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Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal
On a snowy day in November 1972, a poor, badly crippled old man left his room on the third floor of a rooming house in Chicago for the last time. His name was Henry Darger. He had lived in this room for forty years. It was filthy, crammed with his possessions, mostly things found in the garbage. Henry never threw anything out. The room was filled, almost solid, with junk. He was now eighty years old and far too feeble to carry anything down the stairs. So he left everything behind. He had no need of his possessions. Anyway, he was going to an old folks home to die. When he left the room his life was over. His landlord asked him what he wanted done with his possessions. Henry is said to have replied, "You can have them, Mr. Leonard." At that moment the gift had no meaning. There was nothing in the room but garbage. Everything would have to be thrown out... When Darger's landlord, Nathan Lerner, assisted by a young student, David Berglund, began to clean out Henry's room they found some surprises: an eight volume autobiography, consisting of 5084 handwritten pages, entitled, The History of My Life which Henry had begun writing in 1963 after retiring. The short auto-biographical introduction to what is otherwise an enormous and utterly fantastic piece of imaginative fiction, provided some of the crucial pieces of evidence underlying the biographical reconstruction of Darger's life that form the first chapter of this book. Then, when the old trunks were opened, they made a far more spectacular discovery: a history of another world called, In The Realms of the Unreal in fifteen volumes, 15 145 type written pages, unquestionably the longest work of fiction ever written. In time the room also yielded the three huge bound volumes of illustrations for that work, several hundred pictures, many over twelve feet long and painted on both sides. By accident, the landlord had stumbled upon a concealed and secret life work, which no one had ever seen: Darger's alternate world.
720 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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1256 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 2, 2019
We're giving it a 5 for Henry's own content and the facts about his life, and a 2 for MacGregor's nitpicky, overly Freudian, sticky cobwebby analysis. He makes the book as much about himself and his own thoughts as he makes it about Henry.
Although Mac denies it, he was responsible for starting the rumor that Henry Darger killed Elsie Paroubek, the little girl whose newspaper picture he saved and later lost, starting an emotional storm that rocked his imaginary worlds as well as his earthly existence. He repeatedly makes references to Darger's "pathology", and outlandishly compares of ''At Norma Catherine via Jennie Richee'' to the altars constructed by Jeffrey Dahmer, insisting that Darger had "the mind of a serial killer". I don't know what Mac's been smoking, but I don't think I want any. This kind of murderer does not stop at one victim, and it's not like dozens of little girls went missing and turned up dead in the months or years after Darger's return to Chicago from the Lincoln Asylum.
(Review to be continued when we have time.)
Today, people who are different are often objectified as "autistic" or "Asperger syndrome" only because this is thought to be kinder than "insane". There is no reason to believe Henry Darger was either one. He was a sensitive, lonely, intensely creative and highly intelligent person, but not deranged (he did call his imaginary planet the Realms of the Unreal, after all) and his self-description and writings actually show more evidence for Tourette syndrome than for autism.
Although Mac denies it, he was responsible for starting the rumor that Henry Darger killed Elsie Paroubek, the little girl whose newspaper picture he saved and later lost, starting an emotional storm that rocked his imaginary worlds as well as his earthly existence. He repeatedly makes references to Darger's "pathology", and outlandishly compares of ''At Norma Catherine via Jennie Richee'' to the altars constructed by Jeffrey Dahmer, insisting that Darger had "the mind of a serial killer". I don't know what Mac's been smoking, but I don't think I want any. This kind of murderer does not stop at one victim, and it's not like dozens of little girls went missing and turned up dead in the months or years after Darger's return to Chicago from the Lincoln Asylum.
(Review to be continued when we have time.)
Today, people who are different are often objectified as "autistic" or "Asperger syndrome" only because this is thought to be kinder than "insane". There is no reason to believe Henry Darger was either one. He was a sensitive, lonely, intensely creative and highly intelligent person, but not deranged (he did call his imaginary planet the Realms of the Unreal, after all) and his self-description and writings actually show more evidence for Tourette syndrome than for autism.
April 11, 2010
macgregor's analysis is almost as repetitive, compulsive, and eccentric as darger himself, but you have to give him props for the undertaking. considered the "definitive" text on darger, this wrist-breaker of a book is both gorgeous in its presentation and exhaustive in its research. the problem with darger, however, is that there's so little to go on (outside of his massive opus, that is). so we're reduced (if such a word can be employed here) to examining parts of the text of In the Realms of the Unreal and trying to draw conclusions from them.
other critics of this book are justified in saying macgregor goes overboard in emphasizing darger's "genius" and personally, i think his psychoanalysis relies too heavily on freudian hyperbole. but he does insert interesting points and, all things considered, his analysis of darger's violence and sexually-charged sadism is probably the more tempered part of the work. long comparisons to lewis carroll and serial killers, however, seem to dilute the investigation; feels like he's just grasping. and without real substantiating evidence to assert that darger may have been sexually abused as a child or teenager, macgregor tends to put the impetus of rage on darger's abandonment and the loss of his mother and sister ~ too much emphasis, in my (probably useless) opinion.
all that nit-picking aside, this is an amazing work. one only has to spend a short time immersed in darger's words and pictures to enter into what macgregor calls his psychosis, but which i would emphasize is his refuge: a place over which he exerted total control, where the world conformed to his understanding and needs, and where he could perpetually punish himself and anyone else who had ever done him harm.
not for those with weak stomachs.
other critics of this book are justified in saying macgregor goes overboard in emphasizing darger's "genius" and personally, i think his psychoanalysis relies too heavily on freudian hyperbole. but he does insert interesting points and, all things considered, his analysis of darger's violence and sexually-charged sadism is probably the more tempered part of the work. long comparisons to lewis carroll and serial killers, however, seem to dilute the investigation; feels like he's just grasping. and without real substantiating evidence to assert that darger may have been sexually abused as a child or teenager, macgregor tends to put the impetus of rage on darger's abandonment and the loss of his mother and sister ~ too much emphasis, in my (probably useless) opinion.
all that nit-picking aside, this is an amazing work. one only has to spend a short time immersed in darger's words and pictures to enter into what macgregor calls his psychosis, but which i would emphasize is his refuge: a place over which he exerted total control, where the world conformed to his understanding and needs, and where he could perpetually punish himself and anyone else who had ever done him harm.
not for those with weak stomachs.
June 14, 2008
Indescribably gorgeous, incredibly comprehensive book on the brilliant and disturbed outsider artist Henry Darger. Some of the psychological speculation is a bit excessive, but it's totally forgivable balanced against what a beautiful book this is.
December 16, 2009
Nice enough, and fairly thorough, but honestly it just made me wish I could read Darger's writings. So much for that.
November 20, 2011
The definitive study of Chicago's archetypal outsider artist. Read my full review at http://www.interestingideas.com/out/d...
Read
July 3, 2023This book, long out of print, is extremely difficult to find; prices on the secondhand market are usually well in excess of $1,000. I didn't pay that much for it -- after years of looking, I found someone who seemed to not quite know what they had, and was selling it at a serious discount -- but it was still pretty expensive.
But if you're interested in outsider art in general -- and especially if you're interested in Darger in particular -- eventually, you're going to have to buy a copy, or track it down at a library or something. In a real way, MacGregor is the wellspring of Darger scholarship; though he wasn't the first to publish a monograph about Darger, this gigantic doorstop of a volume -- it's more than 700 pages long -- is the most detailed. Any attempt to wrestle with Darger's work eventually finds itself in dialogue with MacGregor.
The book itself is beautifully presented and lavishly illustrated -- many of these works are ones I haven't seen anywhere else, and I own most of the useful books ever written about Darger. It's especially useful for its reproduction of Darger's most disturbingly violent art, which is often mentioned in connection with the artist, but rarely seen.
I've refrained from rating the book because I'm not sure exactly how to do so. On the one hand, MacGregor probably spent more concentrated time with Darger's work than any human being other than the man himself. His descriptions of Darger's working methods are brilliant and valuable, and the almost unimaginable amount of research that he did on the circumstances of Darger's life pays immense dividends. The book is extremely useful just for those aspects.
The downside -- and it's a major one -- is that MacGregor is an unrepentant, unreconstructed Freudian, and views all of Darger's work through that lens. Freud is, of course, critically important from a historical standpoint, but very few mental health clinicians of any kind stand by his theories today. But MacGregor has no compunctions about trying to psychoanalyze Darger, and I think it leads him astray repeatedly. The entire section in Chapter 11 where MacGregor compares Darger's work to, for instance, Jeffrey Dahmer's altar, is both embarrassing and unconvincing, and it's just the worst example of many.
And there are many opportunities, because compared to Darger, Salvador Dali and Georgia O'Keefe might as well be Mondrian; I can't think of another artist who offers a more tempting target for a Freudian than Darger, with his massive depictions of armies of nude prepubescent girls with penises. But these temptations do MacGregor no favors. He dismisses, for example, that the hyper-violent, sadomasochistic language of Catholic martyrologies is a meaningful source for Darger's own depictions of butchery, a denial that Moon takes out behind the woodshed in DARGER'S RESOURCES. And Appendix A, where MacGregor diagnoses Darger as having what was then called Asperger's, reads like something from the Paleolithic compared to current understandings of the autism spectrum. (My stepdaughter has what would have been listed as Asperger's, and I barely recognize her in the descriptions that MacGregor gives.)
Be that as it may, I'm extremely glad to have (finally!) read this book; Darger is one of the artists most personally meaningful to me, and there's enough insider information and beautifully-reproduced art to be worth what I paid for it. Just know that the book also has real flaws, flaws which many later analyses have started to correct.
But if you're interested in outsider art in general -- and especially if you're interested in Darger in particular -- eventually, you're going to have to buy a copy, or track it down at a library or something. In a real way, MacGregor is the wellspring of Darger scholarship; though he wasn't the first to publish a monograph about Darger, this gigantic doorstop of a volume -- it's more than 700 pages long -- is the most detailed. Any attempt to wrestle with Darger's work eventually finds itself in dialogue with MacGregor.
The book itself is beautifully presented and lavishly illustrated -- many of these works are ones I haven't seen anywhere else, and I own most of the useful books ever written about Darger. It's especially useful for its reproduction of Darger's most disturbingly violent art, which is often mentioned in connection with the artist, but rarely seen.
I've refrained from rating the book because I'm not sure exactly how to do so. On the one hand, MacGregor probably spent more concentrated time with Darger's work than any human being other than the man himself. His descriptions of Darger's working methods are brilliant and valuable, and the almost unimaginable amount of research that he did on the circumstances of Darger's life pays immense dividends. The book is extremely useful just for those aspects.
The downside -- and it's a major one -- is that MacGregor is an unrepentant, unreconstructed Freudian, and views all of Darger's work through that lens. Freud is, of course, critically important from a historical standpoint, but very few mental health clinicians of any kind stand by his theories today. But MacGregor has no compunctions about trying to psychoanalyze Darger, and I think it leads him astray repeatedly. The entire section in Chapter 11 where MacGregor compares Darger's work to, for instance, Jeffrey Dahmer's altar, is both embarrassing and unconvincing, and it's just the worst example of many.
And there are many opportunities, because compared to Darger, Salvador Dali and Georgia O'Keefe might as well be Mondrian; I can't think of another artist who offers a more tempting target for a Freudian than Darger, with his massive depictions of armies of nude prepubescent girls with penises. But these temptations do MacGregor no favors. He dismisses, for example, that the hyper-violent, sadomasochistic language of Catholic martyrologies is a meaningful source for Darger's own depictions of butchery, a denial that Moon takes out behind the woodshed in DARGER'S RESOURCES. And Appendix A, where MacGregor diagnoses Darger as having what was then called Asperger's, reads like something from the Paleolithic compared to current understandings of the autism spectrum. (My stepdaughter has what would have been listed as Asperger's, and I barely recognize her in the descriptions that MacGregor gives.)
Be that as it may, I'm extremely glad to have (finally!) read this book; Darger is one of the artists most personally meaningful to me, and there's enough insider information and beautifully-reproduced art to be worth what I paid for it. Just know that the book also has real flaws, flaws which many later analyses have started to correct.
Want to read
November 4, 2017I hear the longest novel was written by this man. It's unpublished, but his artwork is. Sounds interesting.
Read
August 7, 2007The best book on Darger, without question, In the Realms of the Unreal contains much of Darger's original text from his project of the same name, and huge, exclusively-color reproductions of his artwork.
For folks associated with universities in the NW, this book can be ordered through many university libraries, via SUMMIT. It's pretty impossible to find (or afford) otherwise.
For folks associated with universities in the NW, this book can be ordered through many university libraries, via SUMMIT. It's pretty impossible to find (or afford) otherwise.
July 23, 2012
I wrote up a very long review of this book here.
July 5, 2024
I don't want to write a really long review just because Henry Darger wrote a very long book. Here are some thoughts. Darger was someone who wrote and created 300 plus works of art. If he just wrote, as one person online said he would be just another recluse. If you are new to Darger, I wouldn't recommend this book right away. Watch a few YouTube videos on him because this book isn't cheap. So, what are the contents? Many pages of analysis, a history of Darger, a history of his world, and selections from his writings. That really long book Henry wrote was 15,000 pages. So why did this Chicago janitor feel the need to write an extremely long fantasy novel (and two other books, Crazy House, and The History of My Life) and create art to illustrate the words? Let me start with an amusing coincidence. Henry Darger was born in 1892 and died in 1973, so did Tolkien. Before all the Tolkien fans scream at me, let me make one connection between the two men. They both created elaborate fantasy worlds. Thats about it, Henry never got any of it published or exhibited any art during his lifetime. Why is that? A cursory search might shock you. Some very terrible things happening to young girls in his art, if you've seen it, you know what I mean. Did I mention that the main characters in his two novels are girls? There are the seven heroines, The Vivian Girls (which inspired a cool noise rock band) and their adversaries, the Glandelinians. The author advises you to skip chapter 9 and 11, you might want to. So here is a big book about a man who was obsessed with little girls, and his art is all about it. That, and civil war history, sort of. If you want to read a really weird book, lavishly illustrated, and not easily shocked, give it a read.
December 27, 2021
I wept. It is the most important book about an artist I had ever read. I thought I would skip around as it is such a thick tome --- but no ---- not a word left unread as it carries one into the very core of many artistic questions...unblinkingly so.
May 6, 2024
Easily the most thorough text about Darger to date. However, a lot of of MacGregor's analysis is overt freudian psychoanalysis, which is interesting but extremely limiting.
September 18, 2008
I would like to read this book. Looked it up on Amazon.com and a used copy is $499 so it is out of my league. In the meanwhile, here's my review for Netflix of the documentary film.
This is one fascinating documentary and beautifully done. I read a story about Henry Darger and his art in our local style section of the newspaper one day and when Joe Jones mentioned this movie I looked it up on this site. I started to watch it on Instant Watch and the art was so intriguing that I got the DVD and watched it today. The overwhelming sense of this film is the power of imagination to create a complete world that a person could live in totally. If you read the background of Darger, and it makes this film much more interesting if you do, you find his life from the outside seemed very poor and painful -- but when he died and they found thousands of pages of story script and thousands of his handpainted and carefully crafted watercolor pictures, the extent of his world amazed everyone and made him a major figure in "outsider" art. The story on film, here, is told without art experts and talking heads, Jessica Yu the director, has tried to capture the sense of discovering this man for the first time. Dakota Fanning was seven years old when this was made and she reads the thoughts of the little girls. An older actor reads parts of Darger's autobiography. It takes you back to childhood memories of how real your "play" worlds could be --- villages, stories, plays, music, playhouses, imaginary friends -- it is strangely innocent despite many drawings of his heroines, the seven Vivian Sisters, in frilly dresses but many nude with little boy's equipment. If you find this film interesting, stay for the filmmaker interview. Jessica Yu adds much to the enjoyment. The music score is enhanced with soundtrack including Tom Wait's "You're Innocent When You Dream." August 2008
This is one fascinating documentary and beautifully done. I read a story about Henry Darger and his art in our local style section of the newspaper one day and when Joe Jones mentioned this movie I looked it up on this site. I started to watch it on Instant Watch and the art was so intriguing that I got the DVD and watched it today. The overwhelming sense of this film is the power of imagination to create a complete world that a person could live in totally. If you read the background of Darger, and it makes this film much more interesting if you do, you find his life from the outside seemed very poor and painful -- but when he died and they found thousands of pages of story script and thousands of his handpainted and carefully crafted watercolor pictures, the extent of his world amazed everyone and made him a major figure in "outsider" art. The story on film, here, is told without art experts and talking heads, Jessica Yu the director, has tried to capture the sense of discovering this man for the first time. Dakota Fanning was seven years old when this was made and she reads the thoughts of the little girls. An older actor reads parts of Darger's autobiography. It takes you back to childhood memories of how real your "play" worlds could be --- villages, stories, plays, music, playhouses, imaginary friends -- it is strangely innocent despite many drawings of his heroines, the seven Vivian Sisters, in frilly dresses but many nude with little boy's equipment. If you find this film interesting, stay for the filmmaker interview. Jessica Yu adds much to the enjoyment. The music score is enhanced with soundtrack including Tom Wait's "You're Innocent When You Dream." August 2008
January 10, 2009
I became interested in Darger's work after watching the documentary of the same name. I was only able to read to page 256 before having to return this to the library, but I do recommend it. Darger's art and writing is intriguing, and the oversized book helps you better appreciate the insane detail that went into some of his works, although it makes the text rather unwieldy to mire through. I also appreciated the way the book includes passages from Darger's writings throughout.
However, I felt like the author took too many liberties with his interpretations (Darger is interested in the murdered child Annie Aronberg? Maybe he's her murderer!) and used too many adverbs like astonishingly and wonderfully and immensely. Just let me read his writing and see the pictures! Oh well. Still recommended if you happen across it.
However, I felt like the author took too many liberties with his interpretations (Darger is interested in the murdered child Annie Aronberg? Maybe he's her murderer!) and used too many adverbs like astonishingly and wonderfully and immensely. Just let me read his writing and see the pictures! Oh well. Still recommended if you happen across it.
Read
January 9, 2009I would kill to be able to have this book. Love love love Darger, and Macgregor's work is great (art and the insane was brilliant). Currently going for $600 on amazon. i'm so sad...
January 6, 2011
My prized book. It talks a bit about the life of Henry Darger, how he was found, has excerpts from his epic, and of course prints of some of his paintings.
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