George Hardy, rather Master
George is an obsessed medical practitioner, a surgeon and an ardent
photographer too. Shortly after his father’s untimely death, the whereabouts of
which are to be kept a secret from the other members of his family, a choleric
proliferation and the waging war against Russia sets Master George on a journey
to offer his services to his countrymen, to the sufferers of war. Could he have
possibly known that he was to turn into one, a sufferer and likewise, the ones
around him?
Myrtle is an orphaned girl, taken
into the Hardy family, raised to be a lady, to all - George’s adoptive sister, but
that’s possibly an introduction for the world. For her, she’d rather be
Georgie’s skin, which can be cut, wounded, torn, sutured, and repaired but
remains till the very end, before it withers, fades. So, convoyed by Myrtle the
infatuated, Dr.Potter the geologist brother-in-law, a caravan of relatives and
of course Pompey Jones, the assistant, George walks into the labyrinthine decay
of the war.
Beryl Bainbridge fascinates us
with the numbness of war; the dead are luckier than the unfortunate living. Every
brush stroke only deepens and darkens the colour, a singular one, of red, a
bloody one at that, the only miscellany presented in its shades. And as one
inebriates in the gory visuals, the putrid miasma of decay suffocates you but
there is nothing to cover your nose, your eyes with, not even your willingness.
a gun is meant to kill and so it
will!
a soldier is meant to, made to kill and so he will!
a war is meant to destroy, burn, annihilate and so it does!
a soldier is meant to, made to kill and so he will!
a war is meant to destroy, burn, annihilate and so it does!
No dissuasion can keep a moth
from the light; no enticing would keep Master George away from the war. Cut,
cut, cut, tear, tear, tear, sawing limbs is the norm of the day; stripping a
dead body of its soiled clothes to adorn a living is no dread. Nonchalance isn’t
an option. Like Dr. Potter who’s losing it with all the delusions and
hallucinations, one would agree that to be insensitive to the calamities of war
is the only sensible thing to do; how would one breathe otherwise? To be insane
is the only way to be sane.
In this decadence, in this
coldness, the author manages to light up emotions and allure the reader with
their dancing shadows. There aren’t any secret lives, or any secret emotions,
almost everything is blatantly real, only trampled on by the squalor of war. Pompey
Jones likes Myrtle, he believes the attraction more to come from the nasty cavern
of poverty and squalor that they once belonged to. Myrtle is hopeless when it’s
about George but he, the curer, is only a curer of the surface, the body; the
soul isn’t a surgeon’s lookout. Can love possibly surface in such abominable
conditions? Is it still important to know if you’re loved when a cover from the
next bullet or the next chance for a meal are the only things you should really
care for?
"I stood , resentment wriggling like a worm within my breast. It had been my conceit that it was enough to give love, that to receive it would have altered the nature of my obsession. When passion is mutual, there is always the danger of the fire burning to ashes. Rather than lose love it was better to not have known it." - Myrtle
Bainbridge’s eloquent portrayal
scratches beyond the surface and delves deep; the emotions infused in the
characters are real and hence felt. Whether you shed a tear for the dead or
not, the eyes will be in vain for the living, the living dead. The book and its
gory descriptions reminded me of the movie ‘The Pianist’. I’ve read Beryl
Bainbridge before, ‘Every man for himself’ but this one has struck a chord, an
effective one!
Image copyrights:
Master Georgie cover - http://www.readersparadise-me.com/book-for-rent/9780349111698-master-georgie-a-beryl-bainbridge.html
Beryl Bainbridge - http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=54418878
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| Beryl Bainbridge |
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