The Giant, O'Brien: A Novel - Softcover

Mantel, Hilary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312426887 ISBN 13: 9780312426880

Publisher: Picador, 2007

New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year

London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in myths, fairies, miracles, and little people. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. O'Brien's opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter, who lusts after the Giant's corpse as a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

In her acclaimed novel, two-time Man Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel tells of the fated convergence of Ireland and England. As belief wrestles knowledge and science wrestles song, so The Giant, O'Brien calls to us from a fork in the road as a tale of time, and a timeless tale.

Review:

Like Andrew Miller (Ingenious Pain, Casanova in Love) and Penelope Fitzgerald (The Blue Flower), Hilary Mantel turns to the 18th century in order to make a universal point. Her eighth novel, The Giant, O'Brien, takes place during that bifurcation of mind and spirit known as the Age of Reason. The year is 1782 and Charles O'Brien has fled Ireland, bringing both his massive frame and his ancient folk tales to England, where he hopes to make his fortune as a sideshow exhibit. "His appetite was great, as befitted him; he could eat a granary, he could drink a barrel. But now that all Ireland is coming down to ruin together, how will giants thrive? He had made a living by going about and being a pleasant visitor who fetched not just the gift of his giant presence but also stories and songs ... many hearths had welcomed him as a prodigy, a conversationalist, an illustration from nature's book. Nature's book is little read now, and he thought this: I had better make a living in the obvious way. I will make a living from being tall."

Unfortunately, O'Brien's height attracts more attention than he might like: John Hunter, a surgeon, becomes fascinated with the giant and obsessed with the possibility of dissecting him after he's dead. Thus Mantel sets up the central conflict of her novel: Hunter's thirst for knowledge and fame versus O'Brien's conviction that without his body his soul cannot go to heaven. In the mean streets of 18th-century London, the author explores the division of soul and body, imagination and rationalism, as she juxtaposes the two men's lives. In this collision of cultures and points of view, she offers no easy answers, but instead turns a disturbing spotlight on questions that continue to resonate to the present day. --Alix Wilber

From the Inside Flap:

The year is 1782; the place, London: centre of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and magnet to the desperately poor-among whom is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature. He is a man of songs and stories who believes in ancient myths. He has come to London to exhibit his size for money. He has also, he discovers, come there to die.
His opposite is a man of science, a society surgeon, the famed anatomist John Hunter, employer of a legion of grave robbers. He lusts after the Giant's corpse. Coin is offered, but the Giant refuses. He will be buried; he will assume his throne in heaven. But money changes hands as friends are bribed. The Giant sickens, dies. Today, his bones may be viewed by any curious stranger who visits Hunter's London museum.

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0312426887
• ISBN 13: 9780312426880
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208