Vol. 17 No. 3 · 9 February 1995
pages 3-7 | 6160 words
Madness: The Movie
Alan Bennett
The first draft of The Madness of King George (then called The Madness of George III) was prefaced with this note:
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Letters
Vol. 17 No. 5 · 9 March 1995
From Harvey Roy Greenberg
Alan Bennett (LRB, 9 February) states that George III’s alleged porphyria raises ‘problems that are as much metaphysical as medical’. I would venture a non-metaphysical explanation for the King’s condition. Pace Macalpine and Hunter, as well as Occam and his razor, ample contemporary accounts of the King’s circumstances suggest that the primary illness in this ‘case’ was some form of bipolar disorder – the entity previously classified as manic-depressive disease. Under this rubric, porphyria – assuming it did indeed exist – would have to be rated a secondary, co-morbid condition. In what fashion, and to what extent, the metabolic disturbance articulates with fundamental affective illness is always a vexed question. Bipolarity itself, be it noted, is now also widely assumed to have a strong biological and hereditary basis.
Harvey Roy Greenberg
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
Vol. 17 No. 6 · 23 March 1995
From Nicholas Benda
Since I’ve paid twice for Alan Bennett’s piece on The Madness of King George (it was reprinted in the Guardian) I find I have just that extra bit of animus to object to his use of ‘fuck hutch’ to describe the housing estates surrounding Banbury (LRB, 9 February). The term better suits the back rooms of pre-reconstruction Windsor Castle which we are ushered round at the beginning of the article. In fact Bennett doesn’t imagine these quarters, ‘cramped though they were, to have been particularly squalid’, but he does imagine as much of Middle England suburban architecture. I hadn’t realised his non-republicanism was so emphatic. I come to Bennett from, and revert from Bennett to, reading his Polish near-contemporary Miron Bialoszewski, a ninth-floor poet who never gets crueller than calling his block of flats an ‘anthill’. Bialoszewski is very hard to compare with other Poles (as a hero he’s not exactly unsung, but no one’s sure which key to sing him in), let alone an English writer, but Bennett is the closest I can get. Can any of your readers get closer or, better, help me to translate Bialoszewski?
Nicholas Benda
London E1
