[chokipokilo]

Just wondering if anyone knew of any good novels where a major / the major POV is either going insane or is already insane or delusional and doesn't know it. I kind of want to see which authors can really get inside the mind of a madman. Preferably fantasy (that's why I posted this here) but scifi or non-genre would be alright.

[ChrisW]

Wheel of Time.

[phil_geo]

Oh man, you should read Pale Fire by Nabokov. It's about a nut who stole an unpublished poem from an accomplished writer and he is annotating the work by misinterpreting every single line. The annotations are longer than the poem. The writer is completely delusional, and throughout the book you need to figure out who is even real and who is fictional, since the writer is completely unreliable.

There's some good humor in it, too. The novel is meant to be read out of order - there's the poem, the annotations, and a glossary at the back which is also incomplete and misleading. It's kind of like the first hyper-texted novel, where you never get more than a page before you flip around to read a link. Not fantasy and a difficult read but worth it.

[Erfael]

Melusine by Sarah Monette has a pretty insane main character for at least part of the book.

[Randy M.]

Just wondering if anyone knew of any good novels where a major / the major POV is either going insane or is already insane or delusional and doesn't know it. I kind of want to see which authors can really get inside the mind of a madman. Preferably fantasy (that's why I posted this here) but scifi or non-genre would be alright.

There's a fair number of crime and horror novels that fit these criteria. Probably the best known crime novel featuring a madman is Robert Bloch's Psycho, but I think it's one of those novels where the movie of it is rather better. Bloch used the madman's point of view to better effect, I feel, in some of his short stories. Two of the best I've read in crime/mystery are Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Thomas Harris' Red Dragon. I've also heard good things about work by a more recent writer, Mo Hayder; I'm not sure how closely her work matches what you want, though.

Two classic horror novels (novellas?) closely fit your criteria: Turn of the Screw by Henry James and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. These are excellent works, though I admit to wanting to throttle James for his sometimes excessively intricate sentences. Still, it is rewarding if you persevere. Jackson is an easy read and her novel somewhat more fantastical.

Another horror novel that may fit your criteria better than the crime novels, is, My Work is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti. I should warn you, though, it is graphicly horrific in spots. Not really fantastic, but also fitting your criteria rather well, Thomas Tessier's Finishing Touches; I found this one truly chilling.

Caitlin Kiernan takes a subtler approach in both Threshold and The Red Tree. The former is a good novel that flirts with narrative hysteria but manages to pull it off; the latter is an excellent peeling away of the layers of the narrator until you're not entirely certain how much to credit her story. Both fit the word 'fantastic,' although Threshold has more of an s.f. flavor.

Those are the main ones that come to mind. If I think of more I'll add them later.


Randy M.

[Bond]

There's the short story Le Horla by Guy de Maupassant.

One of my favorite characters is Louis XI of France the Spider King as portrayed in Quentin Durward who while not crazy can be strangely religious and realpolitik when he is praying for the death of his enemies.

One of my favorite movies of all time from 1944 has this as a theme Dead of Night
Haven't seen it myself but the movie Peeping Tom from 1961 might fit the bill too.

[Randy M.]

There's the short story Le Horla by Guy de Maupassant.

Good one.

[...]
One of my favorite movies of all time from 1944 has this as a theme Dead of Night
Haven't seen it myself but the movie Peeping Tom from 1961 might fit the bill too.

I've seen both recently and I agree.


Randy M.

[Larry]

Moorcock's Between the Wars quartet, frequently referred to as the Pyat Quartet, contains this, in a more subtle way than which is expressed in most of the other novels mentioned above.

[Werthead]

Wheel of Time is the obvious choice, but there's also Prince of Nothing. Kellhus is clearly going somewhat bonkers as the trilogy continues, and Cnaiur isn't in the best place mentally either.

[Radone]

Thomas Covenant may not be insane, but he thinks that he's delusional.