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5.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisite and thought-provoking, Jun 12 2003
By A Customer
Intensive Care is a tale of two worlds: one that we know, and one that we foresee - and fear. It begins with Tom Livingstone, young and wounded in the trenches of Flanders: falling in love with his nurse, and learning first the value of life, and, much later, the value of death. Through his experiences and dreams we come to know and understand Tom and his family, and we gain a vivid, recognisable, poignant image of their world.The story then moves to another world, an all too believable fantasy place, hardened by the horrors of a third global war; a world that has learned well the lessons that Tom had to work out for himself a century before. It is described in the deceptively simple language of Milly, who sits under Tom's old pear tree, waiting for the eugenic exterminators to take her away. This is not science fiction, nor is it anti-Utopian: it is a prophecy, chilling in its logic and perception, of a 'civilisation' not unlike our own, that pursues human perfection both physical and mental through elimination of the substandard and the abnormal. The author's themes are the harshness of people and the finality of death, which are with us and must be faced. The book is at once an exquisite evocation of the loneliness of people, and a plea for the resolution of humanity - before it is too late.
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