The first thing that strikes you when you start reading this novel is how much the image of the psychiatric hospital has changed. The protagonist of “Siegfried”, a writer in her mid or late thirties, realizes one morning that she can’t do it anymore. She has a child to take care of, to earn money, to write a novel and now she has also quarreled with her partner – no trifle, she has cheated on her. And what is she doing? She drives to the psychiatric department of a Berlin hospital. There’s supposed to be a good doctor there, one with horn-rimmed glasses, who understands cases like yours. There is no longer any thought of the psychiatric torture prison of the past, in which “inmates” were “treated” with ice baths and electric shocks. No more worrying that, once admitted, you will have to endure the rest of your life in a straitjacket. No, psychiatry has become a refuge when the promises of wellness hotels have come to an end or you don’t have the money for something like that. If all else fails, you go to the clinic.
Roman “Siegfried” by Antonia Baum: escape to the institution – culture
