Showing 1-4 out of 4 reviews.

• There is an astonishing and luminescent opening - a post-mortem carried out in the stable of a Devonian rectory in 1772 - to this hidden masterpiece. Ingenious Pain tells the life story of surgeon James Dyer, beginning with an examination of his corpse. The novel is an exploration of the idea that pain is necessary for us to express our humanity. Throughout his life Dyer has been unable to feel either physical or emotional pain. The book is full of rich historical detail and, at times, reminded me somewhat of Angela Carter's rollicking sensuous stories in Nights At The Circus. I think this is a very impressive debut, one that is perhaps going to be hard to top.

  4.50 out of 5

  dylanwolf

• Tells the story of James Dyer, born in 18th century rural England, who is unable to feel pain. Exploited first by a travelling showman, then by the doctor who rescues him, he becomes a successful if unlikeable doctor, apparently lacking a soul. The story is interesting and well told, but ultimately seemed to me as empty as the main character. Not to mention that someone unable to feel pain would hardly have survived the limited hygeine of the period beyond his earliest years. But that's a quibble.

  3.50 out of 5

  pamplemousse

• A couple of things really struck me as being different when I began to read <i>Ingenious Pain</i>. The first was that it is written in third person and present tense. Coupled with dialogue that is measured and somewhat poetic, I sometimes felt as if I were reading the stage directions and lines of a play, which was a new experience for me, as I have never read a book like this one before. The other thing I noticed was that this book begins by working backwards; first we see James Dyer as a corpse, second as an adult, and third as a baby, and Miller begins to tell Dyer’s story from there. In the early chapters of the book, Miller gives out snippets of information about Dyer, as well as setting the scene of the place where he ends his existence, which gets the mind of the reader thinking about what sort of a life Dyer could have lived.The thing I found most amazing about this book, in more ways than one, was the style of writing, and how it changed the experience of reading the book. Throughout <i>Ingenious Pain</i>, Miller maintains a practised and proper style, broken by the occasional crude, out of place word like ‘guts.’ The first time one of these words came up, I had to re-read the paragraph to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong. In actuality, this writing style creates the perfect eighteenth-century, Georgian atmosphere, where the people must be prim and proper to the very powder on their wigs, but all this conceals the fact that none of them bother to bathe or wash their hands, and behind the pretty wallpaper, diseased rats crawl.Because this book is written from the perspective of James Dyer, Miller describes pain with a brutal indifference for the majority of the novel, giving readers an extremely thought-provoking insight into pain as something that enslaves people, that becomes the obsession of a person’s whole life when it is present. <i>Ingenious Pain</i> carries a powerful message about the very nature of suffering, and what it means to be human.Not exciting or ‘unputdownable’ but well-written and thought-provoking, <i>Ingenious Pain</i> strikes me as the kind of book that English teachers would love to analyse with their classes. Recommended for those who love to think and speculate.

  out of 5

  SamuelW

• Miller's first novel, offers the life of James Dyer, a man born without the ability to feel pain, who dies having recovered the sense of pain and pleasure and relived the sufferings of his earlier life. Miller inhabits the eighteenth century easily, never striking an uneasy note with his descriptions of the time, places and people - which roots the fantastical tale at its heart in a very earthy reality. The descriptions and characterisation are detailed, physical and rooted - down to the passing servant or letter writing sailor. The structure of different narrative voices and the cycle of Dyer's life are rich and varied, preserving the uncanny mystery at the heart of the novel, just as the skunk is preserved in tobacco leaves. Miller obliquely tells us about love, pain and loss through the narrative, death and rebirth, freakishness and normality - leaving the reader room to think and to imagine. A compelling first book.

  out of 5

  otterley

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