Today, I finished the surreal novel 'The ball and the cross'. After the beautiful introduction, I encountered Turnbull and MacIan and their travels through England in search of an opportunity to fight their duel. The conversations were interesting, their adventures by times hilarious.
With their arrival in the lunatic asylum, however, the novel continues on a slightly different note. Just as the other novels by Chesterton that I read ('The Napoleon of Notting Hill' and 'The man who was Thursday'), the story becomes more and more surreal. MacIan and Turnbull first encounter 'the Master' in their respective dreams/nightmares; then he turns out to be the head of the asylum. One by one, all the other characters from the book assemble together, and the story goes to its apotheosis.
A fascinating detail of the story is the reason the different persons are assembled in the asylum. For instance, we have Mr. Wilkinson. A few chapters ago, Turnbull and MacIan 'borrowed' his yacht. Now the doctor tells Turnbull that "he tells everybody that two people have taken his yacht. His account of how he lost it is quite incoherent. [-] It is a most melancholy case, and also fortunately a very rare one. It is so rare, in fact, that in one classification of these maladies it is entered under a heading by itself - Perdinavititis, mental inflammation creating the impression that one has lost a ship. Really, [-] it's rather a feather in my cap. I discovered the only existing case of perdinavititis." When Turnbull tells the doctor that he and MacIan actually took Wilkinson's yacht on their travels, he is quickly diagnosed with 'Rapinavititis', "the delusion that one has stolen a ship. First case ever recorded."
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