A review by mandyist
The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut
5.0
I think I can say it now: I think Galgut is my favourite author. It feels important to note because the last time I felt this sweeping, all encompassing love for an author was in the early 90s with Margaret Atwood and Milan Kundera, and later that decade with Michael Dibdin.
Galgut writes such quintessentially South African novels. I'd love to discuss his novels with non-South African readers because I don't know that they would understand large swathes of the content in his novels. SA is a complex, tricky, often tragic country with massive violence and disparities between rich and poor (that often follows racial lines) and Galgut's novels capture that.
Which is all to say that this novel has drummed up a lot of emotion for me but that I'm not sure I can write a very good review for it. I'll be thinking of The Good Doctor's flawed characters for some time to come and will definitely not wait so long to read my next Galgut novel. For now, I'll need to read something simple and mindless.
Galgut writes such quintessentially South African novels. I'd love to discuss his novels with non-South African readers because I don't know that they would understand large swathes of the content in his novels. SA is a complex, tricky, often tragic country with massive violence and disparities between rich and poor (that often follows racial lines) and Galgut's novels capture that.
Which is all to say that this novel has drummed up a lot of emotion for me but that I'm not sure I can write a very good review for it. I'll be thinking of The Good Doctor's flawed characters for some time to come and will definitely not wait so long to read my next Galgut novel. For now, I'll need to read something simple and mindless.