Ignatius rejects his mother's idea that he consider psychiatric help:
"They [psychiatrists] would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don't you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won't be a robot!... The only problem that those people [psychiatric patients] have anyway is that they don't like new cars and hair sprays. That's why they are put away. They make the other members of the society fearful. Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions."
"Ignatius, that ain't true. You remember old Mr. Becnel used to live down the block? They locked him up because he was running down the street naked."
"Of course he was running down the street naked. His skin could not bear any more of that Dacron and nylon clothing that was clogging his pores. I've always considered Mr. Becnel one of the martyrs of our age. The poor man was badly victimized."
5 comments:
I've always considered Mr. Becnel one of the martyrs of our age...TO FUNNY.
I'm sad to say I haven't got round to reading this one yet.
But I love the extract, and I'll move the book closer to the top of the pile...
josh: Yeah, that kills me.
winters: It's a brilliant read; I think you'll like it.
I rememeber this excerpt well...his mom tried so hard in vein to get him to come back to earth. He would have none of that as you know. For Ignatious' "World View" was above and beyond all. LOL!!
It's so weird. I know Ignatius was "eccentric", to put it mildly. But every damn time I read one of his rants, I think, "Damn. That's brilliant. I wish I would've said that."
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