James Miranda Barry. - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3442760224 ISBN 13: 9783442760220

Publisher: Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag

Synopsis

At the turn of the nineteenth century, ten-year-old James Miranda Barry enrolled as a medical student in Edinburgh, the start of a glorious career as a military surgeon. Across the Empire, Barry achieved fame not only as a brilliant physician, but as a legendary duellist, and a celebrated social figure. But James Miranda Barry was also a woman. Her greatest achievement of all had been to 'pass' for a man for more than fifty years. Patricia Duncker traces Barry?s life and career across three continents, and through an extraordinary and vivid collection of characters. The Venezuelan revolutionary general with enormous moustaches and a poetry addiction. The shabbily eccentric English aristocrat and his serpent lookalike sister. And Alice Jones - the ruthless and gorgeous kitchen-maid - all brown legs, black curls and ambition, who Barry loves instantly and forever. Patricia Duncker's novel tells Barry's story for the first time, in a richly inventive and entertaining tale of dark family secrets, adultery, questioned paternity and colonial history. It confirms her rare talent as a writer with profound ideas and a very good story to tell.

About this title

Review:

Patricia Dunker's third book is an elegant exploration of the way gender and identity shape a life. The starring role is given to James Miranda Barry, a 19th century society figure, who enrolled as a student at Edinburgh and carved out an illustrious medical career on three continents. Nothing too strange about that, except that James Miranda Barry lived life as a man but was actually a woman.

Duncker has created "an imaginative exploration" of the real Barry's life, adjusting facts and adding figures to transform a story of love and adventure into a masque of sexual identity, where the hero is really the leading lady and the love interest is a kitchen maid, turned actress, who relishes "the breeches parts" in Shakespeare's plays.

It's an enthralling, strange tale, peopled with actors and soldiers, artists and revolutionary generals. Illicit liaisons, adultery, confused paternity, colonial history and family secrets provide the transgressive background to Barry's disorientating transformation into someone who was "neither man nor woman but partook of both", who combined "a woman's delicacy and grace" with "the courage and skill of a man."

Duncker's literary skills are equally adept and disorienting. Her prose is cool and clean, shot through with lush descriptions of flowers and landscape (her decadence seems to be saved for the glories of nature). Although Alice Jones the kitchen maid actress can proclaim to Barry: "You are who the world says you are. And the world says you're a man" but with Duncker it isn't quite that simple. Barry's manly charade is played out with the subtle, startling awareness of his (sic) womanly identity. It makes for a very sophisticated narrative where all surfaces are deceptive and all experiences are dual. --Eithne Farry

Review:

Patricia Duncker should be made a DBE, elected to the Acad?mie Fran?aise and have a statue erected in the main square of her home town (Louis de Berni?res ?A marvellous work of faction, superbly imagined and flamboyantly written? Beryl Bainbridge ?It informs and entertains. It?s that rare thing among contemporary novels, a rip-roaring tale told with panache and as such it?s hugely enjoyable? Spectator)

About this edition

• Publisher: Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag
• ISBN 10: 3442760224
• ISBN 13: 9783442760220
• Binding: Paperback