The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

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.

But were they? Or was Waugh's experience what is now termed "gaslighting"? The ending is reminiscent of the ending to Don Quixote; in other words, it doesn't quite fit. In the case of Cervantes, the Spanish Inquisition may have been cause. But what might Waugh's cause have been? Was Waugh "gaslighted"?

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 Creme 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 in the grip of a master magician, as the spirit Caliban was in Shakespeare's The Tempest?