The Madness of the Spheres

Talk about the beauty of deception.

Then realize that deception only to have it throw you into a mindset full of chaos and heartbreak, ladies and gentlemen I give you Salman Rushdie’s “The Harmony of the Spheres.”

This short story involves a rare friendship between two friends that are almost complete opposites of one another. The first Eliot Crane is a so called writer who teeters on the edge of genius but subsequently lapses into schizophrenia because of his genius. From the theory of Martians hiding amongst humans, the microphones hidden inside the butter by his wife, and the demon filled psyche Crane displays it’s obvious this man has truly lost his marbles.  

The second individual would be the narrator, an aspiring writer who has a much more straightforward approach to life. He has a heads on approach and describes himself as a man who takes the bull by the horns. The reason these two unlikely friends are so close to one another is because of their distinct differences. Crane feeds off the stability of his friend the narrator while the other enjoys experiencing the sheer exuberance Crane’s persona emits.

Rushdie’s description of madness comes in the form of Crane’s character. A chemical-imbalance and hereditary trait (his father killed himself) is what is attributed to the multiple-personality syndrome and eventually to his own demise.

 Crane’s wife Lucy has sacrificed so much for the sake of taking care of her husband and in turn Crane helped introduce the narrator to his wife Mala, after the narrator had a destructive meltdown at his first wedding with his fiancé.

Now I don’t want to branch off too enthusiastically into another topic but the discussion in class and the blog prompts for this story seemed to focus on the part of the story that I don’t think was the entire focus. We are supposed to answer by describing the madness of imbalance and the treachery the mind plays on its host. But to me the entire story is a set-up for its climactic finish, where the real madness begins.

All through the story your hearing about how crazy Crane is, and how the narrator has a history with Crane’s wife and almost relives that history with her alone on the boat, but then your hit with this wild left hook that knocks you flat on your back. Lucy didn’t recreate her passionate moment with the narrator, and of all the crazy themes and work that Crane was so furiously researching none of it was true save one, his affair with the narrator’s wife Mala.

What looked like scribbled down writing and random rants of Crane’s lightning paced thoughts were maybe to him a careful and deliberate manner about not thinking or even talking about the affair. After all, the details and dates of the affair are written so distinctively yet hidden inside the madness of the tea chests.

I guess my main point is that Rushdie’s description of madness isn’t limited or fully explained just through the suicidal Eliot Crane, but in the inner workings of the four characters relationships with one another. Two as friends who feed off what the doesn’t have, and then even affectionately through their wives, one of which thinks he is the only one with a stable mind only to have it turned upside down at the news that Crane’s sexual rants about his wife are true.

If that isn’t madness I don’t know what is.