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The arrival is crucial, both in the novel and in the film.

Detective

arrives at the door of what will be her hell and, as in

's , she will end up hearing the divine phrase-"lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate"-before entering what was then still called an insane asylum. .

Dr.

will tell you that, in the psychiatric avant-garde of the 70s of the 20th century in

, he insisted that they begin to be called "sanatoriums, places to heal."

The reality was far from the wish.

"As soon as you cross that door you will enter a world that is not going to be pleasant for you," warns the psychiatrist who, in the absence of the director, is in charge of talking during some wonderful first pages with the one who, to avoid altercations, will later be called Alicia, leaving behind its British origins.

She will also adopt her married name, Alicia de Almenara, and will be distinguished by her intelligence, mental agility, culture and manners.

"Signs of delirium", Ruipérez will write in his notes.

These are the first years of the Transition and the researcher who became a recluse -that is how the patients were then called- enters into

thanks to an "application for admission signed by the husband as the closest relative" and a letter from a doctor diagnosing "paranoia".

Thus begins

, a novel now adapted to the cinema by

and with

and

as leading actors.

At the time, it was revolutionary for several reasons.

The author,

, who was the director of the newspaper

, addressed mental illness for the second time in his bibliography, after publishing

in 1970 , but this time in a brutal way since he decided to enter it himself, voluntarily, in a Galician asylum with the intention of capturing reality in the most authentic way possible.

To know more

SERIE.

Sanatorium of the Holy Angel, Satan's psychiatric hospital at the foot of the mountain

• Writing: ANTONIO LUCAS

Sanatorium of the Holy Angel, Satan's psychiatric hospital at the foot of the mountain

Literature.

The psychiatric prison in Paris where 'hysterical' and 'alienated' women were locked up

• Writing: VANESSA GRAELLBarcelona

The psychiatric prison in Paris where 'hysterical' and 'alienated' women were locked up

That is why

is a realist novel and also a journalistic chronicle

.

And, incidentally, also the history of psychiatry, the struggle of the psychiatric schools and an unavoidable leap: advancing in the respect and care of those who live with a mental illness.

Because in 2022 we live an opening in terms of mental health but

and in the Zamorano asylum where Alicia, once a Carthusian monastery, enters , inhabits "a small collection of monsters",

Luca de Tena had to document the functioning of mental institutions at a specific and significant moment, "a time when, in addition to the important political and social transformations that were taking place in the Spanish state, a cultural change towards the problem of mental disorders that gave rise to healthcare reforms and very important novelties regarding the discourse and social attitude towards madness", describes CSIC academic

in his research on the novel .

In truth, not even the psychiatrist

, who prefaced the book - on the occasion of the film adaptation, Planeta has reissued it - was prone to the author interfering incognito in an insane asylum and he says so in the lines that precede a work that exerted fascination on those who read it in the 20th century, so much so that they used to reread it.

Even

went crazy with the story one summer in Benidorm.

Vallejo Nágera proposed to Luca de Tena to make a controlled visit to a center, but he replied: "You still don't understand. I must enter with a certificate, in non-voluntary admission and with an assumed name, with all its risks and penalties."

So it was.

From Vallejo Nágera's prologue, we also know that

And the impact of the new psychiatric culture, "from conservative positions," Huertas clarifies, takes shape in a suspense novel, somewhat black, that

.

These are the years of the debate on the reform of psychiatric institutions, which still used eighteenth-century ways, "designed to separate the sick from the rest of society and, once inside, to neutralize them with physical and then pharmacological measures to avoid the problems that they could cause," says

, professor at the

and author of an essay on the medical process that Luca de Tena's narration describes.

"That meant that the patients had the right to move relatively freely around the building and the park. Those who wanted to sit in the bar, organize their games of dominoes, briscola or Parcheesi, or walk chatting in the garden, or get lost in the mountain area, which was very large, or they attended occupational therapy sessions, or they worked in the large and multiple labor therapy workshops, true mini-industries, in which various objects were made that were later sold, and for which work the patients did not stop receiving a very varied salary, according to their aptitudes and their performance (page 89).

Sevilla Vallejo says that

.

Something that the protagonist, Alicia, calls "geometry of the study of the soul".

"They tend to simplify what is as varied, as complex, as interesting and as great... as... as the spirit" (page 69), says the protagonist.

And that is precisely what the reader obtains in the midst of so much pain, the x-ray of those who suffered in places that were named, for example, the cage of the insane.

Characters impossible to forget for those who once read 'The crooked lines of God', such as

or the man with a phobia of water.

Among all of them, the charisma of Alice Gould,

"-Did you yourself prepare the poisons?

-You are tenacious, doctor.

If I wanted to do it, I wouldn't have been able to either.

Well, I don't know all about poisons.

-I really miss in a degree in Chemistry!

-Doctor, it would not be impossible that during my stay here they would have to operate on my ovaries.

Would you be the one to intervene?

-Impossible, ma'am.

I don't understand about that.

-Don't you understand?

I really miss in a MD!

-My medical specialization is another, my lady.

-My Lord: my chemical specialization is also another.

The new inmate laughed, without going too far, and the doctor was forced to imitate her, since the truth is that she had left him speechless.

She was stupid, she had nothing.

She could be crazy;

but stupid, no.

-In the report that I have read about your personality -commented Teodoro Ruipérez- it says that you are very intelligent.

Alice smiled sarcastically, not without vanity.

"I assure you, doctor, that it is an involuntary defect."

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