Finally finished with An Irish Country Doctor

An Irish Country Doctor
by Patrick Taylor, M.D.

Ah, at last I have finished An Irish Country Doctor and have put some distance between me and the book so that I can give a fair assessment. I find that if I spend a short while reflecting on the book, I have a clearer picture of just what I got out of a book.

To be honest, I found An Irish Country Doctor a little hard to get involved in, it took me probably half of the book before I felt that the story started to get intensely interesting.

In the first chapter, we meet a few of the locals and are introduced to our two main characters, Doctors Barry Laverty and Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly. Barry arrives in Ballybucklebo, a quaint Irish town, to take the job as a GP's assistant. Barry is quite young, and as such, is not well tuned with the ways of the world. Sure he has book learning, but there's no life experience to make the package complete.

He first meets Fingal, just as he is tossing a patient into a bush, all due to the patient failing to give his foot a good washing before he asked the doctor to take a look at it. Barry is horrified and fears this incident is a sign that he should just turn around and never look back. But Barry ends up sticking around, meeting the quirky residents of this town. Along the way, he gains experience in how to deal with country folk and a thing or two about life, love and loss.

Many years ago, I enjoyed the All Creatures Great and Small books by James Herriott. I must confess, in my mind I superimposed Fingal for Siegfried and Barry for James. They seemed to have the same type of relationship and Fingal was just as quirky as Siegfried ever was in the novels. One thing that did bother me quite a bit was the constant spouting of quotes from literature. It was quite overdone and most of it was lost on me. Perhaps it is because I live on this side of the Pond? But some of the quotes were quite archaic and obscure in nature and it was almost like sitting through an English Lit 101 class for an entire semester.

That being said, I do think that the book is worth a read. I enjoyed the book for the most part and was very pleased with the ending. The interweaving of the characters is craftily done and well thought out. Dr. Taylor also makes good use of Irish colloquialisms and mannerisms, which does help one immerse oneself into the story.