- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Picador; 2 edition (21 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 033037169X
- ISBN-13: 978-0330371698
- Product Dimensions: 19.9 x 12.9 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 394,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Patricia Duncker's third book is an elegant exploration of the way gender and identity shape a life. The starring role is given to James Miranda Barry, a 19th century society figure, who enrolled as a student at Edinburgh and carved out an illustrious medical career on three continents. Nothing too strange about that, except that James Miranda Barry lived life as a man but was actually a woman.
Duncker has created "an imaginative exploration" of the real Barry's life, adjusting facts and adding figures to transform a story of love and adventure into a masque of sexual identity, where the hero is really the leading lady and the love interest is a kitchen maid, turned actress, who relishes "the breeches parts" in Shakespeare's plays.
It's an enthralling, strange tale, peopled with actors and soldiers, artists and revolutionary generals. Illicit liaisons, adultery, confused paternity, colonial history and family secrets provide the transgressive background to Barry's disorientating transformation into someone who was "neither man nor woman but partook of both", who combined "a woman's delicacy and grace" with "the courage and skill of a man."
Duncker's literary skills are equally adept and disorienting. Her prose is cool and clean, shot through with lush descriptions of flowers and landscape (her decadence seems to be saved for the glories of nature). Although Alice Jones the kitchen maid actress can proclaim to Barry: "You are who the world says you are. And the world says you're a man" but with Duncker it isn't quite that simple. Barry's manly charade is played out with the subtle, startling awareness of his (sic) womanly identity. It makes for a very sophisticated narrative where all surfaces are deceptive and all experiences are dual. --Eithne Farry
Product Description
From the author of Seven Tales of Sex and Death comes one of the most satisfying and fascinating historical novels since Rose Tremain's Restoration.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Whoever is marketing this book should be shot. I haven't see any blurb, bumf or reviews about it anywhere - which is a total sin as it is a cracking story, exquisitely written and totally original. It really is a classic and they should be shouting about it from the roof-tops. Get it for yourself - you'll want to read it over and over again.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A beautifully crafted, sumptuous and compelling story is revealed in this wonderful book, based on a real person - a surgeon and medical innovator who was revealed upon his death to be a woman.
James Miranda Barry was the child of Mary Anne Bulkeley, an Irish woman who became the mistress of a peer of the realm, Lord Erskine and, at various times was also the mistress of General Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan adventurer who fought for Napoleon, and the lover, or so it was rumoured, of her brother, James Barry, a famous and respected painter. Any of the above could have been the father of James Miranda Barry, or it is just possible that Mary Anne's husband, Bulkeley, fathered the child. All of these speculations are based on real people and real events in the eventful life of James Miranda Barry.
The novel begins with a plunge into the life of the child - educated to a high standard by the General, living at the time on Lord Erskine's estate and in thrall to a kitchen maid, Nora Jones, but terrified of irascible Uncle James, who locks himself away to paint, but sometimes emerges to terrorise and energise the general household. Then comes the fateful moment when the child has reached an age where decisions have to be made about her future. The three men meet at the centre of the maze on Erskine's estate and send for James Miranda Barry. It has been decided, at Mary Anne's suggestion, that they will finance and support a medical career for this precocious and highly intelligent child, but she will, of necessity, henceforth be known forever as a man.
The writing is gorgeous - splendid at setting the scene and revealing the psychology of the characters, deeply knowledgeable and researched, but lightly and deftly presented on the page as part of the story. James Miranda Barry receives his medical education in Edinburgh, spends time with the dying James Barry in London, is posted to a garrison on the South African coast where he has a cholera epidemic on his hands, then travels to the West Indies where he is present at the slave revolts in Jamaica. At the end of the book he returns to London, where he meets up once again with the remarkable Alice Jones, who is now an actress.
There are mysteries and intrigues galore but it is the character of James Miranda Barry which fascinates and enthrals the reader. Accepted everywhere as a man, even given his diminutive size and tiny, perpetually frozen hands, a crack shot (he fought duels and one in particular which ended in a lifelong friendship with his adversary) and subject to the privations of primitive hospital conditions - where he was revolutionary in his methods - and accepted in colonial society, where he was the subject of much interest with the ladies. It is a deliciously beguiling, richly descriptive book and a literary achievement of the highest order.
James Miranda Barry was the child of Mary Anne Bulkeley, an Irish woman who became the mistress of a peer of the realm, Lord Erskine and, at various times was also the mistress of General Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan adventurer who fought for Napoleon, and the lover, or so it was rumoured, of her brother, James Barry, a famous and respected painter. Any of the above could have been the father of James Miranda Barry, or it is just possible that Mary Anne's husband, Bulkeley, fathered the child. All of these speculations are based on real people and real events in the eventful life of James Miranda Barry.
The novel begins with a plunge into the life of the child - educated to a high standard by the General, living at the time on Lord Erskine's estate and in thrall to a kitchen maid, Nora Jones, but terrified of irascible Uncle James, who locks himself away to paint, but sometimes emerges to terrorise and energise the general household. Then comes the fateful moment when the child has reached an age where decisions have to be made about her future. The three men meet at the centre of the maze on Erskine's estate and send for James Miranda Barry. It has been decided, at Mary Anne's suggestion, that they will finance and support a medical career for this precocious and highly intelligent child, but she will, of necessity, henceforth be known forever as a man.
The writing is gorgeous - splendid at setting the scene and revealing the psychology of the characters, deeply knowledgeable and researched, but lightly and deftly presented on the page as part of the story. James Miranda Barry receives his medical education in Edinburgh, spends time with the dying James Barry in London, is posted to a garrison on the South African coast where he has a cholera epidemic on his hands, then travels to the West Indies where he is present at the slave revolts in Jamaica. At the end of the book he returns to London, where he meets up once again with the remarkable Alice Jones, who is now an actress.
There are mysteries and intrigues galore but it is the character of James Miranda Barry which fascinates and enthrals the reader. Accepted everywhere as a man, even given his diminutive size and tiny, perpetually frozen hands, a crack shot (he fought duels and one in particular which ended in a lifelong friendship with his adversary) and subject to the privations of primitive hospital conditions - where he was revolutionary in his methods - and accepted in colonial society, where he was the subject of much interest with the ladies. It is a deliciously beguiling, richly descriptive book and a literary achievement of the highest order.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A wonderful book which approaches its inherently intriguing subject from a unique, original and wholly unexpected perspective. Always manages to avoid the obvious. The quality of the writing is also stunningly good. Definitely one of my top reads of 2003.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
James Miranda Barry
An interesting book when it eventually got going. Far too much time was spent on the childhood ?where does this information come from. Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2004
This is a really amazing book,a feast for the mind
I really enjoyed this book it took me I while to get through but by the end I could't put it down. It is a story of an amazing journey through a tough life. Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2000
A fascinating book on a fascinating person
Let's begin it like this: I work in a bookshop where there are three booksellers. We've got a completely different taste and usually disaggree on whixh books we like. Read more
Published on 29 Dec 1999
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