Mark Vonnegut "The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity" (2002)

Keda siis reaalselt hulluksminemine ei huvitaks? Milline on see kummaline mõttemaailm ja salapärane jõud, mis inimese peas & hinges? Kuidas ja miks juhtub skisofreenina, ning kellega? Mulle on tihti jäänud mulje, et hullumeelsust kujutatakse laheda või popina. Kahjuks ei arva teps mitte nii inimesed, kelle lähedane või sõber "ära pöörab". Valulik raamat "The Eden Express" on kirjutatud skisofreenikuna elanud Kurt Vonneguti poja Marki poolt. 

Poiss räägib, kuidas 60'ndatel sai sõpradega ostetud British Columbias asuv farm, et siis sellist hipikommuuni moodi elu arendada ja üldse lillelapse lainega kaasa minna. Kõik näis olevat kena, noored koos hakkasid põldu harima, maja parandama ning üldse seda utoopiat praktikasse seadma. Teos on kirjutatud mälestuste põhjal, tagasi vaadates. Oma elu kirjeldab detailselt; ka oma suhet kuulsa, kirjanikust isaga. Hullus ei tule sisse äkitselt, vaid tasakesi nagu majavamm. 

"Jack had told me that according to the Zen Buddhists, after enlightenment you go back to doing whatever it was you did before - selling shoes, farming, whatever. It seemed like pretty good advice, so I tried to keel doing all the usual things I had always done around the place, cutting firewood, pruning the trees, feeding the goats. But things started happening that made it increasingly difficult and finally impossible to keep functioning.
   Small tasks became incredibly intricate and complex. It started with pruning the fruit trees. One saw cu would take forever. I was completely absorbed in the sawdust floating gently to the ground, the feel of the saw in my hand, the incredible patterns in the bark, the muscles in my arm pulling back and then pushing forward. Everything stretched infinitely in all directions. Suddenly it seemed as if everything was slowly down and I would never finish sawing the limb. Then by some miracle that branch would be done and I'd have to rest, completely blown out. The same thing kept happening over and over. Then I found myself being unable to sticj with any one tree. I'd take a branch here, a couple there. It seemed I had been working for hours but the sun hadn't moved at all.
   I began to wonder if I was hurting the trees and found myself apologizing. Each tree began to take on personality. I began to wonder if any of them liked me. I become completely absorbed in looking at each tree and began to notice that they were ever so sliggtly luminescent, shining with a soft inner light that played around the branches."

Nagu paljude hästi kirjutatud raamatute puhul, hakkad mingis mõttes teoses kirjeldatud sündmuste ning tegelastega samastuma. Pluss meenus mulle veel kunagi kusagilt kuuldud meem, et "hullumeelsus on õhuga leviv nakkushaigus". Raamatu narratiiv ja need esimesed haiguse ilmingud tekitasid mulje, nagu oleks Vonnegut kuidagi raamatu kaudu mulle skisofreeniapisikut edastamas. No praegu kõlab totralt, aga eks ise seda lugedes leiaksite isegi mingeid jooni või mõttekäike, mille peale olete "mul on samad mõtted & hirmud olnud". Ainus vahe skisode ja "meie" vahel on, et meil tulevad uued mõtted ja kogemused, kuskohas nemad jäävad mõtete paine alla ning kogu nende maailm muutub, sulab, väändub.

   "What to do while the others slept? I had read "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" a couple of weeks earlier and had started through Jack London. I had finished "The Call of the Wild" and a collection of short stories and was working on "The Sea Wolf". About halfway through, the whole thing started getting too real. It was dualistic, good vs. evil, and the evil was just too real and the descriptions too moving and... and it had to be more than just a book. The pages and words would twist and blur in the really gruesome spots. I had to stop and catch my breath after every two or three pages. The closer I got to the end the worse it became. I was convinced that I really shouldn't finish the book, that if I did I would die or the world would end or worse.

   Since reading was out, I got my old Olivetti and started banging out letters to old friends, to Virginia, to various members of the family. I was trying to clue them in about all the wonderful things that had been happening to me and all the wonderful truths I had found. Unfortunately, the typewriter bit didn't work too well. I had trouble hitting the right letters and even more trouble seeing what was wrong about the wrong letters I had hit. One key was as good as the next. While there was a lot of truth to that, I felt ut was only fair to the people who weren't quite where I was yet to make an effort to make myself as intelligible as possible. I switched to longhand. I still had some of the same problems but to a lesser extent.

   Seventeen pages to Pa, twenty-one to Ma, twenty-five to sister Edie, twenty-four to sister Nan, sizteen to an old professor, and so on. I was writing like the wind. The words just came like magic and they were all just right. As far as talking with the people who were really there, I kept coming back to my old question.
   "Is there a struggle going on?"
   "Is there a what?"

   "Is there a struggle going on? I'm not really quite sure what I mean by that. I'm just sort of curious as to what you might feel about it."

   "I think I know what you mean but I don't know. It's hard to say."

   "Oh well," said I and tried to get away from the sticky unpleasentness in the pit of my stomach and back to the sheer beauty and glee of it all. But the question haunted me."

Jäädes seal kommuunis järjest haigemaks, üritavad sõbrad talle abi otsida. Haigus kestab pikema perioodi, viibib küll hullumajas ja näiliselt paraneb, kuid hiljeb tuleb hullus uue hooga tagasi. Võiks öelda, et tüübi teadvus viibib kuskil mujal, tundmatul tasandil. Mida parem kujutlusvõime, seda "nakkavam" Vonneguti hullus oli. Kirjutasin välja mitmeid tsitaate, praegu mõtlen: miks. Lugemine viis mind niiöelda "teise seisundisse" ja üleüldse tundus, et raamat peaks olema kohustuslik lugemine psühholoogiks õppijatele. Näiteks on olemas skisofreeniateemaline film "A Beautiful Mind", mis on ehitatud sarnasele alusele:skisofreenik, kes sai hullemast välja, kirjeldab oma kogemuste põhjal hämmastava teose.

  Communicating was just about impossible. My tongue and mouth weren't responding very well. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I could tell who was saying what and that I could make any sense out of words. I relied heavily on grunts and gestures. I'd all of a sudden be sitting next to the stove, wearing the half-finished sweater Virginia had been knitting for me. There were knitting needles sticking out all over it and I was crying. Kathy was saying something to me. I had no idea what I was crying about. Then something would strike me as hysterically funny and I couldn't stop giggling. Then I'd find myself somewhere else wearing completely different clothes or no clothes at all. Time stopped being continuous; it jumped around with lots of blanks. The only way I have any notion of time then is from Simon, Kathy and Jack.

   Everything was trembling and glowing with an eerie light. One foot in front of the other, step two follows step one. Somehow I got dressed. "See, I can still function," I said to myself as I made it down the trembling ladder and into the trembling kitchen. "Everything's going to be just fine," I managed to say to Jack and Kathy. As we left I tried a reassuring smile. One foot in front of the other down to the lake in my Day-Glo boots that seemed to be walking without me - gush gush. Just put my body on automatic, everything will be fine.

   "Whose popsicle stand is this anyway?" Who said that? Did I say that? I didn't say that. "Simon, whose popsicle stand is this anyway Did you say that? Zeke?"

Raske on seda raamatut igaühele soovitada, kuna teemakäsitlus pole kergemeelne ega lõbustav, pigem ängistav. Nähtamatu äng. Hakkad mõtlema, kas endal areneb ka midagi seal mõistuse all või jäetakse rahule... Eks need tõsielulised raamatud on tänapäeval rohkem meelelahutuseks, kõik need elulooraamatud jne. Siin on aga juttu inimeste hinge või metafüüsilise eksistentsi pärast, sellest hoomamatust mustast august, kuhu mõistuse kadumine viia võib. Lisaks saame ülevaate sellest, kuidas mõjus see teistele ta ümber. Ise ta kogemust korrata ei taha, aga läbini halvaks ka ei pea. Pigem on tema mälestused vürtsitatud teatud tänulikkusega, kõik möödus salvadordaliliku virr-varrina ja seda emotsioonide kui ka kogemuste koha pealt.

Ennast lõpuni analüüsiv Mark Vonnegut tirib selle müstilise "haiguse" valguse kätte ja lõpus, kui hullus temast lahti laseb, kuuleb ta veel selget sõnumit, kus mingi salapärane olend teda selle koorma kandmise eest tänab. Alles jääb vaid oma elu edasi elada.