The Doctor Stories [Paperback]

William Carlos Williams (Author), Robert Coles (Compiler)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 1984

Not only for students and doctors, this volume contains Williams's thirteen "doctor stories," several of his most famous poems on medical matters, and "The Practice" from The Autobiography.

These writings, together with Dr. Robert Coles's enthusiastic appraisal of teaching Williams and Dr. William Eric Williams's personal and touching filial account, "My Father, the Doctor," make up an intriguing and timely study of the poet as a physician of rare humanity and self-knowledge. As Coles suggests, Dr. Williams's writing can help many others take a knowing look at the medical profession.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Stories written with the swift, concise, unsentimental exactitude of a great diagnostician who also happened to be a great poet. (The Book List, Philip Gourevitch)

About the Author

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. He received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met and befriended Ezra Pound and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). At the same time as maintaining a popular medical practice, he became a prolific poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright. Experimenting with new techniques of meter and lineation, Williams sought to invent an entirely fresh—and singularly American—poetics, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist and writer who has spent his life doing documentary work. He lives in Concord, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 142 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; 1 edition (September 28, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811209261
• ISBN-13: 978-0811209267
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stories from a Master Poet, August 6, 2000

By 

Lisa Foster (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Doctor Stories (Paperback)

This is an incredible book of short stories by Williams Carlos Williams, the noted American Poet from the thirties, forties and fifties. Like his poems, these stories have to do with human emotions and the human condition, but unlike the poems, they are fully developed with realistic backgrounds and fully fleshed out details. This is because, while Williams was writing poetry, he eeked out a living making pediatric house calls during the depression. He records some of these in this collection. Most of these stories have little do with the parents of his patients, parents who were mostly immigrants and had little faith or hope. But he describes vividly his encounters with unusually fresh and bold children. The masterpiece of this collection is a very short story called "The Use of Force." It is about a fight with a little girl who has throat infection but who will not open her mouth for the doctor to check or culture. The struggle between this obviously beautiful little girl and the doctor, which does come to force, is described candidly and even shockingly, exposing his own pleasure in the struggle and his drive for success at whatever cost. While totally told in the moment, it has the timeless feel of a confession, a morality tale of the way the whole of society treats women, particularly strong-willed, beautiful blonds. Other stories give this same feeling of telling us more about ourselves as a nation than this one man's keen observations of the poverty, grime and grit of depression children.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A window to another era, January 24, 2003

By 

Jean - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Doctor Stories (Paperback)

I have just finished rereading this book for the first time in over a decade and it has enticed me into ordering a slim book of the poetry of William Carlos Williams. I am not, in general, a great lover of poetry, but he does such an excellent job conveying the exact details of a time and a place, of another era of medicine. Being a doctor myself helps to understand some of the situations, but he writes so specifically that anyone can see what he's trying to say. I like his use of exact, conversational quotes, and his unromantic, but generous view of his, often unhelpful, patients.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, June 13, 2001

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Doctor Stories (Paperback)

This is an interesting series of short stories by the great American poet, William Carlos Williams. Williams was actually Dr. Williams and practiced pediatrics for many years. These stories are built around a series of clinical vignettes from medical practice in the early part of the century. While these stories are not great literature, they are very good and Williams is very good at descriptions of clinical phenomena. Some of the clinical entities at the center of the stories are now rarely seen. These stories convey the experience of medical practice in this era very well and several stories have considerable emotional power. This book will be of interest to anyone who likes American literature but will perhaps find the most appreciative audience among physicians.