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the complete review - fiction

The Strange Case of
Dr. Simmonds and Dr. Glas

by
Dannie Abse

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : solid character study

See our review for fuller assessment.

  Review Consensus:

  Impressed by aspects of it, fairly careful in their judgements

  From the Reviews:

• "The novel, which explores the themes of unrequited love, loneliness, unfulfilled potential, and the central tenets of the Hippocratic Oath, is based on an early 20th century Swedish classic, Dr Glas. (...) The novel, which is on the longlist for this year's Booker prize, is well written and is a powerful evocation of postwar London. However, I think its appeal might be limited to more mature doctors." - Claire McKenna, British Medical Journal
  
  
• "There is much disarming humour amid the gothic shudders, but the book doesn't quite satisfy. For one, poets writing fiction are rarely that hot on psychological subtlety. (...) But it's salutary to be reminded, and in such beautiful prose too, of how buried prejudice can be struck alight by seemingly unrelated passions." - Murrough O'Brien, Independent on Sunday
  
  
• "Dannie Abse has written a splendid and timely meditation on a doctor who chooses evil intent over good. Timely, since much was made last month in the UK about the television dramatisation of the British serial killer and family doctor Harold Shipman. (...) Perhaps the best insights into the mind of such a man could come from fiction. That is the gist of Abse's new work." - John Quin, Lancet
  
  
• "Dr Simmonds & Dr Glas is a case study, and what it studies is the murderousness inside the human heart, bred there through frustration and the factions of desire. (...) The full horror of his misconception and its results is only revealed to us at the very end. This short novel probably ranks as one of the subtlest studies of prejudice ever written." - Alan Wall, The Spectator
  
  
• "Abse powerfully evokes that period in Hampstead, when the Finchley Road was still known as the Finchleystrasse (.....) But Dr Abse's novel, quite apart from being extremely readable, raises interesting questions beyond the one asked by Soderberg. (...) One senses that there is a disturbing true story behind this brief novel." - Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph
  
  
• "The style of Simmonds's diary entries is perfectly tuned: here is a doctor who theoretically knows right from wrong, but justifies his transgression of the boundary between the two with the demands of his increasingly disturbing fantasy life. A dark London in the shadow of postwar austerity is the well-realised background to this unnerving tale." - The Times
  
  
• "Simmonds is driven to his crisis less by desire for the beautiful young wife, than by his compelling, unacknowledgeable need to destroy the Jewish husband. Abse has written feelingly on the topic of anti-Semitism before, but never with such satirical acuity." - Paddy Bullard, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Dannie Abse's The Strange Case of Dr. Simmonds and Dr. Glas is closely based on Swedish author Hjalmar Söderberg's 1905 novel, Doctor Glas (see our review). It does not merely borrow from or take off of Söderberg's novel: Dr Glas figures strongly in the text, as the central character, Dr Simmonds, receives it as a gift (twice !) and constantly refers to it.
       The novel is told in three parts -- the first and last a framing device for the main part in the middle. The first, introductory part is narrated by Peter Dawson, a now essentially retired literary agent, and takes place in the present. The book begins: "Failed at lunch" -- and the novel is filled with fundamental failures and misjudgements.
       A figure from Dawson's past reappears: an Yvonne Bloomberg (née Roberts), whom Dawson once went out with in his student days in the (largely Jewish) emigré neighbourhood of Swiss Cottage, London in the late 1940s. Yvonne has a journal, of a Dr. Robert Simmonds, which she would like him to find a publisher for. His brief visit to her house also provides him with a glimpse of her odd living circumstances.
       The second, and by far the longest section of the book is said journal, which Dr.Simmonds kept from 28 December 1949 through the summer of 1950. (The brief final section, again set in the present, then consists of an exchange of letters concerning the possible publication of the journal.)
       Dr.Simmonds lived in that same London community that Dawson strayed into; amusingly enough Dawson even briefly figures in the doctor's journal, as he enjoys his first success. Dr.Simmonds is a somewhat tortured man, devoted to his now dead mother, living alone in a house too big for him, fairly certain he'll never marry. He is also slightly disfigured, from a childhood Guy Fawkes Day accident, leaving him Janus-like two-faced -- or, as he prefers to think of it:

If it were not for that conspicuous blemish I think I would be almost good-looking. As it is, my visage to others must be displeasing. Yet if I turn my head to the left, I observe in the mirror Mr Hyde vanishing, replaced magically by Dr Jekyll.

The child in me, I think, wants beautiful Mrs Bloomberg to be good; the ugly Mr Bloomberg to be bad.

     Hear me, Dr Glas. I, Dr Simmonds, acknowledge such an affinity with you. I understand your loneliness, your non-physical attachment to a woman, a woman who is innocent -- and your belief in purity of action, however risky.
     I live here in 1950, you in a novel published in 1905. And yet you think my thoughts, speak words that I could utter, accomplish deeds that I might yet emulate.

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Links:

• Annotations at Literature, Arts, and Medecine Database
• Article at BBC News

• Forward
• Kirkus Reviews
• A Little Tea, a Little Chat

• Dannie Abse at British Council
• Profile in The Guardian

• Hjalmar Söderberg's Doctor Glas
• [Bengt Ohlsson's Gregorius]
• See Index of Contemporary British fiction at the complete review

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About the Author:

       Welsh author Dannie Abse lived 1923 to 2014. Aside from his writing, he also worked as a medical doctor.

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