In the Realms of the Unreal
Saw "In the Realms of the Unreal" today. It's a documentary about Henry Darger, a janitor from Chicago who lived in almost total isolation his entire life, and who - over a 60 year period up until just before his death in 1972 - wrote and illustrated a 15,000 page novel of the same name as the movie.
Darger's story is a fascinating one. He's clearly a profoundly damaged and troubled man. At a young age his mother died, and his sister was given away for adoption. He lived with his disabled tailor father for a few years, until his father could no longer work to support them and Henry was moved to an orphanage. Judged "feeble-minded" because of behavioral problems, he was sent to boy's home in Nebraska. At 17 he escaped the home, returned (halfway on foot!) to Chicago, and took work as a janitor, which - other than writing and illustrating his novel and an autobiography - was pretty much all he did until his death at 80.
The novel, in many ways an even stranger piece of work than Darger himself, reflects the obsessions of a man whose trials seem to have left him largely unable to cope in the adult world. It's heroes are seven pre-adolescent girls, the Vivian sisters, who lead a revolt of the child slaves against their masters the Glandelinians, and Darger himself, in the form of a dashing warrior and defender of children who helps lead the Christian armies of Abbiennia in their war of liberation against Glandelinia. Christianity plays a substantial role in the book, which seems to reflect the mind of Darger, a devout (three Masses a day, that's how devout) Catholic whose troubled life and unanswered prayers (to be able to adopt a child, to recover a lost photograph of a murdered girl over whom Darger became obsessed) left him periodically spiteful with his Maker. The Realms of the Unreal are a world of blood and danger, but also of beauty and heroism. And I haven't even mentioned the illustrations. They really have to be seen to be believed.
Darger's story is a fascinating one. He's clearly a profoundly damaged and troubled man. At a young age his mother died, and his sister was given away for adoption. He lived with his disabled tailor father for a few years, until his father could no longer work to support them and Henry was moved to an orphanage. Judged "feeble-minded" because of behavioral problems, he was sent to boy's home in Nebraska. At 17 he escaped the home, returned (halfway on foot!) to Chicago, and took work as a janitor, which - other than writing and illustrating his novel and an autobiography - was pretty much all he did until his death at 80.
The novel, in many ways an even stranger piece of work than Darger himself, reflects the obsessions of a man whose trials seem to have left him largely unable to cope in the adult world. It's heroes are seven pre-adolescent girls, the Vivian sisters, who lead a revolt of the child slaves against their masters the Glandelinians, and Darger himself, in the form of a dashing warrior and defender of children who helps lead the Christian armies of Abbiennia in their war of liberation against Glandelinia. Christianity plays a substantial role in the book, which seems to reflect the mind of Darger, a devout (three Masses a day, that's how devout) Catholic whose troubled life and unanswered prayers (to be able to adopt a child, to recover a lost photograph of a murdered girl over whom Darger became obsessed) left him periodically spiteful with his Maker. The Realms of the Unreal are a world of blood and danger, but also of beauty and heroism. And I haven't even mentioned the illustrations. They really have to be seen to be believed.
<< Home