The House of Sight and Shadow: A Novel

by Nicholas Griffin

Book Overview

Early eighteenth-century London, and two doctors are crisscrossing the boundaries of morality in the heady pursuit of scientific progress. This challenge leads Sir Edmund Calcraft, an eminent and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375504729
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Villard
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Very well done

Here is a novel that is the very essence of irony, beautifully written, with fully fleshed characters and a great sense of time and place. To say it is Dickensian (as it does on the dustjacket) is to do the book a disservice because, in fact, the era is the 18th century, not the 19th--in which Dickens wrote his entire body of work.I like books written by contemporary authors that manage successfully to lift you back in time (The Quincunx is a fine example of a truly Dickensian novel; Jack Maggs is another) and allow you to travel about with the characters, seeing what they see, breathing in the aromas, both fragrant and foul, crossing sawdust-covered floors or cobblestoned roadways. It is to Griffin's credit that he accomplishes all this. Not only does he address medical experimentations and the issue of psychosomatic illness, he also takes us along to witness some medical procedures that are jaw-droppingly awful.My only complaint is the maddening use of the verb "smile" as a manner of speech. Almost every character does it. "This time," smiled Defoe. ... "Was not my carriage," smiled the writer ... "See," smiled Calcraft. One can understand the author trying to find some word to replace "said," but this is an irritating affectation, badly overused, that detracts from otherwise fine prose and a really quite gripping narrative. I do recommend this novel for its fine evocation of time, place and character, and its well-executed, wrenchingly ironic ending.

London is Alive

This is a fast moving historical tale, where real life characters are mixed in with fictional ones to recreate London in the eighteenth century. I love this mixing of real and unreal, it blurs the lines and adds an authenticity to the proceedings. Here we have a young man returning from abroad, only he's not as young as he'd like - rather old, in fact, to be beginning an apprenticeship to a surgeon. As a result, he's highly ambitious and keen to get on with life. From there, our hero begins to loose his morals and awareness as he plummets into a world of prostitutes, grave robbers and convicts. The book rushes along with a finely tuned plot but it's the writing that really separates it from the pack. Griffin turns phrase after phrase, which gives the House of Sight a secondary thrill. I'm going back to read his first one and wonder even though I'm not a great reader of historical fiction. This is one good reason to take a break from biographies and such.

Engaging writing and clever plot

Joseph Bendix has been cut loose by his father. Now penniless and shunned by the Comtesse (from whom he foolishly begged a loan), this would-be physician has one friend left in the world. His friend offers a letter of introduction to noted and reclusive London physician, Dr. Edmund Calcraft.Eager to prove his theory that illness can be both caused and cured by the mind, Bendix must set aside his own medical theories to assist his new mentor, Dr. Calcraft, with his research. Calcraft's theories are gruesome, but Bendix becomes committed when he meets and falls in love with the inspiration for Calcraft's research, the beautiful and blind Amelia Calcraft.Cloaked in the atmosphere of early 18th century London, the novel goes beyond medical speculation and explores the corruption of the English legal system and the distinctions between social classes. The ironic ending is the gem of this cleverly thought out and well written novel.

Scalpels at the ready

Now we're talking. This is about ambition, plain and simple, and where it leads those who think they're good. Filled with great characters, all of whom have at least three or four motives, it makes this one great read. Plus the sense of time and place, most of these characters are drawn from real life. Imagine a Doctor Drama like ER in 18th century London and then you've got it, except don't rely on it all ending as you think.

A disturbing and genuine love story.

You can call this book many things, a historical novel, a contemplation of medicine, an adventure, a tale of love, but the best thing about it is that it all comes together. In the end, it's a book of thought, or at least, choices in thought. This is what separates the two central characters, how they approach their work as doctors (mostly their work is gruesome, sometimes a bit too much so) and how the different paths that the decisions made in the mind can then affect the heart. What you have in THE HOUSE OF SIGHT though, is a romance that is made fragile by all the machinations of the characters who operate inside and outside of it. In the end, the book is driven by these differences that separate the heart and the mind. They may be choices that we all face, but this is exactly what makes a book set 250 years ago in England, seem relevant. Plus it kept me up at night, and I read it on holiday in London, which was a bonus. It was recommended to me by a Mystery Bookshop, but I'd have to say it's not really a mystery, not like a whodunnit, but more subtle. The ultimate revelations may be just as clear and shocking as in a mystery, but they have a rawness that means they side step the usual contrived ending.