An international sensation, The Royal Physician's Visit magnificently recasts the dramatic era of Danish history when Johann Friedrich Struensee -- court physician to mad young King Christian -- stepped through an aperture in history and became the holder of absolute power in Denmark. His is a gripping tale of power, sex, love, and the life of the mind, and it is superbly rendered here by one of Sweden's most acclaimed writers. A charismatic German doctor and brilliant intellectual, Struensee used his influence to introduce hundreds of reforms in Denmark in the 1760s. He had a tender and erotic affair with Queen Caroline Mathilde, who was unsatisfied by her unstable, childlike husband. Yet Struensee lacked the subtlety of a skilled politician and the cunning to choose enemies wisely; these flaws proved fatal, and would eventually lead to his tragic demise.
Lost Angeles Times
Mixing reportage with philosophy, barbarity with eroticism, the masterful Swedish writer Per Olov Enquist has fashioned an extraordinarily elegant and gorgeous novel.
Wall Street Journal
Denmark’s most influential contributions to world literature are the bleak, beautiful fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the trenchant existentialist essays of Soren Kierkefaard. These two apparently antithetical straings find themselves entwined in this brilliant novel set in 18th-century Denmark…. "The Royal Physician’s Visit” is a masterpiece.
Tennesean
Enquist’s portent-filled style and skillful repetitions create a spell that draws the reader through scenes of hush-hush sex, court hugger-mugger and paralyzing fear toward the final brutal catastrophe.
New York Times Book Review
Enquist...has shaped this remarkable story into a gripping, fast-paced narrative....Principal characters are realized with a vididness and subtlety that place the book in the front ranks of contemporary literature....Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this story that astonishes at every turn is that it took this long for someone to tell it. We are fortunate that it is Per Olov Enquiest who has done so.
Time
Enquist, a celebrated Swedish novelist, turns this actual historical incident into an enthralling fable of the temptations of powerand a surprisingly poignant love story
Kirkus Reviews
The historical novel has been reborn in recent years, and it reaches impressive new heights in this brilliant 1999 fiction from Swedish author Enquist (Captain Nemo's Library, 1991, etc.). Enquist's subject is the royal court of Denmark during the 1760s, when the "madness" of inept young monarch Christian VII yielded unprecedented political power to his personal physician, the handsome and charismatic German intellectual Johann Friedrich Struensee. In an energetic expository style that features gradually intensifying rhetorical questions and repetitions, Enquist creates a patiently detailed portrayal of the teenaged king's irreversible timidity, credulity, and paranoia. The focus then shifts to Christian's reluctant bride, adolescent English Princess Caroline Mathilde (whose slow growth to adulthood nevertheless outpaces her husband's); thence to Struense's rise to ministerial status, institution of various liberal reforms (such as reducing the size of Denmark's army), and adulterous possession of the now-wanton Queen (whose child he fathers). The manner in which Struense's (ardent and genuine) "dream of the good society based on justice and reason" (based on the principles of the Enlightenment philosophers) is destroyed by his own weaknesses is delineated with masterly narrative skill, as are the marvelous extended climactic scenes where the Queen and her lover are exposed and detained, and the terrified Struensee is imprisoned, persuaded to reject his beliefs, and prepared for torture and execution. The absolute authority of the novel's dramatized history is matched by Enquist's potent characterizations of the gibbering, softhearted Christian; his impulsive consort and the conflictedStruensee; the aged Dowager Queen who plots to replace (her stepson) Christian with her retarded natural son; and, notably, the Machiavellian minister Guldberg, a dwarfish puritan who makes it his mission to protect a conservative society from the revolutionary attitudes of the European Enlightenment ("As in the Icelandic sagas, he had to defend the king's honor"). Scandinavia hasn't had a Nobel winner since 1974. This may be the book that earns Enquist the prize.
From the Publisher
"Realized with a vividness and subtlety that place the book in the front ranks of contemporary literary fiction." The New York Times Book Review"An extraordinarily elegant and gorgeous novel." Los Angeles Times
"An enthralling fable of the temptations of powerand a surprisingly poignant love story." Time
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