The Lunatic is a novel by Jamaican author
Anthony Winkler, published in 1987.
Aloysius is the village madman in Moneague, St. Ann, tolerated by his neighbors but otherwise shunned because of his tendency to
hold conversations with literally
everything: rocks, trees, bushes, animals, etc. He lives in the bushland, where he often seeks shelter under the limbs of a friendly flame-heart tree, and scavenges for wild fruit to feed himself. Because he's a lunatic, he's shunned by the local women, and as a result hasn't had any in two years. He also claims to have a thousand names, which he'll spout off if you
ask him his name.Then one day, he meets Inga Schmidt, a German tourist who's out snapping photos of the local flora and fauna. Their meeting is very unexpected: she finds him asleep with his, er, flag-pole flying high, and takes photos of it.
Inga, it turns out, is sex-crazy.
Hilarity Ensues. Then she brings in a second local man, a butcher named Service, to satisfy herself.
Even MORE hilarity ensues, leading to the three concocting a plan to burgle the house of the local landowner.
The novel spawned a
film in 1991, starring Paul Campbell and Carl Bradshaw as Aloysius and Service, respectively.
Tropes present in The Lunatic:
- Anything That Moves: Inga. Also the village doctor.
- The Atoner: Service at the end of the novel.
- Bad Dreams: Aloysius suffers from them a few times.
- Badass Normal: Inga.
- Big Eater: Aloysius.
- Big Fancy House: Hubert "Busha" Macintosh, the local landowner, has one. So does Barrister Lingstrom.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: Inga claims this about Aloysius.
Inga: I stay vith him because he has a big c—-! Vhat you think of that?!
- Blood Knight: Service is a little too eager to use his knives and machete. It doesn’t help that his profession is that of a butcher, or that he derives amusement from beheading chickens and then watching the headless corpses run around blindly.
- Butt Monkey: Aloysius suffers all sorts of mishaps throughout the story. Service gets his fair share of this trope as well.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Inga does this to her father in the movie adaptation.
- Cardboard Prison: Inga escapes from the jail where she’s held for her part in the robbery of Busha’s house at the end of the novel.
- Character Development: Aloysius and Service both get this. Service's is especially noteworthy, as he goes from being a Flat Earth Atheist and Blood Knight to The Atoner.
- Comedic Sociopathy: During her first sexual escapade with Aloysius, Inga beats him up for...being too quick. She does the same thing to Service later.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome: Aloysius's performance in the cricket match against Walker's Wood.
- Crowning Moment of Funny: The entire point of the book.
- Dark Action Girl: Inga knows her kung fu. She’s actually strong enough to break off a tree limb with her bare hand.
- Deadpan Snarker: Service.
Aloysius: Mi brain confuse.
Service: What brain?
- A lot of the animals and vegetation that Aloysius hears talking serve in this capacity as well.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Whatever Inga did to the boy who called her an insulting name. However, it is potent enough that his cronies never call her any nicknames again.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: And boy, Aloysius deserves it.
- Flat Earth Atheist: Service claims that there is no God, no heaven, no hell, no coming back from death, no reincarnation...for him, everything is mud. He improves his viewpoint much later.
- Freudian Excuse: The film version hints that Inga may have one for her behaviour.
- Genre Savvy: Inga proves herself to be this, training Aloysius and Service to burgle houses in little time, and supplying gloves for them to hide fingerprints and wrapping their feet to prevent leaving footprints, in preparation to rob Busha's house.
- Good People Have Good Sex: Aloysius with Inga and later the widow, Mrs. Dawkins.
- Happily Married: Busha Macintosh and his wife Sarah.
- Heel Face Turn: Service.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Paul Campbell would later be known as Capone in the Jamaican drama film Third World Cop, as well as having a starring role in Dancehall Queen.
- Carl Bradshaw also starred as Ringo in the Jamaican comedy movie Smile Orange, and appeared in The Harder They Come with actor/musician Jimmy Cliff.
- Immodest Orgasm: “O-iso-propoxy-phenyl!”
Aloysius: What dat word mean?
Inga: Cockroach poison.
Aloysius: Cockroach poison?
Aloysius: It don’t matter.
- Jerkass: Service, before his Heel Face Turn. Also, Busha.
- Kids Are Cruel: The schoolchildren mock Aloysius for his madness, and a group of schoolboys take it upon themselves to point out other people's physical deformities and oddities. Inga retaliates against one of them in what later becomes a Noodle Incident.
- Knife Nut: Service.
- Large Ham: Inga’s actress in the film version.
- Love Triangle: Aloysius, Inga and Service.
- Mama Bear: The mother of the boy Inga assaults swears an oath that she'll kill the white woman before sundown. Thanks to Aloysius's intervention, it doesn't happen.
- Manly Tears: Aloysius does this from time to time.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Aloysius, of course.
- Nakama: Of a rather weird sort: Aloysius, Inga, Service, and the flame-heart tree that has always been Aloysius's companion.
- Noodle Incident: Nobody ever finds out just what Inga did to that poor kid, though we can be very certain Attempted Rape is involved somehow.
Mother: She hold him down and do something to de boy so wicked and nasty dat to dis day him won't tell me what she do!
- Only Sane Man: Of the Nakama, Service believes himself to be this.
- Parental Abandonment: Aloysius experienced this, being raised only by his aunt. For him, it's a source of sorrowful wishing.
- Precision F-Strike: Inga's mouth is among the dirtiest in the whole story.
Inga: S—-! F—-! P—-! F—-! B——! B——! C—-!
Busha: (to Aloysius) The woman is even madder than you!
- Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Male: Inga does this to both Aloysius and Service.
- Rule of Funny: A lot of what happens in the book is Played for Laughs.
- Running Gag: "Aloysius Gossamer Longshoreman Technocracy Predominate Involuted Enraptured Parliamentarian Patriarch Verdure..." And that's only a mere handful of his thousand names.
- Schmuck Bait: Go ahead and ask Aloysius his name. We'll wait.
- Self-Made Orphan: Service murdered his own father.
- Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: Service challenges God to strike him down if he's lying about killing his father as Inga claims he is. God doesn't oblige.
- Tsundere: Inga.
- Verbal Tic: Being German, Inga pronounces her W’s like V’s. Aloysius later starts copying her unconsciously.
- Well Done Daughter Guy: Inga's father in the movie adaptation.
- Your Cheating Heart: Busha has cheated on his wife a few times. She remains blissfully unaware.
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