The Giant, O'Brien: A Novel

A engaging tale of mortality. I found myself reflecting on the meaning/purpose of my life & morbid accounting survivors will parse out at my demise - financial & otherwise. Also provided me a greater appreciation of the social & economic position of the Irish within the Commonwealth the time.

I thought Wolf Hall and Bringing up the Bodies were brilliant and I knew that The Giant O'Brien would not be of that calibre but was still a tad disappointed. That said, it was worth the read unlike a lot of rubbish that seems to sell well!

He liked it.

This book deals with an interesting subject--how "freaks of nature" were viewed in the 18th century--but the characterizations are not the strongest. And it's on the grim side, too. Now this writer specializes in the more violent aspects of historical events, but this book doesn't have the vividness of either Place of Greater Safety or her latest, Wolf Hall, which is hard to put down. But it is worth it for the 18th century detail and mindset.

This is a beautifully told, imaginative feast. A giant, a premodern Ireland losing its traditions, a vile London, and so on. Perhaps this is a primitive reading, but I take the Giant to be premodern man, and John Hunter, the fetishist of dissection, to be modern man. From this angle, at least, I found the book a wonderfully thoughtful reflection on what we have lost. She has complete mastery of her language. My first Mantel, and I look forward to more.

Although the prose in this book is excellent, the plot is confusing. I really did not enjoy the book and almost stopped reading it - this is something I very seldom do. I was very disappointed overall, especially considering Hilary Mantel's other work.

Unusual and interesting novel giving description of the Irish downtrodden trying to survive in London, juxtaposed with the intricate methods used by medical experimenters to obtain corpses. Mantel does an interesting weaving of the two stories and brings it all together in the end. Ending re: Medical person is a bit strange.

Dark story. Filled with hopelessness. Bleak dreary from beginning to end. Nothing good was ever going to happen to any of these people.

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.

Or is it a poem in prose? It is in any case to me a very special novel, and one I am not likely to forget. I am one of the probably very many who discovered Hilary Mantel's other novels after having read  Wolf Hall  and/or  Bring Up the Bodies , and 'The Giant, O'Brien' is both very similar to those two and yet all together completely different as well.As in 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies', the way in which Mantel evokes a sense of place and time is quite amazing. 'The Giant, O'Brien' starts in Ireland but for the most part is set in London at the end of the 18th century, and she recreates both excellently, often with unexpected but telling details (as when the companions of O'Brien accompanying him to London discover there is such a thing as beds, and find it hard to get used to them having slept on the ground all of their lives until then). Also, as in 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies', the story told here is based on real events, and explores familiar themes such as friendship vs. egotism/greed (to what extent can one trust one's friends?). Not a lot it seems, and in a way one can say that 'The Giant, O'Brien' is a horrid illustration of the veracity of Plautus' saying that 'Man is wolf to man' and as such a deeply disturbing tale.At the same time, there is sheer beauty as well in the compass of these (barely) 200 pages, not least in the stories O'Brien tells. Physically he may be a giant, but at heart he is a storyteller, and the stories he tells are small gems in themselves. Indeed, 'The Giant, O'Brien' is written in often very lyrical prose, and there is not a page where you'll not come across some or other sentence that describes a familiar something in a surprising new way, or a deeply felt insight in the simplest of words. Just one of many examples: when asked by John Hunter if his memory fails, O'Brien replies 'Everything fails, sir. Reason, and harvests, and the human heart.'It appears from the postscript that the bones of the real Charles Byrne may be seen at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields. I am not sure that, if ever I visit, I will be able to look upon those bones and not shed a tear. Wolf HallBring Up the Bodies

At times a very dark and disturbing story. The characters in The Giant, O'Brien (apart from the Giant himself) exhibit a lot of the worst of human traits - opportunistic, cruel, desperate and treacherous. The depiction of 18th century London where life is cheap and the exploitation of "freaks" by unscrupulous characters is depressing. There are few redeeming features in the people we meet in this book. London is certainly a more enlightened place today. The Irish are, by and large, depicted as vicious, drunken and untrustworthy, although some context / explanation is provided for this by the descriptions of the abject poverty which the Giant and his band left behind in Ireland.Nevertheless there is something engaging about this novel. There is a mysticism and lyricism to the stories and speech of the gentle Giant. The escapades of his little troop and they depart Ireland are at times comical and there is some humour throughout the book.The sections on John Hunter are very well written but seem too separate and the two strands are never fully brought together.Overall impressive in many ways but seems unfinished.

I enjoyed this book, especially the intertwining of the stories of the main protagonists. It was quite late on that I realised that it was based on fact, so an historical eye-opener. Would recommend.

A tale of fate and obsession, science and a dreamer, as the aptly named anatomist Hunter closes in on the folklorist Irish giant surrounded by fellow Irish men who live off him alive or dead.A novella rather than one of Mantel's usual blockbusters.