Valancourt Books discussion

Graham Greene ranked THE RACK (1958) with Clarissa, Great Expectations and Ulysses as a towering monument of literature. Other critics agreed: "book of the year" was the verdict, and The Rack was so far beyond other contemporary British novels that reviewers had to look to the Continent for comparisons: Proust, Mann, Camus. Derek Lindsay (1920-2000)'s only novel, it was published under the pseudonym of A.E. Ellis, an allusion to Ruth Ellis, the last person hanged in England; fitting, since the novel is a masterpiece of gallows humor. The plot involves a young English student with TB in a Swiss sanatorium and the horrifying, dehumanizing medical procedures he undergoes. But it's also very funny, in a grim and ghastly way, both in terms of the cosmic joke played on the hapless hero as well as the ludicrousness of his neurotic fellow patients and the arrogance of his incompetent doctors. When published by Heinemann in 1958, the dust jacket blurb said it was the best novel they had published in years; we might be tempted to say the same. http://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-ra...



Book description

“Then consider yourself an experiment of the gods in what a man can endure . . .” This is the sardonic advice of a doctor to his patient, a young man suffering from tuberculosis in the days before effective antibiotic treatment, and it sets the theme for this brilliant novel. The hero, Paul Davenant, has arrived at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps with high hopes of a full cure and a normal life. But as the weeks and months pass interminably by, Davenant undergoes endless tests and medical procedures, each more horrific and dehumanizing than the last, all the while facing the possibility that his case may be hopeless. Yet alongside the pain, indignity, and tediousness, there is a sense of the outrageous, farcical side to his situation, the utterly pointless absurdity of it all. And when he falls in love with a fellow patient and becomes determined at last to recover his health, can he succeed, or will all the tortures he has endured have been for nothing?

The Rack is available in paperback and eBook. See our website for more details on this book and author:

http://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-ra...

It sounds intriguing! :)

I agree!

Maybe I need to read this one to shake my childhood image of tuberculosis - sanitoriums with large comfortable ornate beds and exquisite mountain views.

Sounds good. Love sanitariums!

I want it!