The Royal Physician's Visit: A Novel (edit title)

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Liked It Rated 4 stars “"As the 1760s became the 1770s, there was a revolution in Denmark, though the monarchy remained in place. The turnabout took place at the king's elbow, as a German, Johann Friedrich Struensee, the royal physician, issued 632 decrees in King Christian VII's name. Struensee's ability to do this was...” see full review » see other reviews »

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  • Rated 3 stars

  “Quote:
  ''Is het het donker dat licht is, of het schitterende dat het donker is? Men mag kiezen. Zo gaat het met geschiedenis, men mag kiezen wat men ziet en wat licht is, en donker.'' (pag. 317)”

  Orion2606 wrote this review Sunday, October 4 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No

  
  
  • Rated 4 stars

  “"As the 1760s became the 1770s, there was a revolution in Denmark, though the monarchy remained in place. The turnabout took place at the king's elbow, as a German, Johann Friedrich Struensee, the royal physician, issued 632 decrees in King Christian VII's name. Struensee's ability to do this was greatly enhanced by the fact that the king was deranged as the result of severe handling, including daily corporal punishment throughout his childhood, by the aristocrats who actually ran Denmark. But Struensee's was only a paper revolution, and when he fell in love with the teenage queen, the youngest sister of England's George III, his fate was sealed. Overthrown by a cabal led by the puritanical professor-turned-bureaucrat Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Struensee was publicly executed in 1772. The queen was divorced and exiled, and Guldberg became Christian's manager and Denmark's prime minister. Enquist explosively expands this parenthesis in Danish history into an ironized romantic tragedy of a very high order, one that fills the reader with horror and pity on every page. The Swedish novelist's method is to begin 10 years after Struensee's fall, then retrace the "Struensee era," as it came to be called, by probing the characters of four principal players--Christian, Guldberg, Struensee, and Queen Caroline Mathilde--each of whose perspectives, even the king's, he makes intelligible and occasionally even sympathetic. A towering achievement." Booklist”

  Mizoleila wrote this review Saturday, April 5 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No

  
  
  • Rated 4 stars

  “The Royal Physician's Visit magnificently recasts the dramatic era of Danish history when Johann Friedrich Struensee -- court physician to mad young King Christian -- stepped through an aperture in history and became the holder of absolute power in Denmark. His is a gripping tale of power, sex, love, and the life of the mind, and it is superbly rendered here by one of Sweden's most acclaimed writers. A charismatic German doctor and brilliant intellectual, Struensee used his influence to introduce hundreds of reforms in Denmark in the 1760s. He had a tender and erotic affair with Queen Caroline Mathilde, who was unsatisfied by her unstable, childlike husband. Yet Struensee lacked the subtlety of a skilled politician and the cunning to choose enemies wisely; these flaws proved fatal, and would eventually lead to his tragic demise. ”

  Katherine S wrote this review Wednesday, February 13 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No

  
  
  • Rated 5 stars

  “What a great book!”

  jeroenwesthof wrote this review Saturday, August 18 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No