Customer Reviews

Giant, O'Brien

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

 

 

Hilary Mantel often includes the theme of exploitation in her novels, but nowhere is it as prominent as it is in The Giant, O'Brien. Set in the 18th century, it is the story of the naïve Irish giant Charles O'Brien, who, poverty-stricken, allows himself to be taken to London where he will be a "freak" for the amusement of the public. Everyone wants to profit from him, from his Irish friends who accompany him, to the agent who contracts with him and the people who house him. Amiably, he tells tales on his travels to amuse his companions, all paralleling in some way the freakishness of his own life and all ending badly: a proud woman's beautiful child is taken and a "yellow child, its skin flapping, its eyes running and its nose snuffling" is substituted; the seven dwarves are beaten to death, "each dwarf watching the pulping of his brother" while "Snow White" is punched in the face, spat at, and driven from the cottage by fire; a pig-faced girl, instead of being rescued by the love of a prince, lives a long life of loneliness. Sensitive and creative, the Giant is a marked contrast to Dr. John Hunter, a "scientist" who collects bones, does research on diseases, and even accidentally inoculates himself with syphilis, allowing him to study it more closely. Hunter's goal is to acquire the bones of the Giant. As both the Giant and Hunter become more ill with the progress of their diseases, the book reaches its climax, leaving the reader to ponder many of the conflicts Mantel has illustrated-creativity vs. scientific research, naivete vs. knowledge, hope vs. despair, charity vs. exploitation-and ultimately, the big question: in what ways, if any, have humans risen above the level of animals.

There is much food for thought in this odd yet entertaining dark short book. Hilary Mantel tells the story of Charles O'Brien, an Irish giant, who comes to London to make a living as a 'freak' or sideshow exhibit. He is accompanied by crude Irish ruffians and a villainous agent, Joe Vance. The story of the Irish giant runs parallel to the story of the Scottish surgeon and anatomist, John Hunter.

The novel can be interpreted in many ways, attesting to the superb talent of Hilary Mantel. The lives of Giant Charles O'Brien and Scottish surgeon John Hunter have some striking similarities. Whereas O'Brien sees the vast poverty, social deterioration and economic oppression of the Irish people by the English; John Hunter is no stranger to tragedy as the youngest of 12 children he is always fed last and eventually thrives as a wild child in the Scottish countryside. Here he learns from nature but also is devoid of human sentiment and compassion. He watches as almost all of his siblings die until he, his older brother, and older sister are all that remain. He has seen much death and is well acquainted with death. The giant begins to grow signaling his death while John Hunter begins to deteriorate from a sexually transmitted disease that infected him accidentally when he was trying to infect a homeless man so that Hunter could watch the natural progression of the disease in this homeless fellow. John Hunter desires the skeleton of the giant and pursues him. John Hunter buys corpses. The chapter where he lectures grave robbers on how to rob a grave is creepy and interesting. Hunter now tracks the giant who believes that his body must remain intact if he expects to go to heaven on judgment day. This is the basic armature of the book, but it really is much more than just this.

First, Mantel develops a clever comparison to the life of Jesus in her novel. O'Brien gathers disciples around him, many of whom are scruffy and criminal. Like Jesus, he approaches the downtrodden and asks them to join him. In Ireland he rocks a starving boy until his last breath while telling his mother that the boy is the inheritor of kings and will sit on a throne. After the boy's death, he asks the starving woman to join his group on the way to London. Later his group has their own Mary Magdalene in the person of Bitch Mary, the twelve year old prostitute. He provides fables and tales to entertain and instruct his wayward disciples, inflicted with naive youth, mental retardation, and criminal intent. As Jesus enters Jerusalem to preach his message and then to die, so too does Charles O'Brien enter London to tell stories, make a living as a sideshow freak, and eventually to die. Like Jesus, the disciples disappoint and eventually betray him, willing to sale his bones for cash even though they know the giant feared this would mean he can't go to heaven on judgment day.

The fables told by the giant are odd and haunting and are wonderfully integrated into the short novel. One is a story of a beautiful young mother who nurses a demon baby and loses her own healthy human baby; another is an odd tale of Snow White sleeping with the 7 dwarves until they are killed by suspicious villagers; a third is the tale of pig faced girl who isolates herself from cruel human society the older she becomes. They all end badly, they all emphasize either exploitation of the innocent or man's inhumanity to man.

Much of the novel revolves around human cruelty to other humans. This novel perfectly exemplifies the concept that man is prey to man. There is structural exploitation, which is seen in the relationship of Ireland to England and the vast amount of capital punishment that occurs to the Irish poor for stealing food for their starving children and other 'crimes' that the socially and economically oppressed commit in order to survive. One interesting passage is a list of all the young men and women that the giant knows who were hung by the English for a vast range of petty offenses. Irish women are called `bitch' by the English. Thus the young 12 year old prostitute, Mary, becomes known as Bitch Mary. Thus vast structural oppression occurs in this novel. However, the squalor of everyday oppression of master to servant; landlord to renter; criminal to victim; and pimp to prostitute is evident throughout this dark little novel.

Underneath all the social commentary, the poverty, and man's inhumanity to man is a subtle and well developed theme. For Charles O'Brien is a man who spins myth. He is almost a walking myth himself. He instructs with tales of woe and calamity yet underneath the woe is a spirit of generosity and compassion and a belief in the power of the well-told tale. O'Brien is contrasted with John Hunter, a man who is obsessed with heartless inquiry. He buys corpses and studies anatomy endlessly. Yet his aim in not for the betterment of the human condition, but primarily for his own unquenched desire for knowledge. He may practice surgery but primarily for his own intellectual gratification rather than for the relief of suffering. So, at first sight, it appears that this is a novel about myth versus science; fable versus inquiry; sentiment versus objectivity; emotion versus reason. It is to Hilary Mantel's credit that the novel is not that obvious. For in the end, the squalor and depravity of the human condition bring down both Charles O'Brien and John Hunter. Both are betrayed by trusted servants; both are betrayed by their own bodies; both are eventually betrayed by the limitations of human existence. It is this haunting bleak reality that is Mantel's message. For in the end the human capacity for greed and evil drowns both myth making and science making.

The Giant, O'Brien is a testament to the diversity of Mantel's gifts as a writer--it is both not as psychologically rich and much more earthy than many of her other works (A Change of Climate, An Experiment in Love, Eight Months on Ghazza Street), but it is no less compelling. The novel follows Charles O'Brien, out of Ireland into the streets of late 18th c. London to escape poverty, giving us a stark image of the time and place: many characters cannot recognize stairs because they have never seen a house big enough to warrant them. The Giant O'Brien himself is an island of humanity in a sea of crass and self-serving petty people, the real monstrous freaks of the novel, who live off him--and his corpse.

It is also a richly symbolic account of the storyteller: the imaginative vision of his surroundings (he sees his starving compatriots as "the sons and daughters of gods and kings") which is the source of his art as well as the lines of influence--as the giant tells stories and leads his troupe to become tellers in their own rights. What is more, Mantel's account of the giant's adaptation of the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs tale is stunning--the violence in the tale is not only consistent with traditional tellings of fairy tales, but it clearly emerges out of the world in which it is told.

The fragmented narrative is consistent with other Mantel novels, but it seems more fragmented here, and this makes for challenging reading, but it says so much about the world of late 18th century Ireland and the streets of London. The novel confronts the harshness of its world--abject poverty in Ireland, expoitative London--and the violence it fosters is compelling. Mantel's picture of the plight of poor Irish women is especially disturbing but it reverberates with a powerful truth.

I was completely entranced and delighted by this book, and disappointed by the reader reviews of it. Hilary Mantel's style is spare - nothing more than the strange essence of her story. There is no spoon-feeding here, and thus, is probably not for mainstream tastes. But it's great, quirky transportation to a truly other time and place. Oh yes, and fine good humor with the pathos! Was really sorry it ended so quickly.

I loved this book, but then I love Hilary Mantel's writing. Some people find her dialog hard to follow but I don't seem to have that problem - maybe I get so buried in them that the conversation works for me. This one had me missing my subway stop. The Giant O'Brien is wonderful both with her depictions of 18th century Ireland and England and her characters, even the ruthless ones. I think she made John Hunter out to be a little too evil maybe - it was interesting to read about the real Dr. Hunter. He is described in biographical sketches as being very humane and kind although he did have a temper and it is a fact that he violated O'Brien's (Byrne's) dying wish to be buried at sea. Mantel also makes him out to be somebody who has wonderful manners, playing at this very well to get what he wants although the Giant isn't fooled. If you google Charles O'Brien and John Hunter you can find a photo of the interior of the Hunter museum in London with the Giant's skeleton on view. You can also find a drawing of the real O'Brien standing between the Knife (Knipe) brothers, the tallest identical twins ever known. The fourth giant in the book is also based on a real person, Patrick O'Brien. There is also an ongoing battle by severly people who want the Hunter museum to make a plaster cast of the skeleton and honor O'Brien's wishes finally and have hin buried at sea. Don't know if any of the other characters are historical figures but they were compelling nonetheless.

This book was pretty good. I like how the surgeon gets different body parts of people to study them. The surgeon then gets interested in the giant. Sometimes it gets confusing because sometimes I do not no who is speaking. If you were interested in a almost secretive book with cultures from England, and that takes place in London, then this book is for you!

Hilary Mantel's writing allows her readers to enter into the world of 18th century London in a very tactile and gritty story in The Giant, O'Brien. The brutality of the life of recent immigrants from Ireland is well imagined and described in this tale of a Giant with an entourage who arrive in London hoping to make their fortune exhibiting him as a freak. The darker side of the the story involves John Hunter, a scientist ,or anatomist who uses a team of people to obtain corpses of varying types in order to study anatomy. The paths of these two disparate groups cross and the result seems inevitable from the beginning so hopefully this knowledge won't keep anyone from reading the book. I found the short novel quite compelling and Mantel's fragmented style as others have pointed out moves the plot along rather briskly. I was slightly disappointed in the ending. For me it didn't seem commensurate to the buildup and I thought the book ended rather abruptly. Overall I would recommend this as a fascinating and fanciful historical novel from a writer who has been recognized as a masterful story teller.

I was assigned to read this book as part of an American/British modern lit. class, alongside many classics such as Heart of Darkness, Mrs. Dalloway, the Great Gatsby, etc...and this book falls short in comparison. Unlike many other reviewers, I did not have trouble following the style of the book. However, when it was all said and done, I had a great deal of difficulty determining what, if anything, this book was trying to say.

Part of our assignment is to write 350 words about the theme of the story. Throughout the book I tried to write notes about any possible theme, and nothing solid surfaced. The cost of desire? Well, it may have led to the downfall of O'Brien and Hunter, but not so much the others around them. In fact, 4 of the book's least savory characters, the Claffey brothers, Slig, and Kane, end up with a nice little freakshow racket. Man's inhumanity to man? It's a weak theme, but definitely appropriate. There is certainly a juxtaposition between the two main characters, one is an intelligent and kind man who is publicly displayed as a freak while the other is a mean, obsessive man who is the true freak in private. However, both characters are sad and pitiable by the time the last page turns. Overall the only thing I knew for sure after reading this was that London in the 1780's was a squallid, dangerous place to live.

Mantel's writing style is excellent, and I certainly never got the impression that I was reading a modern novel. There are quite a few laughs, chills, and tearjerking moments, but in the end it just seems to be lacking a clear direction.

In short, O'brien, the novel, deals with a fascinating and unusual. It's stylishly, intelligently, and poetically written. A tribute to Swift and Joyce and their voices, but
the overriding author is definitely Mantel. Wonderful read.

I thoroughly enjoyed THE GIANT, O'BRIEN and just wanted to put in a positive review because Hilary Mantel always provides a good read. If one is looking for something out of the ordinary, that has some depth, and that will stay in your head for a week or so afterward, you can't go wrong Mantel.