Customer Reviews

The Resurrectionist

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

 

 

I was optimistic when I bought this book. The blurb on the back sounded like a good concept for a story and having read the first couple of pages in the shop, the anatomical descriptions and trading of bodies sounded interesting and well researched. Sadly however, the author fails to add a proper story or characters that I gave a jot about.
I felt the writing - which in itself wasn't bad - hinted of more to come but never followed through. The characters were boring and too similar, resulting in me going back to earlier chapters to remind myself who was who.

The jump to a different setting for the last part of the book seemed even more disjointed and weird. I certainly don't go along with the quotes of "...compelling..." and "...unforgettable" on the front cover. Although quite disturbing at times it was very forgettable.

It was with great trepidation that I read the book - expecting the horrible-ness of the reviews and ratings to rear its head at any moment. I read the whole thing and never saw a sign of it. I really enjoyed the book, though the subject was ookie.

The story is told in very simple prose, without a lot of detail or backstory for the minor characters. The setting is done well, and it helps if the reader has some knowledge of Victorian life and the conventions followed in books; though the story isn't a long dense tome, as some often are. The POV character has the Victorian distance that can come across as lifeless, but in this case it wasn't.

The description of the dead, their retrieval, handling, washing, dissection, and the mopping up afterwards was straightforward, and not drawn out to be ghoulish on purpose. Given the subject it was impossible not to feel squeamish now and then.

The POV is an apprentice to a famous Anatomist in London. Gabriel Swift is an orphan whose guardian sent him to be Mr. Poll's apprentice. It is obvious from the names used that there are issues of class and familiarity between Mr. Poll, his junior associate Charles, and between Mr. Swift, and the other apprentice Robert. They are not spelled out however, and it is up to the reader to be aware of them and watch for the other clues in the text. This is a book you have to work at, perhaps that and the subject is why it has such a low rating.

In any event the house where the dissections are done has another crooked character, Mr. Tyne the Butler, and the same type of men, the Resurrectionists, come to the door at night bringing their wares. What they do is illegal, so they must be furtive, and it takes a person of a certain disposition to retrieve and deliver the dead. When they are done with them, the remnants are taken off and burned, so they are never returned to their graves, and their family is often unaware they are missing.

The story tells of Gabriel's learning the ropes with Mr. Poll and at the house. He has trouble with some of the more sinister denizens, including a Resurrctionist named Lucan who is at odds with Mr. Poll. Gabriel's difficulties with these men will come back to haunt him.

Gabriel also learns London and how to have a good time as a young man with money and steady employment. Given his standing he spends time with barmaids and actresses. He falls in love with one, and its unfortunate that she is also a prostitute, allowing wealthy men to fund her meager existence.

Mr. Poll charges Doctors and Students to attend his lectures and view the dissections. I am not sure what path to advancement the apprentices have, since without schooling they are unlikely to be able to become doctors or Anatomists. During the daytime the apprentices go with Mr. Poll and Charles as they minister to the sick and dying in the slums, as well as the wealthy in their homes. Throughout all the professional adventures, Gabriel is not happy, comfortable or really interested.

Gabriel does find he likes socializing, and during one of his visits to a friend of Charles, Thomas May, he is introduced to Opium. It is easily bought in a flask at the pharmacists. Gabriel falls under the sway of drugs, drink, and the actress/prostitute. He also ends up keeping Charles' secrets.

By day Charles is a professional with an engagement to Poll's daughter, by night he crawls the pubs and clubs and theaters and is also a fancier of the actress. When her friend's son dies after a terrible injury, Gabriel earns the hatred of Mr. Tyne in the house when the dead body of the child is rejected for dissection.

The rejection costs the Resurrectionist and the 'butler' money, and earn Gabriel their hatred. Gabriel never mentions the child's connection to Charles. Later when the butler has maneuvered to have Gabriel dismissed, Charles never stands up for him.

Once dismissed Gabriel leaves off any pretense at being civilized and wallows in the gutter. He pawns his belongings and gambles to fund his drinking and drugging. We follow Gabriel as he falls lower and lower in both his mode of living, and it what he does to earn money. Eventually he ends up becoming a Resurrectionist himself, and working for the evil Lucan. There is a falling out, and Gabriel becomes involved in murder, and in a new way of supplying bodies to the Anatomists. Eventually he runs afoul of his cohorts and they take drastic revenge. Gabriel survives, barely, but breaks the law by stealing food, is caught and transported to Australia. The authorities are never aware of his previous gruesome activities.

The last part of the book jumps 10 years when Gabriel has completed his sentence and is living in Australia, under an assumed name. He is a drawing teacher and pretending to be the man (Charles' friend) who was an artist and introduced Gabriel to Opium. Gabriel spent 7 years at hard labor for stealing, but has never confessed or paid for his other crimes. A chance encounter with Robert, the man he was an apprentice with, causes suspicion among the Australians. Many are also former criminals or descendents of criminals, but all their pasts are known. Gabriel in their midst is keeping his past and his crime a secret. It causes them to withdraw from him and he loses his students. The book leaves Gabriel struggling to have to remake his life again, all without benefit of absolution. Where does one go when you have been rejected by Australia, the land of convicts ?

I really enjoyed the book. It was well written, not too long or dense, and it didn't minimize or exploit the work with the dead. The setting was well done, and the characters who were explored were interesting. It was definitely a horror story and quite effective.

Gabriel Swift arrives in London in 1826, to study as an apprentice with Edwin Poll - the famous surgeon and anatomist. Poll is a very different character to his partner, Charles de Mandeville. Charles - the only man Poll considers his equal - is still only a young man, despite his skill and success. However, the pair are very different - where Poll is cold and aloof, Charles has an open, friendly manner. While the relationship between Poll and Gabriel is never anything other than master and apprentice, Charles is a great deal less formal and - for a time - takes Gabriel under his wing. Swift is a stranger to London and knows nobody in the city...and Charles, occasionally, takes the new apprentice out for an evening. He introduces Gabriel to some of his friends - one, Chifley, is as obnoxious as they come but another, May, is a good deal more pleasant sort. (May, as it turns out, has an opium habit - which isn't an entirely uncommon affliction at the time). Charles is also romantically involved with Poll's daughter....although he has, at times, enjoyed the company of other women. One of them -Arabella - causes a little friction when she also catches Gabriel's eye...

Obviously, for the practical element to their work, they need bodies...and the supply is dealt with by grave robbers. Although Poll employs two of his own - Caley and Walker - the trade throughout London is governed by a man called Lucan. (In fact, Caley had once worked for Lucan). He and Poll clearly don't like each other, a problem that arose from one or two business problems. Lucan had been looking for more and more money...even more than that, however, he craved a gentleman's status. With the members of the Anatomists' Club unwilling to pay, Poll and Sir Astley (another noted anatomist) convinced Caley to switch sides...and then attempted to sideline Lucan altogether. However, despite of the Club's efforts, Lucan is still exceptionally influential and is capable of making things extremely difficult - not only for Poll, but also for Gabriel.

However, the biggest threat to Gabriel may come from within Poll's walls - Tyne, who works `downstairs' has an interest in seeing Caley make as much money as possible. If Gabriel causes him any difficulty on this front, Tyne would have no qualms about causing a great deal of trouble for Gabriel.

I was a little disappointed with "The Resurrectionist"...though having swallowed the blurb, I guess I've nobody but myself to blame. Rather than the "classically claustrophobic Gothic chiller" or even the "earthy, brooding Gothic horror" promised, I found it a bland, plodding and distinctly unchilling book. The summary on the book's back cover - suggesting Swift had found "himself drawn to his master's nemesis, Lucan" was also somewhat misleading. In all honesty, the book's back cover got little other than the names of the characters right. An easy enough read, following a gentleman's fall from grace in the 1800s - nothing more than that, though, and really very ordinary.

I have to say that this is truly one bizarre story. It reads almost like a journal and in many places, events seem unrelated to those that have preceded them. There are a number of dialogues that don't make much sense and others that are just too vague. It's almost like a series of disconnected nightmares as opposed to an orderly progression of a plot.

Gabriel Swift is an apprentice of well-known anatomist, Edwin Poll, in 1826 London. Dr Poll is provided with a steady supply of cadavers by resurrectionists (grave robbers) for his lectures in the "grim theatre of the dissecting room" at the College of Surgeons. It is a business like any and the dead are commodities for sale. Dr Poll's lectures are based on the belief that the understanding of the structure of the human body will lead to an understanding of the very essence of life.

Gabriel's job is to assist in the cleaning and preparation of the bodies, and in his spare time becomes addicted to opium and drink. Due to a fight in which Gabriel was provoked, he is banished from the college with very little money. Desperate, he allows himself to be recruited by a murderous gang of resurrectionists led by Dr Poll's nemesis, Lucan.

The author describes the processes involved in dissection in great detail so, if you're anywhere near petrified of putrefaction, this isn't the book to read. This is a grisly and ghoulish novel. In all fairness, the back of the book has a blurb from a review that reads: "An earthy, brooding Gothic horror...Gory at times, philosophical at others, this is atmospheric stuff." There is also, in its brief synopsis, the following: "...Gabriel is pulled into the sinister and mysterious underworld of Georgian London-and must make a journey that will change his life forever." However, I found the majority of the novel to be not of the redemptive journey I was anticipating but rather the ugliness and violence of Gabriel's life.

In the latter third, the story jumps to ten years later and Gabriel is now in New South Wales, and I still can't quite understand this character and what he is seeking in life. Gabriel, all throughout, seems to be merely an observer of the circumstances he's involved in. I don't know if he's too addled by the opium or if he's just too weak to resist his deadly urges. There are times when it's apparent that he hates himself and what he does, and then next he comes across as just "doing a job." Gabriel's self-destructive path is not easy to swallow--I'm not sure I'm convinced that someone who's respectable one day becomes a grave robber the next without a more compelling rationale than want of a bit of money. This, by itself, would not have disappointed me too much if I could have only comprehended everything that was happening. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, and the vagueness of it all became frustrating. I found it to be too metaphysical, and the characters too abstract. As its main character became more and more detached from the real world, the more detached I became from the story. I think the author is saying that we are all capable of monstrous acts, but we also have the capacity to change, forget the past, and rebuild our lives. Conversely, he could also be saying that when we succumb to monstrous acts, our past will forever haunt us no matter the desire to change for the better. See, I really don't know, again due to the overall vagueness.

I give it two stars because the writing is quite good in the descriptions of a bleak London and in setting the atmosphere of the covert and unsavory world of grave robbers. I just wish the author had exercised the same precision in clarifying the plot and characters as he did with the philosophical aspects.