Giant, O'Brien

There is much food for thought in this odd yet entertaining dark short book. Hilary Mantel tells the story of Charles O'Brien, an Irish giant, who comes to London to make a living as a 'freak' or sideshow exhibit. He is accompanied by crude Irish ruffians and a villainous agent, Joe Vance. The story of the Irish giant runs parallel to the story of the Scottish surgeon and anatomist, John Hunter. The novel can be interpreted in many ways, attesting to the superb talent of Hilary Mantel. The lives of Giant Charles O'Brien and Scottish surgeon John Hunter have some striking similarities. Whereas O'Brien sees the vast poverty, social deterioration and economic oppression of the Irish people by the English; John Hunter is no stranger to tragedy as the youngest of 12 children he is always fed last and eventually thrives as a wild child in the Scottish countryside. Here he learns from nature but also is devoid of human sentiment and compassion. He watches as almost all of his siblings die until he, his older brother, and older sister are all that remain. He has seen much death and is well acquainted with death. The giant begins to grow signaling his death while John Hunter begins to deteriorate from a sexually transmitted disease that infected him accidentally when he was trying to infect a homeless man so that Hunter could watch the natural progression of the disease in this homeless fellow. John Hunter desires the skeleton of the giant and pursues him. John Hunter buys corpses. The chapter where he lectures grave robbers on how to rob a grave is creepy and interesting. Hunter now tracks the giant who believes that his body must remain intact if he expects to go to heaven on judgment day. This is the basic armature of the book, but it really is much more than just this. First, Mantel develops a clever comparison to the life of Jesus in her novel. O'Brien gathers disciples around him, many of whom are scruffy and criminal. Like Jesus, he approaches the downtrodden and asks them to join him. In Ireland he rocks a starving boy until his last breath while telling his mother that the boy is the inheritor of kings and will sit on a throne. After the boy's death, he asks the starving woman to join his group on the way to London. Later his group has their own Mary Magdalene in the person of Bitch Mary, the twelve year old prostitute. He provides fables and tales to entertain and instruct his wayward disciples, inflicted with naive youth, mental retardation, and criminal intent. As Jesus enters Jerusalem to preach his message and then to die, so too does Charles O'Brien enter London to tell stories, make a living as a sideshow freak, and eventually to die. Like Jesus, the disciples disappoint and eventually betray him, willing to sale his bones for cash even though they know the giant feared this would mean he can't go to heaven on judgment day. The fables told by the giant are odd and haunting and are wonderfully integrated into the short novel. One is a s

I thoroughly enjoyed THE GIANT, O'BRIEN and just wanted to put in a positive review because Hilary Mantel always provides a good read. If one is looking for something out of the ordinary, that has some depth, and that will stay in your head for a week or so afterward, you can't go wrong Mantel.

The Giant, O'Brien is a testament to the diversity of Mantel's gifts as a writer--it is both not as psychologically rich and much more earthy than many of her other works (A Change of Climate, An Experiment in Love, Eight Months on Ghazza Street), but it is no less compelling. The novel follows Charles O'Brien, out of Ireland into the streets of late 18th c. London to escape poverty, giving us a stark image of the time and place: many characters cannot recognize stairs because they have never seen a house big enough to warrant them. The Giant O'Brien himself is an island of humanity in a sea of crass and self-serving petty people, the real monstrous freaks of the novel, who live off him--and his corpse. It is also a richly symbolic account of the storyteller: the imaginative vision of his surroundings (he sees his starving compatriots as "the sons and daughters of gods and kings") which is the source of his art as well as the lines of influence--as the giant tells stories and leads his troupe to become tellers in their own rights. What is more, Mantel's account of the giant's adaptation of the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs tale is stunning--the violence in the tale is not only consistent with traditional tellings of fairy tales, but it clearly emerges out of the world in which it is told.The fragmented narrative is consistent with other Mantel novels, but it seems more fragmented here, and this makes for challenging reading, but it says so much about the world of late 18th century Ireland and the streets of London. The novel confronts the harshness of its world--abject poverty in Ireland, expoitative London--and the violence it fosters is compelling. Mantel's picture of the plight of poor Irish women is especially disturbing but it reverberates with a powerful truth.

I was completely entranced and delighted by this book, and disappointed by the reader reviews of it. Hilary Mantel's style is spare - nothing more than the strange essence of her story. There is no spoon-feeding here, and thus, is probably not for mainstream tastes. But it's great, quirky transportation to a truly other time and place. Oh yes, and fine good humor with the pathos! Was really sorry it ended so quickly.

Hilary Mantel often includes the theme of exploitation in her novels, but nowhere is it as prominent as it is in The Giant, O'Brien. Set in the 18th century, it is the story of the naïve Irish giant Charles O'Brien, who, poverty-stricken, allows himself to be taken to London where he will be a "freak" for the amusement of the public. Everyone wants to profit from him, from his Irish friends who accompany him, to the agent who contracts with him and the people who house him. Amiably, he tells tales on his travels to amuse his companions, all paralleling in some way the freakishness of his own life and all ending badly: a proud woman's beautiful child is taken and a "yellow child, its skin flapping, its eyes running and its nose snuffling" is substituted; the seven dwarves are beaten to death, "each dwarf watching the pulping of his brother" while "Snow White" is punched in the face, spat at, and driven from the cottage by fire; a pig-faced girl, instead of being rescued by the love of a prince, lives a long life of loneliness. Sensitive and creative, the Giant is a marked contrast to Dr. John Hunter, a "scientist" who collects bones, does research on diseases, and even accidentally inoculates himself with syphilis, allowing him to study it more closely. Hunter's goal is to acquire the bones of the Giant. As both the Giant and Hunter become more ill with the progress of their diseases, the book reaches its climax, leaving the reader to ponder many of the conflicts Mantel has illustrated-creativity vs. scientific research, naivete vs. knowledge, hope vs. despair, charity vs. exploitation-and ultimately, the big question: in what ways, if any, have humans risen above the level of animals.