Scented Gardens for the Blind by Janet Frame (George Braziller, 1964)

 

I read this book because I had so admired and enjoyed Frame's Owls Do Cry, but I was very disappointed.  The three characters here are all crazy in different unbelievable ways, and Frame attempts to capture, or convey, their craziness by unconventionally using language, which makes the writing seems self-indulgent, and doesn't have anywhere near the effect and brilliance of Owls Do Cry.

Even worse than being a book about three crazy people, it is ultimately revealed that this is a book about one crazy woman who thinks she is three crazy people.