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Frankenstein in Baghdad Down the Whatsitsname, Is Staffed by Selection of the Material Contained in These Ahmed Saadawi, Trans Frankenstein in Baghdad down the Whatsitsname, is staffed by selection of the material contained in these Ahmed Saadawi, trans. Jonathan Wright soothsayers and astrologists, and, as the booklets has now been published as a very Oneworld Publications, 2018, PB, 288pp, violence mounts and the different factions attractive cloth-bound hardback, complete £7.48, 978-1786070609 start massacring each other, the various with silk ribbon marker, by the publishers actors blur into an indistinguishable chaos. of the quarterly literary magazine Slightly The novel perhaps dissolves a little too Foxed. The contents reflect Dr Evans’s much into actual incoherence, and the many interests, including wine, cricket, ending, although neat for the characters, is poetry, Anton Chekhov and PG Wodehouse, not entirely satisfying. the strange goings-on of the Church of England, and the eccentricities of British Tony Nixon, politics. These are laced with worldly-wise Assistant Editor, BJGP. reflections on marriage, health, and family Email: [email protected] life, and snippets of conversations, letters DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X700073 to editors, correspondence, and, from that richest vein of English peculiarities, parish newsletters. Alan Bennett, TE Lawrence, * * * * * and John Mortimer make appearances. Making a selection of extracts is very CITY OF DEATH risky, but here goes. Churchill’s reply to A Country Doctor’s Commonplace Book: George Bernard Shaw’s invitation to ‘the Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad Wonders and Absurdities won the International Prize for Arabic first night of my new play; bring a friend if Philip Rhys Evans you have one’ was ‘Cannot possibly attend Fiction and was shortlisted for the Man Slightly Foxed, 2018, HB, 112pp, £12, 978- first night; will attend second, if there is Booker International Prize. It is set in Iraq’s 1910898147 one.’ The Queen to Alan Titchmarsh, in capital in 2005, then occupied by the US the Independent: ‘You have given a lot of military, at a time of escalating violence. I women a lot of pleasure.’ From John Julius felt that this novel is a cousin to Bulgakov’s Norwich’s Christmas Cracker: ‘As you grow The Master and Margarita. Here too a old, you lose interest in sex, your friends city is beset by the forces of disorder and drift away, your children often ignore the supernatural is set loose, although you. There are many other advantages Frankenstein in Baghdad is much, much of course, but these would seem to be bloodier. the outstanding ones.’ And from a parish The characters and events of this novel newsletter: ‘Low self-esteem support are riddled with ambiguity. Characters group will meet Thursday at 7pm, please are described in contradictory ways. Good use the back door.’ people turn into bad people and justice In the preface Evans writes, ‘Life as a becomes vengeance. A miraculous country GP exposes one to an extraordinary occurrence may just be the delusion of a sad range of people and situations — always old woman. The victim of a suicide bomber NOT SO COMMONPLACE fascinating, sometimes absurd, often may inhabit a Frankenstein’s monster or it Commonplace books, which are essentially sad and poignant. I hope this small book may just be a hoax. The book is framed as scrapbooks containing written items of all catches something of that infinite variety.’ a manuscript presented as evidence for a kinds including quotations, letters, poems, It certainly does, and I’m sure that it will, government inquiry. The confession of the proverbs, and prayers, have a long history. like the celebrity gardener, give a lot of Whatsitsname (as the monster is known) John Milton’s commonplace book consisted readers a lot of pleasure. largely of proverbs and wise statements, is presented as the transcript of a video and in 1706 John Locke produced a guide Roger Jones, recording. Nothing is certain. to making commonplace books, describing Editor, BJGP. Saadawi creates an impressively techniques for entering proverbs, Email: [email protected] heterogeneous group of characters. There quotations, ideas, and speeches, including DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X700085 is Elishva, an elderly woman who prays for arranging them by subject categories, such the return for her son, Daniel, lost long ago as love, politics, and religion. Francis Bacon in the Iran–Iraq War. Hadi is a junk dealer and EM Forster also kept commonplace who creates the Whatsitsname, stitching it books, and WH Auden published his in 1970 * * * * * together from bodies as a protest against as A Certain World. John Julius Norwich the authorities. Mahmoud is a hardworking, was the creator of an annual Christmas ambitious, but naive journalist always on Cracker. Dr Philip Evans, now retired the backfoot as he chases the story of the from general practice in Suffolk, is in good Whatsitsname. Pathos, tragedy, and horror company. permeate the lives of the characters. Every Christmas for the past 16 years But there is black comedy too. The Iraqi he has sent his friends and family a small government’s murky Tracking and Pursuit booklet of ‘wonders and absurdities’ gleaned Department, one of the groups hunting from many different sources over the year. A 585 British Journal of General Practice, December 2018.
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