Rainforest

Blurb

Rainforest is a 1987 novel by Jenny Diski about a young female English academic whose ambitions are to lead a sane and sensible life and to contribute to humankind's understanding of the natural world but who eventually has a mental breakdown when faced with too many people surrounding her who, driven by desire and lust, behave irrationally, indifferently, and irresponsibly towards her, each other, society, and the planet.
Rainforest is set in London and Borneo. Diski says that because of her arachnophobia she wrote the novel "based entirely on textbooks and three trips to Kew Gardens' tropical houses".