself rejected by the great and the good of the art world (spectacularly adding to his credentials by having been thrown down the stairs by no less a figure than Picasso). Finally he gains employment in the establishment of Dr Caligari, teaching his inmates art as a therapy. But the mysterious and sinister doctor is up to no good, having produced a masterpiece so mesmerizing it induces a bloodlust and patriotism in troops urging them to rush into battle without a second thought.
Only Wyndham and his eclectic band of artistic asylum inmates stand between the madness Caligari is inflicting on the world.
The Asylum of Dr Caligari is exquisite, inventive madness of epic proportions, laced with wicked humour.
Wyndham’s initial arrival in the country of Caligari’s asylum resoundingly echoes Johnathan Harker’s experiences in Bran Stoker’s Dracula. The mere mention of Caligari sets up a shudder in the local residents. It is soon evident that something is definitely wrong despite the luxuriant surroundings and Wyndham is as much a prisoner as Caligari’s patients.
The inmates and their artwork are wonderfully crackers and significant, as we later find out in the story. The power of art is central to the story and used in a most novel way. There is real tension as Wyndham and his band tried to outwit Caligari.
To me The Asylum of Dr Caligari comes under the same category of taking something and running with it as Bruce Sterling’s splendidly off kilter Pirate Utopia, published last year by Tachyon Publications. Both authors allow the strange to get stranger, yet never once losing control of the plot or where it is going. The two books should sit side by side on their own shelf, lest the energy radiating from them knocks the rest of your collection flying.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a deft little novel is a perfect fit for people who are not just interested in fantasy, but also history, art, geography and linguistics. If you are a man, and appreciate an elegant woman wearing lace and jewelry more than a bronze bikini-clad babe with a vacuous stare, you might also appreciate the work of James Morrow.
Like T. Coraghessan Boyle, but with more palatable characters, and less heft, James Morrow draws on actual historical figures in his novel. While there was no country of Weizenstaat, which would mean “Wheat State”, there was certainly a Blue period for Pablo Picasso, and a painting by Duchamp called “Nude Descending a Staircase.” As a German speaker, and someone who grew up in an apartment filled with my father’s art books, I got a lot of knowing chuckles out of terms such as “Farbenmensch” which refers to a man who comes to life out of a painting, or the description of Picasso throwing the narrator, an aspiring artist, down the stairs.
I would say this is less a fantasy novel, in the usual modern sense, than an allegory about war and the patriotic frenzy that inspires men to lay down their life. Set at the outbreak of World War I, the novel contrasts those who see the true horror of war, including the narrator, a lunatic, and a gay couple, with those who wish to profit from it. It’s clear that Morrow, an elderly gentleman, has strong pacifist leanings which were probably exercised as far back as the Vietnam war. The famous poet Wilfred Owen implied ironically in his anti-war poem “Dulce e Decorum est,” that it was sweet to die for one’s country in the trenches, choking on chlorine gas. That Morrow seems to agree is indicated in passages such as this rant ascribed to Caligari, the villain:
“…at long last the architects of the Great War can look back on their many accomplishments: a devastated France, a demoralized Britain, a ransacked Germany, a receiving line of corpses stretching from Armentières to Zanzibar.”
The construction of the sentences is often intricate, like the example above. Many phrases are a delight, and I was amused, edified, and illumined. Be aware the pleasures in this book are more to be found in the musings on art, history, and philosophy. The plot is an elegant scaffolding on which to hang these gems of observation.

So thoroughly enjoyable it almost convinces me that the film industry would be justified in remaking the Hammer Horror classics. Well written, inventive, and a great throwback to classics of the genre.

An interesting idea that was cleverly written. Quite dense which made it quite a slow read, considering how many pages it actually has. I'd definitely be interested in reading more from this author in the future.

3.5 Stars
James Morrow’s new novella recasts the infamous villain of Robert Weine’s 1920 horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as a psychiatrist (and contemporary rival of Freud) running his own asylum in Germany at the dawn of World War I. The hero of the story is Francis Wyndham, an American expat trying to make a living as a painter in Europe. Wyndham accepts a position as an “art therapist” at Caligari’s asylum, where he discovers that Caligari is also a sorcerer who uses magic to great success as a war profiteer. Wyndham also falls in love with one of his patients, Ilona Wessels, who has a gift for sorcery to rival Caligari’s.
Weine’s film has always been read an allegory for Germany’s war lust and its attraction to tyranny, and Morrow literalizes the metaphor in his prequel-ish treatment of the character. Despite the novella’s dark themes and often brutal violence, its tone has more in common with screwball romantic comedies (recalling the films of another German-born director of that time, Ernst Lubitsch) than the oppressive horror of its source text. The verbal sparring and rib-poking pastiche are fun to read, but the characters all feel like they are participating in a prankish vaudeville act, and there is little to engage beneath the surface.
Film history buffs, art history buffs, and history buffs in general will find much to enjoy in Morrow’s slightly surreal mash-up. I had a reasonably good time reading it, but found it a little disappointing that a story with such weighty themes felt a little too light to the touch.

A total disappointment, I really liked some of the ideas and there were moments when it seemed like things would improve.
But bloated descriptions and a rambling incoherent plot made for very frustrating reading.

This is a satirical, clever novel, which is (almost) a sequel of the German silent film “Cabinet of Dr. Caltgari”. Parts of this are so dry it could be made into powder, but the wit stands out that cannot help but enjoy it.
There is a madness between the pages that matches the perceived legend of Dr. Caligari, and you can tell that Mr Morrow loves this subject. There is a lot happening throughout this story, but given the pacing of it, it will not take long before the pieces start falling together.
Superb writing, clever, complex plot and a subject that benefits from this strange story. Even being a small novel, this is a decent read.
4 out of 5.