A modern classic
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What a beautifully written insightful story. A female author who clearly has a 'masculine' side to write as a man. She intertwined the characters, their lives and personalities with skill and feeling. I loved the way she understates detail acknowledging the readers intelligence. Brilliant. It was even better than Miss Garnet's Angels. i immediately went out and bought all her other novels.
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Therapist and patient help each other
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David McBride, a psychotherapist, has a patient, Elizabeth Cruikshank who had attempted suicide. The story of Elizabeth triggers long-suppressed thoughts about and bleak insights into problems in his own life. As a result he responds to his patient's story with particular intensity and not with the detachment that therapists are supposed to show. Patients often want sessions to continue beyond the consultation hour, but here David wants it also and one session, for example, lasts for seven hours, well into the night. And although long silences in the early stages of the treatment are convincing, in the late stages I found Elizabeth's account of conversations she had had with her lover Thomas too literary, too artistically crafted: people don't speak like that; and that could also be said of a five page long speech by David to his wife Olivia. Events seem to me rather too telescoped: four separate major events happen to David on one day, and on the following day he moves from deep depression to catharsis. What also put me off somewhat is that the story is told by David in the first person, so that the wise reflections he makes from time to time about psychology and about life, especially in about the first half of the book, have about them a slightly vain tone which, perhaps unjustly, made me a little irritated with the author who is herself a psychotherapist - and in the light of that knowledge I had initially to remind myself from time to time that the psychiatrist in this novel is a man and not a woman.
But all that having been said, there are excellent things in the book. The personality of Elizabeth - so painfully lacking in self-esteem and so torn between duty to an unloved husband, children and mother-in-law on the one hand and passion for her lover Thomas on the other - is very well drawn. She has the intuition that some patients have to know what the therapist is not saying. Thomas is an unusual, magnificently forthright and eloquent creation - clearly not only Elizabeth but also both David and Salley Vickers are strongly attracted by him. Gus Galen, too, David's guru, is a meaty and wise character. There is a touching description of how, towards the end Elizabeth and David support each other. (Lesser writers would have inserted a sex scene here.)
As in the author's Miss Garnet's Angel, Italy and Italian art play a considerable part here, though I think she was much better at evoking Venice in that other novel than she is at her somewhat guide-book descriptions of Rome in this one. On the other hand what she sees in Caravaggio in this novel is more profound than what she saw in Guardi in the other one. Part of what Caravaggio means to her, to David and to Elizabeth is the subject, near the end, of the moving lecture David delivers in Rome and then of a further visit to his works in that city. This Part IV of the book is a most satisfying finale and handsomely made up for some of my earlier reservations.
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An utterly engrossing book
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This tale is told from two perspectives: Dr David McBride, a psychiatrist, and his patient, Elizabeth Cruikshank, a failed suicide. Essentially it is a story about their relationship and how, over time, trust grows between them. But The Other Side of You also tackles some bigger, yet more subtle, themes, including how the decisions we make impact on the rest of our lives and how we never really know the people we are closest to.
During one of his sessions with the normally reticent Elizabeth, David confesses that "there's no cure for being alive" and that the only thing to do is to "find a way to live". Having lost a sibling as a child, this is exactly how David has lived his life, keeping the pain buried deep within but sometimes imagining he could "bring him back by willing it".
But it is only when the pair begin to discuss a painting by Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus -- which depicts the moment when the resurrected Jesus reveals himself to two unsuspecting disciples -- that Elizabeth begins to open up and reveal the hidden pain that caused her to attempt to take her own life.
What follows is a riveting tale about a tragic love affair, which swings between London and Rome, so beautifully and exquisitely told (by Vickers) that the reader must give up all hope of putting the book down. In fact, I read it in one sitting and by the end of the marathon reading session -- some 270 odd pages -- I felt utterly devastated. The story lingered in my mind for days and weeks afterwards.
This is a remarkable, utterly engrossing book that cannot fail to move any reader, no matter how hardened they might be to the myriad emotions associated with art, death, life, love and loss. I cried buckets when I got to the end, and I rather suspect you might too.
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Bucks a modern trend
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As with several of the reviewers on Amazon, I had not read Salley Vickers before but was encouraged to by a bookseller who tells me her latest, 'Where Three Roads Meet', is also fascinating. He sold me 'Miss Garnett' and this one through sheer enthusiasm (I gather she's a favourite with the independent booksellers to whom she attributes Miss Garnett's success). No need to recap the plot as it has been well done here already so I'll just add my thought that this is a writer who bucks a modern trend. Her work takes time to absorb but is nourishing both to the mind and heart. An intellectually rigorous writer with soul is a rarity. As Phillip Pullman puts it 'she's a presence to be cherished'. I liked 'Miss Garnett', which I gather was the book which made her famous, but unlike so many first-time successes she seems to have got better. 'The Other Side of You' is a deeper book. Congratulations, Ms Vickers. I await 'Three Roads' with excitement.
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A book that has grown on me since I finished it!
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Although this book has been applauded by many reviewers, I found it a bit slow and ultimately not very rewarding. Strangely though, I have upgraded my rating from 3 to 4 stars since reviewing it!
David McBryde, a psychiatrist specialising in suicide cases, is assigned to Elizabeth Cruikshank, a young, married patient. It takes him a while to gain her trust, eventually breaking the ice through a mutual respect for the artist Caravaggio.
Meanwhile some of the background leading to David's choice of career is revealed, including the death of a close brother when he was just 4 years old, the brother 6.
Once Elizabeth decides to trust the doctor, she relates the traumatic history of love and loss that had lead up to the decision to end her life.
There are some wonderful peripheral characters, especially those at the hospital, though I found Thomas, the love of Elizabeth's life, both patronising and controlling.
In spite of a number of inspiring quotes and beautiful descriptions of Caravaggio's work, I really wasn't grabbed by this book.
I had previously read Miss Garnet's Angel, prior to a visit to Venice, but even under such favourable circumstances, I felt similarly uninspired by this author. I doubt I shall read any of her other books.
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