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Summary: Great things yet to come...
Review: ...with "king of scotland" Giles Foden establishes himself as an author truly worthy. It is a book with a central message that sneaks up on the reader as slowly as it does the main character. Foden draws together solitude, violence and ambivalence in a captivating story that mirrors our history. Publish again soon! The best is yet to come from this one.
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Summary: Words can't do this book justice
Review: Deciding it is time to cut the parental cord, Scotsman Nicholas Garrigan, who recently became a doctor, accepts an assignment in Uganda. After arriving in Kampala, Nicholas learns that his assignment is at a hospital in a remote area of the jungle. On his way there, he stops to help Idi Amin, who hurt his ankle while driving a car. A few months later, the idealistic Nicholas becomes Amin's personal physician as the dictator is going through a Scottish stage. Nicholas is charmed by the wit of Amin and enjoys being part of the inner sanctum even as his countrymen plead with him to help them with Amin. As the Scotsman realizes the impact of the horrendous actions of the dictator that he invariable condoned with his inertia, Amin is toppled. Nicholas flees back to England where he is considered a traitor to his people, profession, and the human race. From the perspective of Amin's personal physician, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND shows incredible insight into one of the most vicious regimes of the twentieth century. Nicholas is a Faustian type character whose ideals fall to the charismatic, energetic, and clever Amin. The novel would be great just based on how well the story line brings Africa to life. However, what turns Giles Foden's novel into a masterpiece is his brilliant capturing of the complete character of Amin as being more than just the killing monster everyone knows him to be. This fascinating yet tragic book is on this reviewer's top ten novels of the year. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Dynamic debut
Review: I never heard of Giles Foden but his title and premise looked interesting so I gave it a try. What a find! His imagination is ripe for satire and dark humor which I devoured. The story of a Scottish doctor in the British foreign service who excepts Idi Amin Dada's invitation to become his doctor is at times droll, funny and horrifying. It encompasses most of Amin's reign including the Entebbe raid by the Israelis. Foden does a superb job of making Amin ruthless and charming. But Foden's best asset is that his novel is never predictable. Foden is an author I'd like to see write again.
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Summary: Na Na Na Na, Idi Dada, Hey Hey, Goodbye
Review: Idi Amin Dada was the Gargantua of moral nightmares. He ruled post-colonial Uganda with the guile of a court jester, a likeable chap who kept the West in stitches while he flayed his enemies with the Devil's scalpel. Into this woofing madness comes our protagonist, Nicholas Garrigan, a healer with a warped mission of mercy as naive as Dr. Kildare, and Giles Foden begins to weave us into his tapestry of moral quandary. Step by step, Garrigan slip slides into the snakepit of evil, seemingly aware but oblivious, well-intentioned but complicit. It is all so properly justified, he says (scrub, scrub). I do not make moral judgments, he says (scrub, scrub). I am a doctor, he says (scrub, scrub), yet the innocent die all around him. Foden has taken the Gen-X theme of moral ambivalence and whacked us upside the head with it. Although Garrigan eventually escapes to his idyllic Scotland, he remains haunted by correspondence from Amin, as we remain haunted by the million more who recently died in Rwanda. Like Sartre said, there is no exit. Deal with it! A stunning debut.
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Summary: Conrad meets Boyd in a Kampala Showdown
Review: Idi Amin's bizarre and brutal eight years of dictatorship in Uganda are the setting for this assured debut. The narrator is Nicholas Garrigan, a young Scottish doctor who arrives in Uganda for a contract job at the same time as Amin's 1971 coup. The book is his recollection of his two years in a small town clinic and six years as Amin's personal doctor in Kampala. His story continues the Conradian tradition of the European man who comes to Africa and becomes transformed through his contact with evil. Amin is Garrigan's Kurtz, and while the doctor and other expats generally turn a blind eye to the truckloads of political prisoners being taken to the countryside to be executed, eventually Garrigan is dragged face to face with Amin's horror. Of course this isn't pure Conrad, rather it's cut with a bit of William Boyd, another Englishman writer who's written compelling fiction about modern Africa and the legacy of colonial rule. For the horror here isn't that Garrigan begins to understand Amin (after all who could really hope to understand a man of Amin's awesome eccentricity), but begins to like him in an odd way. And it's not that the doctor is a weak character, he's actually remarkably average, and thus very much like ourselves. The reader is unable to to find solace in making easy smug judgments about Garrigan's gradual moral slide as he sucked more and more into Amin's confidence and makes small compromises with himself. Amin is a great character in his own right, lurching from buffoonery to gluttony to sly cunning to sheer incomprehensibility at the drop of a hat. Of course Fodden had a lot to work with, as many of Amin's deeds and speeches are classic examples of truth really being stranger than fiction. Speaking oh which, Fodden went to great lengths in researching this novel, interviewing a wide range of people who witnessed Amin's reign. Alas, the Saudi government wouldn't grant him permission to interview Amin, who is still alive and living on a Saudi pension in Jeddah. Garrigan is loosely modeled on Bob Astles, a British WW2 veteran who somehow became Amin's closest advisor. Altogether a very good read, regrettably Fodden's next two books apparently don't live up to this one.
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Summary: Excellent, hard to put down
Review: The moral dilemas are acute in this story of a Scots expatriate physician forced into service as the personal physician of Idi Amin of Uganda. Thought provoking and gripping.
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Summary: A quite extraordinary book
Review: The thing is that Foden has produced a work that could quite really have been a diary/ autobiography of the dictator's doctor. That takes some doing. The accidental contact with the Israeli secret service and British High Commission and his proximity to a few too many events may push the credibility a bit, but these and the levels of recuring denial make this as interesting as Flashman! I understand that this is Foden's first book and look forward to reading more.
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Summary: Excellent debut
Review: This is an exciting debut novel. It is the story of one Nicholas Garrigan, a young Scottish doctor who is assigned to be the personal physician to Uganda's famous dictator, Idi Amin. Yet the young doctor discovers, to his own cost, that one can never be totally removed from the wild excesses of others... I read the first half of this novel breathlessly. The depiction of Uganda is intriguing. Perhaps this is due to morbid fascination: most people will be aware of Amin's bloody history. The knowledge that everything will go wrong draws you further into this book. Foden presents a compelling portrait of Amin, even to the extent of making him likeable. For instance, there is Amin's eccentric love of all things Scottish, and the peculiar messages he sends to other heads of state. But there is always a palpable fear for Garrigan whenever he's in Amin's presence. Amin is dangerous, for Garrigan never knows what he's going to do next, and how he will become embroiled in his bloody vengeance... I found the resolution to be quite disappointing. In his bid to escape Uganda, Garrigan literally stumbles across the worse excesses of Amin's regime, almost tripping over a pile of corpses. This is the only part of the novel where Foden's otherwise excellent research overwhelms. Uganda's bloody history is already well known, and it would have been far more effective for Garrigan to have remained in ignorance about the worst excesses. Garrigan becomes a mere cipher in Foden's bid to depict the downfall of Amin. But this is only really disappointing in contrast to the excellent first part. Overall, it well deserves its critical success.
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Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: This is such an excellent book. This book is definately for anyone who is not familiar with this ridiculous tyrant. Many of the items mentioned in this book are so true to reality that it is shocking, though this is a fictional story. So realistic that I wouldn't be shocked if there really was a Nick Garrigan out there somewhere. Last King has all the elements of a good novel: suspence, romance, intrigue, murder, a good guy and a bad guy. I think we all know what kind of guy Amin is.
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Summary: excellent
Review: Very haunting and yet realistic. I wish it had been written before I travelled through Eastern Africa in 1992 Including Uganda Burundi & Rwanda.
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