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Čudak Rowan (2012)

by Julie Hearn(Favorite Author)

3.94 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Mladinska knjiga

series

Ivy

review 1: Rowan Scrivener hears a voice, and sometimes, when stressed or scared, the voice makes him do things he never would normally, like the time he slammed the lid of the piano down on his sister's hand, breaking three of her fingers. It is 1939, war has just broken out, London is under blackout and schizophrenia is poorly understood. Rowan is sent to a hospital where he is to undergo a radical new therapy, administered by a German doctor. What a brilliant, beautiful, heartrending book. Its power lies in its understated humanity. Rowan's is a tiny, surely insignificant drama in the face of the coming global conflict. He is not treated harshly or cruelly, but by today's standards it is clumsy, callous, insensitive and even contemptuous. Set against the scale of human suffering, ... morehowever, Rowan seems downright lucky. About halfway through, in a scene of quiet devastation, we discover why this book has been set when it has and why the doctor is German, and suddenly every tiny mistreatment is set in sharp relief, not diminished but accentuated, as these vulnerable people are horribly exposed in the face of indifference or fear or spite at the hands of others.This isn't a tale of plucky rebellion against institutional authority, it's a story of people struggling against an illness they cannot understand trying to get better with the help of people with limited insight, and who do not understand the limits of their vision. Yeah, I cried.
review 2: This book wasn't at all what I was expecting.The book follows the story of Rowan a young boy who is sent away by his family to a mental hospital because he is strange. During the course of the book you see how he is treated by the staff at the hospital, other patients and his family. It also has the nice touch of being set during the early part of World War Two.The main reason I would recommend someone should read this is because it gives you real insight into how people with mental illness were treated and viewed during the 1940s. The treatments used are quite horrific and the way they are treated by other is at times appalling. I loved the relationship between Rowan and Dorothea another hospital inmate. The dialogue between them was really funny and heartwarming at times and really heart breaking at other times.The story also had another edge when looked at the German Doctor who worked at the hospital and his motivation for doing what he was doing. It touched on the T4 programme in Germany and ideas about the role of bystanders allowing such terrible things to happen.All in all defiantely not the book I was expecting to read. A interesting read with many issues raised. less

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