Talk:I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (novel)

I'making
I'm making the Yri language a separate page because I'm going to give the entire (small) vocabulary as delineated by Greenberg. It exists nowhere else on line. And I'll link to wiki pages on constructed language and to conlang pages on line. Bluejay Young 3-16-04

In the Plot Summary section there are references first to childhood urethra surgery and second to "the brain surgery". Are these supposed to be the same event? If not, when did the neurosurgery take place? Asat (talk) 08:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a fantasy novel
I have rewritten the plot summary, as the previous version spent far too much time on the Kingdom of Yr and barely mentioned Deborah's experiences in the mental hospital. Most of the book is about the hospital, the people Deborah meets there, and her therapy sessions. Deborah's delusions are an important part of the story, but the plot summary made it sound like a fantasy novel about a girl who travels to a magical realm that might actually be real. That is not what the book is about at all. CKarnstein (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

What year published?
So was it, 1964, or 1992, both are listed on the page, I'm guessing the former. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.38.183 (talk) 03:12, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Wow, talk about doctors missing the point
That line about that doc insisting that Yri was bastardized Armenian as some sort of damning proof of unsickness -- gah, talk about an asshole. It's acknowledged in the book (by Deb herself) how much of Yr is from her life & that Yr never goes beyond her personal knowledge. That doesn't make the creativity any less; it definitely doesn't make her sickness any less. All creative people base their creations on what already exists; creating something utterly, completely new & unique is very rare, if not impossible -- even Tolkien based his Elvish and Dwarven languages on existing Earth languages. So Deb/Greenberg based her Yri on known languages...so? What's that supposed to prove? That Deb's creativity is just like that of any "healthy" artist's? That sick people are somehow "faking" if their internal landscape isn't 100% original?

In other words, the doc's holding Deb's sickness up against some impossible criteria that no artist -- sick or healthy -- can meet. Or whoever put that doc's words in the Wiki are trying to do the same thing, which makes them sound like a typical whiny fanboy nitpicking shit that no one else cares about. Guess what? Artists are human. Their sickness is human. Sorry if their sickness doesn't live up to your expectations of what delusions "should" be.

No wonder Greenberg portrayed that doc as utterly clueless in the story: that's what his "criticisms" come across as. Zenfrodo (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I Knew Hannah Green
The big mystery I have about this book is "who is Joanne Greenberg"? Hannah Weiner Green was a neighbor of mine when I was a child in Magnolia MA 1958-1962. She was a beautiful former Bonwit Teller model, a sweet woman with a tortured soul. I was an adoring admirer of hers. She was close friends with another neighbor (I'll call him JG) who remained friends with her after she moved away. Around 1962 he told us she had been admitted to MacLean Hospital and as part of her therapy, she was encouraged to write a book. The title she had already chosen: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. It went to print in 1964. I somehow obtained a copy years later and I was shocked to see the Joanne Greenberg author bio, which I thought was a total fabrication. But knowing Hannah's fears, I figured she was protecting herself. Now I see that the original book cover correctly credits Hannah, a real person, and Greenberg is on newer editions. If Hannah is still alive, she'd be in her 90s. I'd love to see her. 2001:558:6017:148:E862:F036:925B:118E (talk) 01:11, 5 February 2023 (UTC)