The Book of the Mad

Tanith Lee is a tremendously talented writer, and in "The Book of the Mad" she wows her fans once again. This is the fourth and final book in The Secret Books of Paradys series (preceded by "The Book of the Damned" [#1], "The Book of the Beast" [#2], and "The Book of the Dead" [#3]), and it is, without a doubt, my favorite book in the group. It alternates between three various-spelled parallel cities:--Paradise, where Felion and Smara (homicidal twin outcasts), travel through their uncle's space-altering ice labyrinth, in order to kill an unknown cousin for their own personal gain.--Paradis, where Leocadia, a 30-year-old alcoholic, bisexual painter, is blamed for her lover's murder and is sent to an asylum by her conniving relatives. Leocadia is devilishly witty, though Felion and Smara still win out for me.--Paradys, where Hilde, a 15-year-old virgin, is raped by Johanos Martin, an actor she adores. She becomes hysterical afterwards and is sent to an asylum by her parents, who can't cope. This is the least memorable of the three stories, at least it was for me, but it's still interesting enough.These three well-crafted stories tie-in to one another as the book progresses, culminating in a terrific ending. Fans of this series will enjoy rereading this book over again, if not to just pick up pieces of the puzzle, which are skillfully strewn around. It's mesmerizing, and dark fantasy at its best. Highly recommended.

Paradys: a twilight city where a young girl of Victorian times fell in love with an actor, suffered a brutal rape and rejection, and in her grief was consigned to a madhouse where the caretakers were her tormentors and only the mad knew compassion. Paradis: a city of the present day, where a brilliant, eccentric artist was accused of murder but instead entered a sanitorium and there descended into insanity. Paradise: a bizarre landscape of the future, crazed and polluted, where two twins travel through a mysterious labyrinth of ice to fulfil their murderous urges. Three stories happening in the City at different times: and yet they all occur at the same time. At first reading, much of "The Book of the Mad" seems disjointed-the Victorian madhouse is a shadow over the modern hospital, the future maze leads into different periods in the City's history-but nothing makes sense. Only at the very end of the book does the plot come together entirely, an ending which provokes the reader (well, me at least) to immediately re-read the book to see how well all the different times and characters interlock. Though not my favorite of the Secret Books of Paradys, "The Book of the Mad" is possibly the best of the four in concept and execution: blurring the lines between dream and reality, sanity and madness, it's a weird wonderful ride and a book to read and re-read over and over again.

The final book of Paradys is undoubtedly the best, drawing the reader into three alternate, related worlds. Parallels abound, as well as subtle suggestions that say the three worlds are more closely related then one might think. Smara and Felione, two sociopathic murderers, are in the book. Interestingly, I actually felt empathy for them by the end of the book... Very well written, with excellent charecterization.

As aptly demonstrated by Tanith Lee, Paradys is a city of many faces. This is evident nowhere more than in "The Book of the Mad," a story that twists both time and space into a compelling, dazzling narrative. In Paradys' eighteenth-century past, the young girl Hilde becomes infatuated with a handsome, egocentric actor who rapes her. In the present-day city of Paradis, the hard-drinking, eccentric artist Leocadia discovers a murder in her studio. And in the future, polluted, ironically named Paradise, the twins Felion and Smara explore a labyrinth of ice left to them by a mysterious uncle and fulfill their daily quota of murders. Three sets of lives converge in madness--shaken by her experience, Hilde is relegated to a cruel insane asylum; Leocadia is pronouced the murderess, acquitted on charges of insanity, and sent to a hospital; Felion and Smara continue their jaunts and murders and consider themselves the only sane inhabitants of mad Paradise--and tangle together into a fascinating story. Certain symbols consistently emerge from the flow: the color orange is a definitive motif, as is the figure of the penguin. "The Book of the Mad" requires more than one reading to fully grasp how all three stories tie into each other, as the story is rich and complex, but it is well worth all the reading. Lee's prose brings all three versions of Paradys to vivid life, dark, dazzling, and ultimately fulfilling. All is apportioned as it should be: what each character requires, by their actions, is yielded to them in the end. And the Penguin presides over all. Do not miss this last chapter of the Paradys Tetralogy. Even madness has a purpose--and when the purpose is to delight, Lee fulfills her promise.

Any one who likes fantasy, horror, or a good psychologically based mind trip should enjoy this book immensly. It's got everything you could want, from the depths to which civilization could plunge, to the height of human triumph. I sit down with this book and I read it from cover to cover. The story moves along at a fantastic pace, and Lee gives you a glimpse of the charachters with all of the niceties of polite society stripped away. There is no escaping the reality of the situations that the charachters are put into, even though the books are wholly the work of Lee's fantastic imagination. She is an immensly talented writer that makes you sympathise with and believe in the convictions of her charachters all through her stories and in such a way that it dosen't matter if the person is proved to be a good person, or a totally evil and depraved being, you want them to achieve thier goals anyway. If you are looking for a charachter driven fantasy, you cannot posibly go wrong with one of Lee's. The other books in this series are all equally as good, and they command the same type or fanatical loyalty from me as this one (the first I ever read,) does. You can't possibly regret buying any of the books in this series!