Charles O'Brien, bard and giant. The cynical are moved by his flights of romance; the craven stirred by his tales of epic deeds. But what of his own story as he is led from Ireland to seek his fortune beyond the seas in England?
The Surprising Irish Giant may be the sensation of the season but only his compatriots seem to attend to his mythic powers of invention. John Hunter, celebrated surgeon and anatomist, buys dead men from the gallows and babies' corpses by the inch. Where is a man as unique as The Giant to hide his bones when he is yet alive?
The Giant, O' Brien is an unforgettable novel; lyrical, shocking and spliced with black comedy.
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'Bring in the cows now. Time to shut up for the night'.1
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(@4thEstateBooks, 24 June 2010, first published 1998, 206 pages, ebook, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I'd never heard of the Giant before. Mantel states in an afterword that her book isn't actually based on the real Irish Giant but was inspired by this and by the real-life John Hunter. So it's not really a 'true story'. I thought this was an incredibly sad book; O'Brien seems to have no life of his own, paraded like an exhibit in a freak show, prodded, poked and stared at. He seems content enough and resigned until his keep flees with money and he becomes a nuisance, a true freak. My heart ached for him. A sense of foreboding and bleakness runs through the whole book and I knew O'Brien would not get a happy ending.
