Just read...

So, I recently finished reading an amazing non-fiction book called "The Professor and the Madman" and my god, it was amazing! My bester and I had planned on reading together for a while, and since I had wrapped up my book club read early this month (I read "The Help" by Katherine Stockett, which coincidentally was also quite good), it seemed like the perfect time.

It is an interesting story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the unlikely collaboration between a Scottish lexicographer and an American intellectual who also happened to be confined to a lunatic asylum.

It is a sad story; it makes you feel for Dr. Minor, for the pain he suffered because of his illness. What is infinitely more sad is the way that such illnesses were treated then. This lead to a very interesting discussion between my best and I.

There are so many questions worthy of pondering, especially regarding the cause of Dr. Minor's illness...I totally feel from Dr. Minor, he was clearly in need of an emotional outlet, and unfortunately he knew none other than sexual depravity and on a massive scale. One of Minor's quotes (from the asylum's records) states that he had affairs with more than 3 thousand women! Where did he find the time? He was still relatively young when he committed the murder.  His fascination with the native girls he grew up with really makes me question when his obsessive compulsions regarding sex began.

Since I am somewhat of a 19th Century nut, i know that that century was fixed on and fascinated by propriety, manners. The suppression of sexual expression, even discussion made for one very interesting culture, where latent sexual feelings/urges manifested themselves in very odd ways. Dr. Minor was definitely over-sexual, but outside of this he was beyond embarrassed about his sexual activity, he was, quite literally disturbed by it. Much of his paranoia revolved around his sexual appetite, I refer here to the molestation of children and women as cravings because I personally believe his obsessions/paranoia were/was caused by the guilt he felt for having such feelings. He was a complicated man, that is for sure! His is definitely a heart-wrenching story.