Customer Reviews

House Unauthorized: Vasculitis, Clinic Duty, and Bad Bedside Manner (Smart Pop series)

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House Unauthorized is broken down into four sections: essays about the show, essays about House as a character, essays about the psychology of House's character, and essays about the other characters. I found the essays in the first two sections a bit weaker than the others, although there were some gems. On the show as a whole, the argument about critical audiences and the rare moments House tries to dumb itself down in "That Was A Ten" is interesting, as was the look at House's character from a British viewer's perspective. The rest of the second section consists largely of essays comparing House to other well-known characters: M*A*S*H's Hawkeye Pierce and Sherlock Holmes.

There are several essays in the latter half of the book that I found particularly interesting. "How House Thinks" is a breakdown of the methodology employed by real-world doctors in diagnosing diseases, and how/why House's techniques are comparable to or illustrative of the typical highly-experienced medical professional. "House Calls" uses cognitive psychological research to discuss why House's theories and diagnoses are so often accurate. "But Can He Teach?" analyzes how House influences and teaches Cameron, Chase, and Foreman throughout the first three seasons of the show. "Does God Limp?" discusses how House's chronic pain affects his psychology and diagnostic skills.

This book is definitely intended for people who enjoy thinking critically. That said, it's not a difficult or boring read by any means.

This book is an excellent dissection and critical discussion of the qualities that make House not merely a popular show, but rather, what makes the character of Gregory House so intriguing. While a few of the essays suffer from a degree of sameness regarding the subject matter, two of the standouts are the "Art of the Bastard" essay by Karen Traviss, and "Does God Limp?" by James Gilmer.

'Bastard' shows us House as seen from the UK, where sarcastic, smug, intelligent anti-heroes may be thick on the ground, while compassionate thorough medical care as shown at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital assuredly is not. While most of the characters in House may refer to House as a 'bastard who's the best there is at his job', to paraphrase, Traviss provides a strong argument that when you get down to it, House really isn't a bastard at all.

'Limp' delves into the issue of chronic pain, which on the show is used as a counterpoint to the usual 'God Complex' that gifted TV doctors seem to invariably develop. Aside from his impatience with the meaningless social niceties that people expect, House also is in pain, all the time, and has to find ways to function - at a higher level than many of us would ever be capable of. Many of the behaviors that House's coworkers write off as lazy, immature, or quirky are, Gilmer explains, not uncommon methods of coping with chronic pain patients. While most of us are passingly familiar with varying degrees of pain, very few of us are at all familiar pain that can not be relieved, only temporarily dulled. For being allegedly brilliant doctors, very few of House's coworkers seem to have any recognition of the symptoms or treatment of chronic pain.

If you buy the book for those two essays alone, you will not be disappointed, but while those stuck out the most, many of the others offer good insight into the making of a character, of a TV drama series, and in the grounding of the people who bring it to life.

This book absolutely sucks! It is nothing but a compilation of essays written by people who were probably and therefore begrudgingly turned down for a writing position for the show. Or possibly these essays were a writing assignment where they were asked to find fault with the show and, since it is so well done, the tiniest, most insignificant detail is focused upon and magnetized, thus appearing, if only to each author, as though it were an actual fault. It's a shame that these people are cashing in on the name "House." It's no wonder it's "unauthorized!"

I didn't find the book anything to get excited about. I would not buy again.