Nervous System or Losing My Mind in Literature

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

Jensen’s memoir documents a descent into madness and a gradual ascent
back into sanity. The acceptance of his science-fiction novel, Shiva
3000, overtaxed him and he began to worry that Hindus would be disturbed
by his use of their religious pantheon. From that anxiety, he slid into
a psychotic state, fearing that the imagined uproar over his book would
somehow trigger a world war and bring about the end of the human race.
He wound up institutionalized for a time, and much of the book deals
more or less humorously with his experiences in the psych ward and the
characters that he met there. His return to normal functionality was a
gradual process, with considerable backsliding. One clue to his
derangement is the anti-malarial drug he took in preparation for an
aborted trip to India: the medication sometimes triggers psychosis. The
reactions of his wife, Michelle, to his situation were pretty
level-headed.

Jensen might have used a richer style to convey the experience of
mental illness, but perhaps his point is that it is not the glamorous
voyage into the inland sea that some writers suggest: the banality of
his paranoid obsessions may be more typical. This is an interesting
book, if not an entrancing one.