The Foot of Clive
John Berger
Having read it
★★★☆☆
Timeless in some of its observations, of its time in its perspectives and characters’ opinions.
There is a little writerly fun every now and again and even somewhat with the book’s title as is made clear by Benjamin Myers’ foreword for the edition read...
The Clive is the Clive Ward, a twenty-bed, five-nurse hospital room named in honour of Shropshire-born, 1st Baron Robert Clive, better known as Clive of India after his role in establishing a foothold in Bengal for that lasting symbol of ruthless empire-building and British colonialism: the East India Company.
The ward is ‘as functional as a yacht before the wind’ we learn in the opening sentences, yet the patients look soiled. They have fallen into the dirt. Immediately a conflict is presented to the reader then – between that of the clinical, finely tuned machine that is the post-war health service, and the injuries and illnesses that have beset its inhabitants.
...it isn’t a book one would miss much if one chooses not to read it.
A good passage
Those in authority always have an exaggerated view of the thoroughness of the discipline they impose. Discipline, however, is kept by the standard of the average. The special case is always the enemy of discipline. This is why the disciplinarian is always reluctant to recognize the special case. Many routine secrets were well kept in the hospital. But the admittance of a murderer as a patient was so exceptional an event that the average, necessary inhibitions had not been created to deal with it in a thoroughly ‘professional’ way.