The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
1st edition
Author(s)	Evelyn Waugh
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	Chapman and Hall
Publication date	1957
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	'Unconditional Surrender'

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is a novel first published in 1957 by English writer Evelyn Waugh. Strong parallels may be drawn between events in the novel overtaking the eponymous protagonist, Gilbert Pinfold, and episodes in the author's own life. In fact, Waugh later admitted that 'Mr Pinfold’s experiences were almost exactly my own', referring to this period in his life as 'my late lunacy'. He was advised to write the book by the then head of the psychiatric department at St Bartholomew's Hospital who interpreted the voices Waugh heard as hallucinations consequential to prolonged overconsumption of a mix of phenobarbitone and alcohol.

The novel was published in different versions for British and American consumption, particularly with regard to a number of racial slurs articulated by the hallucinatory voices which were excised from the US edition.

Plot summary

Gilbert Pinfold is a middle-aged Catholic novelist teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown. In an attempt to cure his nerves Pinfold dosed himself liberally with bromide, chloral and crème de menthe. Pinfold books a passage on the SS Caliban, assuming it would be a nice break, however his crisis deepens and he slips into madness. Are the voices he hears the result of the drugs, or is he a victim of the LIDA machine, [1] the Soviet device that bombards brains with low-frequency radio waves?