‘Not-All-There’ in the Necropolis: Afterlife and Madness in Urban Novels

The paper takes its departure point from a seemingly innocuous idiom that common English parlance uses to describe person who has lost possession of their rational mind: “not all there.” Interrogating the locality this deictic “there” implies, argument juxtaposes it with recent religious scholarship on Afterlife, which posits that, by extension, absence risen Christ tomb, Christian subject is essentially similarly ‘not there’. Thus, treads thin line between sacredness and profanity in attempting map out spatial coordinates configuration imaginary realms life-less mind-less, is, Afterlife madness, respectively. This examination conducted through late 20th-century literary representations of, one hand, as an urban netherworld, experienced infernal life-negating, city perceived schizophrenic mind, displays uncanny similarity Hell: disorienting, dissipating, ghostly. In manner, following embodied cognition, demonstrates unexpected hitherto unexplored affinity key concept conventional thought madness mad oft-reviled cultural, social, figure.