The Rack: The rediscovered ‘powerful love story’ (Sebastian Faulks)

A classic novel. This edition is abridged. There is a later one (not Penguin) with 25000 words restored

This is a novel written in the 1950s. It.s not easy to read but perseverance has it's rewards.One of my all time favourite books..

Comparison’s to Mann’s 1924 Magic Mountain inevitably arise – both are (very) long novels, set in the closed society of a sanitorium, but whereas Mann’s novel in many ways explores the wider world, as politics and ideology come under his microscope, Ellis’s novel focuses far more on medical matters, with graphic details of barbaric treatments for a disease which had not, at the time of writing, become managed.I assume that the republication of this novel has come about because the world has been in the grip of another lethal respiratory condition, albeit one where modern medicine has found a remarkably quick way to subdue or partially subdueThe author of The Rack, who only wrote one novel, which was highly praised at the time of its 1958 publication, was also a playwright, and pertinently, spent some years himself in a sanitorium in the French Alps, and had experienced some of the ‘heroic’ treatments which were in place, and painstakingly described – pneumothorax, rib removal, injecting noxious substances such as iodine and creosote into the lungs.By the time of the book’s publication, TB was being successfully managed by medical rather than surgical means, with combination drugs.The Rack follows the story – in a manner which is both darkly horrific (those treatment details) and, at times, mordantly funny – of Paul Davenant. It is very much the story of an individual,. rather than one which stands for something much wider. Davenant, a somewhat impecunious Cambridge undergraduate, comes to the Swiss Alpine hospital as a protegee of the International Students’ Organisation.Though to some extent the novel could have explored the difference between those with more means being treated in the ‘private patient’ wing, as opposed to the cohort of international students, this is not really particularly engaged with – the treatments were similar, but the surrounds (food, accommodation) differed.Davenant, sensitive and diffident, falls in love with another patient, ‘a private’ and this is as much an obviously doomed love story as well as a story of the war between a disease and its host.Something which frustrated was the constant insertion of words, dialogue in French. Sure, the setting was in French speaking Switzerland, and sure, a modern reader who is not fluent in the language has easy recourse to translation (especially reading on an ereader, assuming Wifi can be enabled, but back in the day this would have prevented enjoyment for anyone without immediate access to a French/English dictionary or a fairly well developed knowledge of the language.There are no footnotes within the digital text, either.So, for me and my only schoolgirl French, I found I was either repeatedly taken out of the story in order to get a line of dialogue translated, or, just had to skate over without full comprehension in order to stay connected with the journey.I also felt the book was longer than it needed to be, as there was a lot of repetition (particularly wearing in interchanges with some of the ‘comic relief’ characters) which did not advance either the narrative, or a deeper understanding of the characters themselves, and their relationships to each other.I ended up somewhat surprised and bemused by the plaudits the book received from the great and the good, at the time of publicationI was grateful to be offered this as a digital Arc, pleased to have read it, even if not blown away. A worthy book, sure, but not one which deeply invaded my being

Paul Davenant, a patient in a Alpine sanitorium, is gleefully told he's to be tortured by the treatment for his tuberculosis, and when he duly is, his doctors express little sympathy. Their bedside manner is severely lacking and Davenant must put up with the rigours of treatment as well as the medical men's insensitivity. The Rack reads like a black comedy at times; indeed the three doctors are like a music hall act.The sisters who nurse him are no better - indeed all the women (apart from one or two exceptions) are presented as idiotic or incompetent. But then, so are the men.The various other TB patients we meet - mostly young male students - rail against their enforced confinement with pranks and high jinks. They stage protests against the abominable food, get drunk, dress up, push each other about on trolleys, and generally carry on as if they are at a rag day parade. Paul, less well than they, suffers mostly silently and grows depressed.When he falls in love the tone changes. Paul now has something to live for but not the means to pursue it. His time in the sanitorium is ever expanding - another three months, by Christmas you'll be well enough to leave, by Easter, by summer, another three months; and so it goes on. His beloved, Michele, very young and rather irritating, is willing to wait for him. But how long can she put her life on hold? We cannot help falling into despair along with Paul at his lack of prospects, lack of money, and lack of health.There are some beautiful descriptive passages, use of wonderful words and medical terminology, lots of untranslated French, and over it all a feverish, hallucinatory account of the indignities and privations of TB treatment in the fifties. This is a long book, at times repetitive, and with characters who are often barely believable. However, it is an astonishing account, and one to be savoured and reflected upon.

A group of former soldiers arrive in a sanitarium in France as they have severe tuberculosis. They are the less important group as they are not private patients and this is demonstrated by the poor food they are given and other aspects of poor care. The book is about one patient in particular, Paul. It traces his medical experience and his personal response to his condition. There is extensive, detailed medical information. The book is well written if depressing. It’s place is more as a historical record of the effects of tuberculosis than an interesting read. I found it to be a difficult, tiresome read.

First published in 1958, this is the story of TB sufferer Paul Davenant and his treatment in a Swiss sanatorium.The experimental treatment wouldn’t be out of place in a torture chamber, with the medical staff its sadists.The inclusion of interstitial details, not something encountered (nor tolerated) in these days of rapid-access social media, gives the reading experience all the monotony and boredom of what life must have been like in a sanatorium.Horrifying, yet hard to resist.