Recommendations
Books Like Equus
Best books to read after Equus by Peter Shaffer
Readers who love Equus by Peter Shaffer are drawn to its combination of theatrical spectacle, the central dilemma of whether sanity is worth having if it comes at the cost of the capacity for worship, and the psychiatrist's counter-narrative — his envy of Alan's passionate religious experience — they want plays and novels that deal with the relationship between religious passion and rational analysis, the ethics of treatment, and the encounter between the conventional and the genuinely ecstatic.
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Amadeus
by Peter Shaffer
The companion Shaffer play about Salieri and Mozart — and the same question: what do we do when we encounter passionate genius that we cannot possess? Salieri's rage is the mirror of Dysart's envy: both are competent professionals who encounter a capacity for worship they cannot share
- 2Buy
The Royal Hunt of the Sun
by Peter Shaffer
The earlier companion Shaffer play about Pizarro and the Inca god-king Atahualpa — and the encounter between European rationalism and a living religious culture. The companion investigation of the same question that organizes Equus: what happens when the rational mind encounters a genuinely religious one?
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The Bacchae
by Euripides
The ancient companion organized around the god Dionysus and his destruction of Pentheus — the king who refuses to acknowledge religious ecstasy. The ancient companion: Pentheus is destroyed by what he refuses to acknowledge; Alan is 'cured' of what he passionately believes
- 4Buy
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
Kesey's companion about Randle McMurphy in the psychiatric ward — and the question of who decides what is sanity. The companion investigation of the same question that organizes Equus: is the institution right to impose its definition of sanity on those who do not share it?
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The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
Bulgakov's companion novel about the Devil's visit to Soviet Moscow — a sustained investigation of what happens when secular rationalism encounters genuine supernatural power. The companion to Equus as an investigation of the relationship between religious experience and the secular world that denies it
- 6Buy
A Lesson Before Dying
by Ernest Gaines
Gaines's companion about Grant Wiggins — a teacher who is asked to give a condemned man his dignity. The companion investigation of the relationship between education (in Gaines's novel; psychiatric treatment in Shaffer's play) and the person on whom it is practiced: both are organized around the question of whether the practitioner is doing the right thing
- 7Buy
The Lives of Animals
by J.M. Coetzee
Coetzee's companion about Elizabeth Costello's lectures on the relationship between humans and animals — and the question of whether human reason is adequate to the claims that animals make on us. The companion to Equus as an investigation of the relationship between the human capacity for rational analysis and the non-rational world it is trying to understand
- 8Buy
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
by Joanne Greenberg
Greenberg's companion novel about a young woman (Deborah Blau) in a psychiatric hospital who has created a private fantasy world (the Kingdom of Yr). The companion to Equus as an investigation of the relationship between a private religious world and the psychiatric institution that treats it: both are organized around the question of what is lost when the private world is dismantled
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