Today I started to read Skallagrigg by William Horwood. A friend of mine recommended it to me, warning me that I’d hate the world for a week after reading it though. So, today I got it from the library, and began to read, first in the canteen then back here, in my room. I sat down to read ‘just till lunch’ at about eleven, but when I next looked at the clock it had just turned four and I’d read 100 pages.

It is, in all honesty, quite disturbing. Part of the story concerns a boy, Arthur, who, having cp, is institutionalised in about 1925. he is intelligent, but nobody sees it. He is treated brutally. The way he longs even to see the sun makes me appreciate being born when I was; also, it makes me want to remind everyone that I can think, that I am conscious.

Its also quite an odd book thus far, mixing tenses, and going from first, third and un one passage second person. What strikes me as odd in particular, though, is it’s portrayal of cerebral palsy. The book seems to suggest we have our own type off language, or at least us spazzers can understand each other clearly. This book seems to suggest, too, that we have our own faith or mythology concerning a being called Skallagrigg; if we do, this is the first I’ve heard of it. This Skallagrigg also seems to have the ability to, in a way, cure us: in this, of course, the book implies that we want to be ‘cured’. I certainly don’t, leading me to infer that Horwood, although thoroughly researched, does not have cp.

Nevertheless, it is a very interesting, powerful book, which offers insight into disability history and, through reception theory, how disability is perceived.

Paradoxically, I think my friend was both wrong and right: yes, it describes a truly evil world – the hell of an institution. But I then look up from the page, at my own world, and find great joy in seeing how far we have come. Books like this make me appreciate the ability to order coffee.