Rating: 
Summary: Worth The Time
Review: "The Good Doctor" is an amazing tale of friendship, self-discovery, and dealing with the everyday struggles of a downtrodden place. This book follows Frank Eloff, a dissatisfied man who is desperately searching for change, and Laurence Waters, a young idealistic man who believes he can single handily change the world. When these two Characters meet, things begin to change for both men. Galgut shows just how much each of the men have changed the other man. In describing this relationship, Galgut holds interest by the wonderful description of the barren earth surrounding them. Galgut keeps you guessing at every twist and turn, in this impossible relationship. If you are looking to find more information on South Africa, or you just love the tale of a star-crossed friendship, then this book is most certainly for you.
Rating:
Summary: Worth The Time
Review: "The Good Doctor" is an amazing tale of friendship, self-discovery, and dealing with the everyday struggles of a downtrodden place. This book follows Frank Eloff, a dissatisfied man who is desperately searching for change, and Laurence Waters, a young idealistic man who believes he can single handily change the world. When these two Characters meet, things begin to change for both men. Galgut shows just how much each of the men have changed the other man. In describing this relationship, Galgut holds interest by the wonderful description of the barren earth surrounding them. Galgut keeps you guessing at every twist and turn, in this impossible relationship. If you are looking to find more information on South Africa, or you just love the tale of a star-crossed friendship, then this book is most certainly for you.
Rating: 
Summary: A Hungarian in Milwaukee
Review: "The Good Doctor," written by Damon Galgut, is a novel set in Africa, were a young optimistic doctor, Laurence Walters, comes to work at a rural hospital. He is determined to revive the staff and people of the town. Frank, a doctor that has been working in the rural hospital for years watches with both bemusement and irritation as Laurence goes about executing his big ideas in a town were no one really cares. Were people have learned not to care and the past cripples the present. I watch through out the book how the older generation conflicts with the ideals of the new as well as gap between the rich and the poor. Ex: "The coins and notes that I stuffed into her hand on my way out of the door were a symbol of a separation between us that couldn't be measured: it was a disjuncture between our very lives. Money couldn't close the gap; it was the gap." "I threw the keys to him. Before we were out of the parking lot I could feel what a careful driver he was, slow and controlled, quite the contrary to the feverish way he talked and behaved." The novel was a good read and I enjoyed it very much, though at times I felt as though there was no real point to the novel other than to show life for what it can be at times. Not beautiful nor ugly it just is and can be seen as beautiful in some of its imperfections. Damon Galgut I salute you for a fine piece of work!
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: Damon Galgut has created a masterpiece with "The Good Doctor." The novel takes place in South Africa during post-apartheid. Dr. Frank Eloff, the narrator, is a pessimistic middle-aged man who works at a run down, rural hospital. His boring life at the lifeless hospital is soon interrupted when Lawrence Waters, a young, optimistic doctor fresh out of medical school, comes to work at the hospital for a year. The two begin to develop an uneasy friendship, where numerous twists and turns soon develop. The novel is an easy read, and it is quite difficult to put down. I highly recommend reading this book because it not only informs the reader about post-apartheid South Africa, but it also takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of hope and disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent : should have snazzed last year's Booker
Review: Damon Galgut's "The Good Doctor (GD)" is arguably the best among last year's Booker nominees, though sadly its classy but staid and measured qualities may not be what critics look for in prize winners. With GD, those acquainted with the works of South African novelists like Nadine Gordimer and J M Coetzee will find themselves in familiar territory. South Africa in transition is a perspective commonly adopted by these writers.
At its highest level, the brooding tension between Frank and Laurence in their unlikely relationship is symbolic of the struggle for supremacy between the forces of old and new. When Laurence's wide-eyed enthusiasm is pitted against Frank's resigned and cynical indifference, the result is cataclysmic, far beyond the reader's imagination. While Galgut's story is touched by death and regret, his vision isn't entirely bleak. When Laurence and Frank swap beds, deadbeat after a long night out, they feel strangely comfortable in each other's beds. Like yin and yang, are they not twin halves of a pupa society emerging from its chrysalis ? Laurence's stubborn perseverance against the stultifying bureaucracy of Dr Ngema's hospital isn't always altruistic. His callous disregard for Frank's plight as he goes in frenzied pursuit of his vision of setting up a village clinic is delirious if not a little mad. In spite of this, it is Laurence who unleashes the momentum that forces Frank to examine what's wrong in his thwarted life - his failed relationships with his father, his ex-wife, Maria, etc, and who is ultimately the catalyst for Frank's transformation.
There are scenes in GD that are truly memorable, like Frank's and Zanele's unexpected nocturnal encounter with the shadowy figure of the Brigadier, the town's former tinpot dictator. Surely Zanele's schoolgirl-like enchantment with her host is Galgut's sideswipe at the veneer thin and uncomprehending sloganeering of armed chaired liberals from afar. Galgut's characterisation is excellent, sharp and realised throughout. The sullenness of Tehogo, the hospital's sole unqualified male nurse, perfectly encapsulates the corruption, rot and decay of South African society. Only the rehearsed platitudes flowing from the mouth of Dr Ngema comes across as false, stagy and predictable. You know what she will say even before she says it. A minor lapse in otherwise great characterisation.
Galgut's poised, unhurried and reasoned prose is an absolute delight. Its greatest strength lies in its ability to reveal many layered truths of a society at its crossroads without hyperbole or false bravura. A thoroughly confident and assured debut from Galgut, who will no doubt join the ranks of great South African novelists.
Rating:
Summary: An impressive novel
Review: Laurence Waters is working in a rundown hospital in the capital of what used to be one of the homelands of South Africa. These areas of land are impoverished and underdeveloped, set aside by the apartheid government for the self determination of its various black nations. As Frank Eloff joins the staff of five for a one year training, he soon discovers that there is virtually no activity at the hospital. Most of the people living in the abandoned town - built once by what Laurence terms as "a puppet dictator" - aren't even aware of the presence of the facility! The equipment is so flimsy that most cases have to be referred to a hospital in a town an hour away.
Nevertheless, Mr Galgut masterfully describes the relationships between the staff members, at times showing harmony, at times tension and discord. Laurence's thoughts are busy with his failed marriage, with his father resenting him for being what one may call a loser - he ironically talks about "such wonderful work you do up there amongst the rural blacks" - or with his memories of the two years he spent in the army.
An altogether impressive read, atmospheric with the heavy heat of South Africa, its political and racial issues and the permanent threat of violence which many authors associate with their country in their novels - J.M. Coetzee, André Brink, Nadine Gordimer or Doris Lessing to name but a few.
Rating:
Summary: The Cool Writer
Review: Ridiculous how the amateur reviewers (like yours truly) begin their oeuvres by re-telling the basic story line of the reviewed book when the plot is more or less aptly offered in the professional review section. So I ain't gon' do dat. The most interesting reviews are those giving an account of personal impressions, and those critically dissecting the book. Personal impressions: The book is cool; a great book of hot South Africa. Of course I have read it because I am obsessed with everything African, and of course I loved it because it confirmed my vision of the country and its history in proress (that some white bros and sistas like me (but not me)consider a disastrous regress), and of course it is a very personal perspective the main protagonist gives, pessimistic and listless and cynical and, yes, prescient. Usually, when I like the novel, I don't want it to end, I wish it could go on and on, and with this one it was just the case, it was so heartbreakingly unvoluminous while being so thoroughly delightful and three-dimentional. I felt as if I have lived through the story as the (bad?) doctor myself, in some parallel life, in some neighbouring world that only by strange accident does not intersect geographically with so familiar emotional topography. First and foremost the novel makes you involved in the narrative because it is being unfolded in a very narrow, personal voice - it is its strength and respiteful limitation as compared to other books written from an omniscient point. Critical dissection: The language is spare and terse and adequate as the voice of a well-educated yet bitter and unambitious "hero". His personal life and experiences make his convictions valid when it comes to the unexplained but made plain-obvious views of himself, his country, his diverse fellow humans. The novel has a strange sense of closure, in a circular fashion sending you to the beginning of the story, while nothing in the factual aspects is clear or definitely ended. The plot line is straightforward and linear, opening up sub-universes as it moves the doctor on the path where he meets others. And the omissions, the insaid truths are more eloquent and powerful than the didactics that abound in lesser novels of otherwise well-meaning authors. For those who want to learn of every-day political and health and what-not realities of South Africa there are socio-politological treatments by academics and researchers. And there are masterfully rendered scenes (the abandoned house he wades in accidentally during a hiking trip initiated by the good young well-intentioned doctor - the uncanny sense you get from it is matched only by a bitter symbolism of the scene that you realize later, while following him away from the spot; the curiously asexal-feel affairs) and scenery - the roads, the hospital, the heat, the wind, the night... End note: While this review is not telling whether you should read the novel or avoid it, in its polemic aspiration it is designed to be a discussion departure. Five Stars, Of Course, for it is the Good Novel!
Rating:
Summary: Good Doctor, Fair Book
Review: Set in post apartheid South Africa, this is the story of Frank, a doctor working in a hospital in a former Homeland. The hospital itself is a joke - a run-down institution that is barely functioning, it ships most of its patients to the modern hospital nearby. But this obviously suits Frank, as he has been there fore years, since his wife left him for his best friend. Into his monotone, bland existence comes Laurence. Fresh out of medical school, Laurence has chose to do his compulsory one year community service in the most deprived area he can, and is determined to make a difference. It is left to the reader to decide if this drive is purely altruistic or driven by some less benevolent instinct within Laurence. His deluded ambitions impact on Frank, both professionally and personally, coming to a climax that Frank is powerless to change, no matter what he tries to do. This is a well written book yet it lacks tension and momentum. There are many situations that could have been powerful flashpoints, yet they all seem to sink in to the grey morass that Frank's life has become. The reader is introduced to characters from Frank's past, and he retells what was obviously a formative experience from his compulsory Army service; yet his motivation for staying in such a static situation for years never seems clear, nor do his motivations ring true. It is as though this story is still blurry around the edges, the author never quite able to pull it into focus. Galgut is a talented writer - he avoids flourishes of prose lesser writers would have resorted to, and he often avoids the easy option, choosing to stay true to the tone of the book. But once I had finished this book, it was hard to decide how I made me feel, as though I had no reaction to it at all. And that, to this reader, is not the sign of a great book. It may be The Good Doctor, but it is only a Fair Book.
Rating:
Summary: worth your time
Review: The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut is an amazing read. I was intrigued in the first chapter and it kept my attention throughout the novel. Each sentence makes you yearn for the next, wanting and waiting to know the whole outcome. The narrator in this story, a doctor named Frank Eloff, has lost meaning behind why he's become a doctor in the first place. He becomes content with not caring and being alone until, by unwanted luck, Laurence Waters enters his life. Laurence is young, optimistic and full of energy to make a difference. He sees working at this particular hospital as the ultimate task and loves the challenge. Galgut takes you on a ride that consists of ups and downs in relationships and keeps you guessing right till the end. The movement through flashbacks and present day, what should have been and what actually was, all put together into a masterpiece of complete structure. This book is an easy read and worth every minute.
Rating:
Summary: worth your time
Review: The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut is an amazing read. I was intrigued in the first chapter and it kept my attention throughout the novel. Each sentence makes you yearn for the next, wanting and waiting to know the whole outcome. The narrator in this story, a doctor named Frank Eloff, has lost meaning behind why he's become a doctor in the first place. He becomes content with not caring and being alone until, by unwanted luck, Laurence Waters enters his life. Laurence is young, optimistic and full of energy to make a difference. He sees working at this particular hospital as the ultimate task and loves the challenge. Galgut takes you on a ride that consists of ups and downs in relationships and keeps you guessing right till the end. The movement through flashbacks and present day, what should have been and what actually was, all put together into a masterpiece of complete structure. This book is an easy read and worth every minute.
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