Customer Reviews

DR. HAGGARD'S DISEASE.

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At the suggestion from a friend I sought books by Patrick McGrath. I chose Spider over Dr. Haggard's Disease because, well, I didn't think reading about a man's obsession about a former lover would be particularly new or interesting. So I first read Spider, which was very enjoyable. I then read Blood & Water, a collection of McGrath's earlier short stories. Finally, I was ready for Dr. Haggard. What I mistake! I should have read this book first because, as fine as McGrath's other books are, this is far superior.

Like Spider, the narrator of this book is the main character (Dr. Haggard). One is immediately absorbed by the persona of Dr. Haggard - a rather pathetic individual. His obsession of lost love is so painfully moving that it almosts hurts to read it. Anyone who has had difficulty getting over a relationship, or knows of anyone who has remained broken-hearted to an extreme extent would relate very well to Dr. Haggard. This is wonderful literature.

Of course being a writer of gothic novels, Dr. Haggard's Disease slowly takes on an unusual twist (which I won't reveal). But it really is just a natural progression of Dr. Haggard's "disease".

While relatively easy to read, I wouldn't recommend this novel to teenagers. The subject matter is too somber, too intense. For all others, buy this book ... ok? You won't regret it.

McGrath is an excellent writer - as a purveyor of `modern gothic' he has few peers. I have to agree with another reviewer that this is not his best work - SPIDER is amazing, and ASYLUM and THE GROTESQUE both rise to heights not matched here - but it has many good points, and is definitely head and shoulders above much of the gothic literature on the market today.

The story is set at the beginning of the Second World War, and is told by Dr. Edward Haggard to the adult son of a woman with which the doctor had an ill-fated affair - but rather than being told in words, it plays itself out in an instant, in the minds of the narrator. Dr. Haggard sees himself as a grotesque character - his head is large, out of proportion to his body size, with a shock of wild, unkempt hair; he walks with a limp and a stick, as a result of a hip injury sustained at the hands of his lover's husband, a fellow doctor; he has become addicted to morphine in attempting to quell the recurring pain from this injury; and since the ending of the affair, he is prone to depression and melancholy, which are not helped by his choice of a new abode: a foreboding house perched atop a cliff on the southeastern coast of England, in a small town that will bear the brunt of a German invasion, if one should come.

Throughout the story we hear Haggard attempt to reconcile the deep love and passion he experienced during the course of his affair with the pain and separation he feels after its inevitable end. He ruminates at length on his beliefs on the nature of love, of passion, of life itself. When a young British airman comes to his door, and turns out to be the son of the woman with whom he remains obsessed, he sees the young man's mother reborn, and quickly becomes obsessed with him. This obsession, as it turns out, has a physiological and medical basis, as well as an emotional one.

The story is a dark one - and fans of McGrath's fine writing should expect nothing else - but it has many bright moments. Many of Dr. Haggard's ideas and views on the nature of love and passion are moving, and will most likely resonate within many readers, coming close to things that they feel themselves. The story is an unusual take on the `depression after and affair gone wrong' motif, and in the hands of McGrath, it is a memorable piece of writing - moving and disturbing at the same time.

I have read most of Patrick McGrath's novels, and I enjoyed Dr. Haggard's Disease as much as any of them. McGrath again explores the depths of obsession, and like most of his books you get the story from a somewhat unreliable narrator, who borders on mental illness. This book is set in England in the 1930's, with ominous storm clouds of war starting to form. Edward Haggard is an aspiring surgeon, and after a glance at a cocktail party he begins a passionate affair with Fanny, a colleague's wife.

The affair seems doomed from the outset, as the story is being narrated by Haggard years later at his sea-side house to Fanny's son, a young RAF fighter pilot hungry for details about his mother. Haggard frequently tells us that "Spike" is acting up or making noise, and only later do we learn that Spike is the name given to the metal rod holding together Haggard's shattered hip.

The plot of the novel is fairly uneventful, and I won't give away too many details, but suffice to say the story is an exploration of obsession. Haggard, the narrator, is a literally broken man by the end, his once-promising career in ruins, tormented by his love for another's wife and haunted by the memory of his affair as he spills his heart out to her young adult son. The ending of the novel, as many have observed, was astounding. It took my breath away and had me re-reading the page several times.

Like all McGrath books, the settings are a large and effective component of the story. The author made the dreary, run-down manor house come alive in The Grotesque, and in Martha Peake the British moors and the wild New England colonies provided a perfect setting for the tale. Dr. Haggard's Disease is no exception, here you can hear and smell the surf crashing against the rocks, and the wind whipping through Haggard's drafty house as our narrator sits by the window, watching the RAF pilots taking off to battle the Luftwaffe. If you are a newcomer to the fiction of McGrath, I think this book would be a good place to start.

Patrick McGrath is one of those writers who does not beat around the bush or waste a single word. He draws you into this morass of a man totally subsumed and eventually destroyed by his passion for the wife of a collegue, though I guess it could be argued that, in a spiritual sense, at the end he is redeemed by it. This book has been described to me as being one of horror, which I do not see at all. It is more in the spirit of "Wuthering Heights" meets "The English Patient." The tale is a wonderful read, one which you will not want to put down. And when you do put it down, you will count the minutes until you can pick it up again.

Dr. Haggard's Disease is intriguing because of the way it's written: the protagonist addresses another character in the story.
But there isn't a whole lot of plot. Dr. Haggard falls in love with his pathologist's wife, Fanny. She dumps him. There's an assault; Dr. Haggard falls down a stairs, breaking his hip. Throughout the book, he refers to this ailment as Spike. He takes morphine, tries to kick it, can't. He's fired after the "accident" and goes to live in the south of England at a house called Elgin, where he treats a retirement community. But then Fanny's son, a WWII Spitfire pilot comes to see him. He's found out about his mother's affair and wants to know more about Haggard. That's when the book really really gets strange. Haggerd turns his obsession on James and we're wondering whether Haggerd's disease is his obsession with Fanny or insanity. James finally shuns the doctor, worried that there may be some homosexual interest. But that's not the doctor's take. He's worried the boy may have a disease, a disease that will remind you of THE CRYING GAME. Of course, we're not sure what's happening to James is really occurring because of the unreliability of the narrator. I read the novel because I wanted to see how McGrath handled the unusual point of view, but I wouldn't recommend it for the beach.

While I enjoyed Dr. Haggard, it didn't compare to Asylum or Spider.
For me, the book ended up being about a poor loser who couldn't get over his brief love affair. On some levels I can relate, but at some point you have to move on. Dr. Haggard did not move on, and eventually moved even further out there (as you'll learn from reading this book).
I love Mr. Mcgrath's writing and his novels and look forward to more of his work.

This novel is told by Dr. Haggard and relates his love of and affair with a superior doctor's wife during the 1930's in London and the later aftermath of his life in a small seaside town. The last 30-pages of this novel changed my opinion of the entire book. Although well-written, I saw the first part of the novel as a rehash of an obsession theme reminiscent of The End of the Affair or Lolita. The powerful ending made me completely rethink the entire novel and I found myself refelcting on the book long after I finished it. Well-crafted, disturbing, and deftly executed.

This book, along with McGrath's other novels, is a joy to read. I loved this character from the first paragraph. McGrath writes horror, but horror arising from the plausible demons of the human mind, not from monsters or aliens. Reading McGrath always gives me enormous pleasure. The last sentence made me shriek with surprise (don't peek!). BUY THIS BOOK.

Spoilers ahoy!

It is said that when a person dies, his life flashes before his eyes. At the end of this brilliant novel, that's the realization that flowered inside my head; this was that flash.

Through ominous hints dropped at the ends of paragraphs, I thought I had a sense of where this was going. Dr. Haggard's psychological unraveling came on steadily and although you know he's an unreliable narrator, you are still surprised by how fast he came unwoven at the end.

I'm stymied in my attempt to review this book because it's so subtle in its power. The way McGrath chooses words is masterful. To wit this description of the boarding house where Dr. Haggard lives when he first meets Fanny - "The front door, four or five steps up from the pavement, behind high spiked iron railings, was inset with a panel of stained glass and opened into a dark hallway dominated by a sideboard like a catafalque." Now that's setting the stage. Not only does he convey what the structure looks like, but the feel as well. Catafalque. That's what does it.

Not only is it McGrath's choice of vocabulary to establish mood and setting, but it's his foreshadowing technique. Spike is referred to often as something that has to be appeased, quieted and dealt with. We know Dr. H now has to walk with a cane. We know Fanny is dead and the affair ended. We suspect her husband, but all this is allowed to swirl in our minds; incorporeal. It's just one of the unknowns that so keenly provide tension and suspense. McGrath is almost without peer in this technique.

Another aspect illustrating Dr. Haggard's growing mania is his story's sexual element. At first during his narrative he is shy and reticent, always keeping the veil in place as is proper since he's relating this tale to her son. Over time though, the telling becomes more frantic and explicit. At times he seemed to shift and talk not to James, but to Fanny directly. It was disconcerting and made me squirm. Not in a bad way though. I love it when an author can command my response so completely.

And where would a gothic tale be without its settings? First the hospital with its rigorous routines and schedules. Dr. Haggard is bound up so thoroughly in his work and pressures from his superiors that his new-found freedom with Fanny is palpably joyous. We revel when he does. Then, when all is over, he moves to a stalwart mansion perched on a cliff-side that will surely crumble in time. This perfectly mirrors Dr. H's state and reinforces the impending doom. The nearness of the war itself adds the final note of danger that can't be evaded. Fighter planes, bombers, soldiers and black-out curtains are important reinforcing aspects to the situation and his psyche. The ending is surreal and literally a bombshell. Perfect.

A furtive back-street affair becomes the Love of the Ages in the addled mind of a morphia addict. Never does Dr. Haggard seem to realize the truth: that his amour never really loved him and that he loved her in fantasy, not reality.

The perverse development of the doctor's attraction to the woman's son (and his so-called 'disease') give this Gothic nail-biter a creepy overtone that culminates in a scene of inspired madness.