Review: “There are ‘no famously sane poets,’ writes the British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. He might have added that there are no famously sane mathematicians, few notoriously even-keeled guitarists. On the stage of our cultural history, ‘the sane don’t have any memorable lines.’ So begins ‘Going Sane,’ Phillips’s unraveling of sanity. This book, like previous ones such as ‘On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored,’ brings his original and accessible readings of psychoanalytic thought to bear on some unexamined phrases of daily life. Historically, he argues, sanity has been consigned to one of two fates: it’s either been ignored because it’s not dramatic enough (Hamlet gets all the good lines), or it’s been written off by cultural critics (in a mad world, grumble malcontents from Rousseau to Foucault, only the crazy are authentic). Some of his categorical claims are inflated. Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, for example, spring to mind as imaginatively sane literary characters. Nevertheless, his broad story of sanity’s humble position in a madness-crazed culture is persuasive. We have detailed iconographies of insanity, but few compelling definitions of sanity.” (New York Times )