Oscar: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Sanity?

Wilson's life history of Oscar is a classic in psychological anthropology. Writing after the heyday of Culture-and-Personality studies in American cultural anthropology, the author uses Oscar's life to raise trenchant questions about the interaction between the individual and the social environment, and between madness and its context. As a misfit, Oscar provokes readers to consider whether eccentricity is a matter of individual aberrations or whether the cultural life of Providencia (a Caribbean island) produces in some way the eccentricities within it. Still another way to read this problem is to consider how much volition Oscar exercises over his "madness" and whether his life is a chosen form of criticism and even satire of the day-to-day expectations of life on the island. All in all, the book is a bittersweet look at the encounter between the person of Oscar and his social world, and it is an absorbing work, for classroom use and for readers interested in these issues.

Oscar is an enthralling look at an isolated community and its love-hate relationship with one of its members: Oscar. This forlorn and supposedly insane character plays havoc amongst the inhabitants of a tiny Caribbean island. At a glance the man is mad, but on closer examination he is a master of chicanery and far from pity.I am not a student of psychology and thus cannot recommend it as a study text. However, I will say that I read this book about 5 years ago and have been looking for it ever since. Its a great read.