A finalist for the Man Booker Prize and Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the region of Africa, The Good Doctor is a taut, intense tale of the dashed hopes of the post apartheid era and the small betrayals that doom a friendship. It has been greeted with enthusiastic interest around the world and assures Damon Galgut's place as a major international talent. When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not—young, optimistic, and full of big ideas. The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a liaison with a woman, one that will have unexpected consequences. A self-made dictator from apartheid days is rumored to be active in cross-border smuggling, and a group of soldiers has moved in to track him, led by a man from Frank's own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities—but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.
The Good Doctor
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From Publishers Weekly
Shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker prize, Galgut's fifth novel, his first to be published in the U.S., explores postapartheid South Africa's ambiguous present, where deep-rooted social and political tensions threaten any shared dream for the future. Resigned to self-exile at an inadequate hospital in a desolate former "homeland," the disillusioned Dr. Frank Eloff befriends a new volunteer: fresh-faced Dr. Laurence Waters. Determined to revivify the rural hospital and more broadly, South Africa which has slipped into humdrum dysfunction, Laurence tests Frank's stifled sensibilities and challenges hospital director Dr. Ngema, who frequently quips that she is all for "change and innovation," even though she cannot abide confrontation with her own modest authority. The young doctor's idealism eventually collides with the old power structure, the "ex-tinpot dictator of the ex-homeland" called the Brigadier and his lawless band. Neither Laurence nor Frank wholly grasps the culture and poverty of the place in which they live and are supposed to serve; they remain strangers in their own country, "traveling in a different landscape" than the black South Africans. Frank grapples with his former passivity in the face of racism and torture in the military, while Laurence pulls recklessly toward a fantastic dream of utopia, and the two doctors are "twined together in a tension that unites." But "a rope doesn't know what its own purpose is," and South Africa seems ever capable of sliding back into the mistrust and political strife of the past. Like Graham Greene's work, this quiet, affecting novel will attract those haunted by the shadow of colonialism.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
From Booklist
"The first time I saw him I thought, he won't last," says former soldier and physician Frank Eloff, recalling his initial meeting with idealistic colleague Laurence Waters. This is the beginning of a precarious friendship between the two doctors at a rural desert hospital in postapartheid South Africa. Told from the perspective of the disillusioned Eloff, Galgut's fifth novel (but the first to be published in the U.S.) possesses the economy and pace of Hemingway and the lyrical grace of Graham Greene. A native of Pretoria, Galgut embraces the themes of allegiance, betrayal, deception, and self-deception in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present. Eloff and Waters are polar opposites, and by uniting them, the author renders a quietly compelling examination of the chasms that exist in the new South Africa and the moral challenges that lie in apartheid's wake. This moody and memorable parable of the corruption of the flesh and spirit was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By F. W. Young
Format:Hardcover
Galgut is great at setting a mood and establishing a sense of place. But where this book falls apart is in the area of characterization. The people in this book do things and I wasn't sure why and to be honest, I didn't really care. I guess this is a writer of great promise - all the reviews said so - but to me, The Good Doctor was just something I did instead of watching tv for a couple of evenings.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I actually ordered two copies of the book (one for myself and another as a Christmas gift)in great anticipation of a great read. I was very disappointed with the scope of the novel. The author fails on many accounts. First, the reader does not get a great sense of location - quite ambigously depicted. Also, one does not get the sense despite the title of "doctor" that the author knows much about medicine. The character is not well developed and really doesn't give "a damn" about them. I wonder how this novel even got nominated for the Booker????
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A. Houston
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Fortunately I borrowed this book from the library. It looked promising; having read other books about southern African countries, I expected to learn more. I, like the two previous reviewers, was disappointed in the book, although I read it to the end, hoping to come across a redeeming factor, bringing it all together, and making it a worthwhile read. Instead, I finished the book with a feeling of hopelessness and despair for the community circumscribed by it. The narrator's character was hollow, cold and lacking in humanity, in my opinion, and I couldn't really get a clear picture of him. Laurence had potential but again was incomplete in his characterization. The politics were confusing, often I couldn't figure out who was black, who was white, who was the enemy, etc etc. I kept hoping each successive page would clear up my confusion, but alas, not to be. The storyline regarding Maria was incomplete and left me frustrated and sad, that I did not get to know more about her.
Having said all that, it did have some merits. That is, it had to have had, because it did make an impression on me; impressing upon me the tragedy that is the past, present and possibly the future of South Africa. Had I known the way the book ended, I probably would not have read the book. I read for entertainment, learning, and positive enlightenment,but did not gain any of these from "The Good Doctor"
Having said all that, it did have some merits. That is, it had to have had, because it did make an impression on me; impressing upon me the tragedy that is the past, present and possibly the future of South Africa. Had I known the way the book ended, I probably would not have read the book. I read for entertainment, learning, and positive enlightenment,but did not gain any of these from "The Good Doctor"
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