The Visit of the Royal Physician [Paperback]

Per Olov Enquist (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2003

Everyone has heard stories of King George, but few know about his brother-in-law, Christian VII, the King of Denmark at the end of the eighteenth century. When Christian VII, young, mad and highly impressionable, assumes the Danish throne, many seek to control the new king, capitalising on his mental frailty to advance their own interests. Two men stand out: Struensee, the reform-oriented court physician and Guldberg, the cold-blooded religious fanatic. As the clash between these two men and all they represent - science and religion; ideology and diplomacy; the temptations of the flesh and the certainties of dogma - escalates, the fate of an entire nation hangs in the balance. Enquist brilliantly recasts a dramatic era of Danish history, weaving a wide range of historical characters - Voltaire and Diderot, Catherine the Great and George III - into a tale of ruthless political ambition and personal betrayal.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Per Olov Enquist is one of Sweden's most acclaimed writers: a novelist, playwright and poet with works published in 26 countries. The Visit of the Royal Physician is his first novel since Captain Nemo's Library in the early 90s.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Vintage/Ebury (a Division of Random (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099447053
• ISBN-13: 978-0099447054
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,133,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Age of Enlightenment and those who opposed it., August 20, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Visit of the Royal Physician (Paperback)

Palace intrigue of the highest order, conducted by courtiers and officials who will do anything to achieve their goals, makes this a stimulating and thoroughly engrossing novel. The Danish court from 1768 - 1772 pulses with life as powerful personalities collide in their rush to fill the power vacuum resulting from the weakness of King Christian VII, a sensitive, half-mad 17-year-old boy, married to Caroline Mathilde, the 14-year-old sister of Britain's King George III. This is a time of great intellectual ferment as the new ideas of the Enlightenment, with their value on the individual and freedom, begin to threaten the feudal basis of the old, autocratic monarchies of Europe, and more frightening to the courtiers, their own power within their countries.

Enquist brilliantly recreates the psychology of the king, a puppet who desperately wants to please the courtiers and officials and is tormented when he does not, a bright but "ravaged child," who from his earliest years was regularly flogged, ridiculed, beaten for casual conversations, forcibly separated from everyone with whom he developed attachments, shamed, and driven mad by his own courtiers. When he becomes interested in the enlightened ideas of Voltaire and Diderot and is celebrated by these philosophers on a trip around the continent, his nervous and threatened court decides he needs a physician. What they never expect is that the physician they engage, Johann Friedrich Struensee from Germany, will establish a relationship with Christian, share his enlightened ideas, and eventually become the de facto king.

Bursting with dramatic scenes of Machiavellian court intrigue and the palpable fear of the Enlightenment, the novel is also filled with powerfully moving scenes of psychological abuse, tenderness, passion, love, and genuine sadness. Though the reader knows from the opening pages (and from the historical record) what the outcome of the court struggle will be, Enquist manages to endow it with an immediacy and tension which totally engage the reader. By focusing on the court, rather than on the populace, he makes the Enlightenment and the revolutions it inspires throughout Europe come alive from a new perspective, and in creating this novel based on history, he brings to life both the sad and abused child-king Christian and Struensee, the enlightened but politically naïve mentor who paid the ultimate price. A beautifully realized novel! Mary Whipple

5.0 out of 5 stars SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF DENMARK..., July 31, 2005

By 

Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Visit of the Royal Physician (Paperback)

Having read "Lost Queen" by Norah Lofts, which book was a work of historical fiction that covered much of the same story told by this author, there could not be two books more different, though both are riveting. The major difference is in the writing style. The book by Ms. Lofts is superlative and tells an interesting, intriguing, though somewhat superficial story about the love triangle consisting of the mad king of Denmark, Christian VII, his wife, Queen Caroline Mathilde, and the royal physician, Johann Struensee. This author, on the other hand, rips the reader's guts out with its angst filled, staccato telling of the same story. It is a more literary book than that of Ms. Lofts and compelling in its own way, a beautifully written work of historical fiction that will keep the reader riveted to its pages until the very end.

It, too, tells the story of Princess Caroline Mathilde of England, sister to King George III. At the age of fifteen she was wed to young King Christian VII, who eventually became known as the mad king of Denmark. Temperamental, high strung, and given to strange outbursts, his predilection for odd behavior was known early on, but despite this the two kingdoms would still see these two wed, as the unification of England and Denmark was more important than individual happiness.

King Christian VII was a truly pitiable figure who had survived a childhood fueled by rank cruelty and was easy prey for the sycophants of the Danish court. He developed a peculiar aversion to his wife and, consequently, had conjugal relations with her only once, which propitiously resulted in the birth of a son nine months later. Alone in a foreign country, whose language she was only beginning to learn, and estranged from a King surrounded by sycophants, the young queen gravitated to the one person who treated her as a person in her own right, the King's physician, Johann Struensee.

An advocate of the philosophy of Enlightenment that was overtaking Europe, the idealistic Struensee had many ideas that were introduced as reforms in Denmark, through his influence with the King, who by now was easily led, since his madness left a void in leadership that Struensee was all to happy to fill. These reforms were to make many enemies for him, as they upset the established feudal system that still existed in eighteenth century Denmark. As he gained power through his influence, resentment against him grew within those circles that had formerly been close to the King. Unaware of the growing animosity against him and lacking political canniness, Struensee and the Queen became close intimates, bound by shared ideas and interests.

Struensee's relationship with the Queen, who was lonely and starved for affection, eventually transgressed the bounds set by propriety. Now lovers in fact, their relationship became grist for the rumor mill. She even gave birth to a daughter who the King acknowledged as his own but who was actually Stuensee's. As gossip and innuendo about their relationship swirled across royal circles in Europe, it ultimately became the focal point for a political coup that saw them both arrested and charged with treason. It was a relationship that was to have great personal and political ramifications for the protagonists, as well as for Denmark. What ultimately happened to each of them was tragic, governed as it was by the initial reluctance of the Danes to give up their feudal system. Even those whom Struensee championed through his reforms, the peasant class, turned against him in the end.

This is a richly atmospheric work of historical fiction, filled with political intrigue, historical personages and events, shadowed by darkness and a palpable sorrow apparent in each and every one of its pages. It is as if the individual psyche of each of the protagonists were driving the book, giving it texture, shadings, and glimpses into the psyche of those involved in this high drama. It is an angst filled, almost surreal, rendering of lives that were to come together and leave a mark on the world, making for a story that to this day has the power to captivate the reader. Bravo!