Author: Noah Gordon
Rating: 5/5
All that Rob Cole wants to become is a proper physician. He has the ability to tell when someone is going to die simply by touching their hands. He travels halfway across the world to make his dream a reality.
Spoilers ahead.
Detailed Summary
It’s 1020. Rob has loads of siblings and takes care of them because his mother sews to make money and his father is a carpenter (who gets drunk very often and sleeps with other women). His mother dies after childbirth and his father dies shortly after that. Rob realises that he has the ability to tell when someone is going to die. Rob and his siblings are given up to various families and separated. Rob is eventually taken in by a travelling barber-surgeon who goes by Barber. Barber himself was orphaned and taken in by a barber-surgeon who was accused of witchcraft and drowned. Rob becomes Barber’s apprentice and learns to juggle, draw caricatures, make the special potion and entertain a crowd. He is keen to get back to London to know of his siblings but this doesn’t happen. As he grows, Barber has a woman who was almost motherly to Rob to have sex with him (so he can learn). Rob is a quick learner and soon gets paid for his work. Barber encourages him to use his gift. Rob becomes more violent and saves up for a sword. He also drinks more alcohol. Barber has to intervene and caution him to stop. Barber dies and Rob travels solo. Rob is keen to learn more about medicine. He meets a Jewish physician who tells him about schools in Persia where Muslims are taught. Only Jewish people are allowed there (as in outsiders). Rob decides he’ll pretend to be a Jew so he can enrol. This is risky because in Christian Europe, being a Jew is rough. Rob joins a travelling caraven amongst whom are Jewish men. He learns Persian from them. He also falls for Mary Cullen, a Scotswoman. During the winter break, Rob stays with the Jews rather than with the Christians to learn their ways. The caravan regroups after. Mary’s father proposes a marriage between Rob and Mary though he doesn’t like Rob. Rob refuses because he wants to study medicine and that will involve him pretending to be a Jew. Mary is disgusted by this and leaves with her father (they want to own sheep or something–Mary’s mother died and the two left their home).
Rob arrives at Isfahan but isn’t allowed to enter the medical school. He has no recommendation letters or certificates. He manages to get a calaat from the Shah of Persia and this gets him accommodation and acceptance at the school. Aside from medicine, he’s expected to learn theology, law, philosophy etc. and it’s tough. He also struggles to keep up appearances as a Jew. During his training, he is sent to a city where plague has erupted. The physician he was meant to serve under chooses to abandon the mission so Rob has to lead the other medical students. He also catches the disease but recovers and documents everything for Ibn Sina, the prince of physicians, who’s the head of everything and knows about Rob’s gift (he has it too). He becomes close to Mirdin, another Jew, and Karim, a man who runs super fast and wants to win the footrace. Karim has had to sit his medical exams many times but keep failing but Rob and Mirdin help him study and he passes. He also wins a calaat (by winning the footrace) and becomes close to the Shah and very popular amongst the people. Mirdin and Rob also have their exam where they’re quizzed by the board about medicine and everything. Both pass and become hakims (doctors).
There is news from a merchant about a travelling caravan and Rob realises that Mary is stuck in a far village. He rides to her. Her father is dying, they bury him and marry each other (but it’s a handheld marriage). He takes her back to Isfahan. Rob, Karim and Mirdin are made to go to India with the Shah to get elephants. Mirdin is killed during this and Rob is angry that the Shah doesn’t care despite calling the four of them friends. Karim is caught having sex with Ibn Sina’s young wife and the two are killed too. Mary gives birth while Rob is on his way back. The Shah sees Mary and Ibn Sina warns her that the Shah wants her. So she goes to him, has sex with him and falls pregnant. When the baby is born, the Shah sends him a fancy rug and Rob realises Mary slept with the Shah. A long time passes before the two talk it out.
The Shah plans to fight a rival kingdom. Ibn Sina leads the group of medics this time. In his absence, Rob dissects humans even though it’s against the law and learns a lot. Rob and a senior hakim are told that Ibn Sina is very sick and go to his side in a small hut. They bid their farewells. Rob goes back. The Shah has returned and has lost the battle. He challenges the rival king to a duel but is shot by arrows. Rob and his family flee to England. Rob tries to engage with the physicians there but they aren’t ready for his advanced knowledge so he follows Mary and his kids to Scotland and becomes a country physician (this is after he meets one of his younger brothers who doesn’t want his reputation to be tainted by Rob being excommunicated by the church–because someone sues Rob for helping a Jewish man). His oldest son has his gift too and he takes him on as an apprentice.
Review
I’ve never related as much to the anguish the nuns felt describing a problem like Maria as I have now writing this review. I had added The Physician to my TBR list after my mother and I spent an evening flipping through channels on the television years ago and watched three-quarters of the film. What I remember of the film was good but, my gods, the book blew me away. I’m chagrined I waited so long to read it.
This is a book about one man’s passion for medicine. Rob will stop at nothing to become a physician and receive the best training possible, even rejecting a marriage proposal from a woman he loved. Perhaps I’m generalising here but from my experience, that seems to be the case with medics. We’re all so hellbent on becoming practising doctors, everything else gets thrown to the wayside, and if this isn’t done willingly, well, then it is thrown out for us by a system that constantly screws us over and demands everything.
Medicine is such a romanticised field and that was my primary concern with this book–that Gordon wouldn’t appreciate just how much one must sacrifice to become a medic. Also, Rob picked up many skills with alarming alacrity which, in addition to filling me with bitter jealousy, made me feel concerned about how “easy” medicine would end up being. Much to my relief, Rob did end up struggling through medical school though, of course, he pulled through. I appreciated the scenes where Rob was irritated at having to learn so much beyond medicine. I was also very impressed by his ability to learn Persian and memorise the Qu’ran and the commandments from the Torah. He became one of the best physicians ever seen in Isfahan.
“You have the mind, for we see you grasp a new language, and we detect your promise in a dozen other ways. But you must not fear to allow learning to become a part of you, so that it is as natural as breathing. You must stretch your mind, wide enough to take in all we can give you.”
I loved reading all the medical scenes. I just wish the teaching at my medical school was as hands-on. 
I also felt an appreciation for learning that has long eluded me. I led with curiosity and wonder when I was younger, but now I lead with, “What is likely to come up on exams?” Given that I shall be sitting the exams for my penultimate year of medical school in the upcoming weeks, this book served as a good reminder of why medicine isn’t all doom and gloom (even if the life of a doctor is meh at best). There is something enthralling about holding someone’s life in your hands–enthralling but terrifying too; either way, it is a privilege not granted to many and it is one that I’m trying to be more appreciative of rather than bemoaning how terrible my work-life balance will be. (I mean, I’m definitely going to fight for work-life balance but perhaps not at the cost of hating medicine.)
I appreciated how Gordon didn’t diminish the role of the female characters. I liked that Agnes, Rob’s mother, was the one who educated her children and the breadmaker of the family. I loved how fondly Rob thought of her throughout the book. I was also glad that Mary wasn’t just the love interest. She was intelligent and did what she had to do to ensure her family survived in Isfahan–though I was very disturbed by how she had to sleep with the Shah.
Speaking of the Shah, I didn’t like how he was hypocritical when it came to his friendship with the other three men. Karim and Mirdin died and the Shah felt no remorse for them. I could understand Rob’s frustration and was glad he didn’t try his hand at politics in addition to medicine.
I wanted a world that I could sink into and I wanted a doorstopper of a novel to read. The Physician delivered perfectly on that. The historical elements were fascinating to read about–I can’t comment on how accurate they were as I’m not a historian, but they were interesting to read about nevertheless.
I thought the ending was very fitting. The world wasn’t ready for Rob Cole and his discoveries. England wasn’t ready to think beyond the business, solely focused on how many pennies could be squeezed out from customers with ailments. So, I liked that Rob established himself at Mary’s farm. And in Scotland too! I was delighted about that!
While reading this book, I felt a weird longing to study; it was short-lived but I pounced on it and tried to get as much done as possible whenever those feelings burgeoned in my chest. There’s a lot to learn from Rob’s ravenous appetite for scholarship and I wish I could emulate even a sliver of that. I also wish I had that intrinsic talent for medicine that so many of my colleagues do. But alas.
So although I’m annoyed at myself for waiting so long to read this book, perhaps it was ultimately beneficial that I read it now. I don’t know if I would have understood the breadth of Rob’s decisions (e.g., rejecting Mary the first time, bringing her back into his life the second she reappeared) with a youngling brain. Life is funny that way.
Earnestly Eccentric 