Product Description

At the dawn of the Enlightenment, James Dyer is born unable to feel pain. A source of wonder and scientific curiosity as a child, he rises through the ranks of Georgian society to become a brilliant surgeon. Yet as a human being he fails, for he can no more feel love and compassion than pain. Until, en route to St Petersburg to inoculate the Empress Catherine against smallpox, he meets his nemesis and saviour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75657 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
At the heart of Andrew Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain lies the question "What does the world need most--a good, ordinary man, or one who is outstanding, albeit with a heart of ice?" The outstanding man in question is James Dyer, an English freak of nature who, since his birth during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, has been impervious to physical pain. Not only does he feel no pain, but he also recovers from all injuries in record time. By turns a foil for a quack doctor at county fairs and an object of study by a wealthy collector of human oddities, the protagonist, James Dyer, eventually becomes a surgeon. As such he gains exposure to a panoply of 18th-century philosophical thought, medical practice, historic events and larger-than-life rogues and heroes, both fictional and real.

As a surgeon, James Dyer excels, and his inability to feel--whether physical pain himself or empathy for others--seems only to enhance his skill with a knife. James slices and dices and cures without a scintilla of compassion while his reputation grows, until at last he arrives in Russia and the mystery of his unusual quality is resolved. Miller navigates his complicated story and exotic locales with unswerving confidence, bolstered no doubt by thorough research. James Dyer is not a character who invites love, but his adventures make for intelligent, deeply pleasurable reading. --Alex Freeman

Amazon.co.uk Review
"What does the world need most--a good, ordinary man, or one who is outstanding, albeit with a heart of ice?" This is the question at the heart of Andrew Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain, a book set during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment. The outstanding man in question is James Dyer, an English freak of nature who, since birth, has been impervious to physical pain. Not only does he feel no pain, but he recovers from all injuries in record time. By turns a shill for a quack pain- reliever at county fairs, an object of study by a wealthy collector of human oddities, and, eventually, a surgeon, James Dyer--and through him the reader--gains exposure to a panoply of 18th-century philosophical thought, medical practice, historic events, and larger-than-life rogues and heroes, both fictional and real.

As a surgeon, James Dyer excels, and his inability to feel--whether physical pain himself or empathy for others--seems only to enhance his skill with a knife. James slices and dices and cures without a scintilla of compassion while his reputation grows, until at last he arrives in Russia and the mystery of his unusual quality is resolved. Miller navigates his complicated story and exotic locales with unswerving confidence, bolstered, no doubt, by thorough research. James Dyer is not a character who invites love, but his adventures make for intelligent, deeply pleasurable reading. --Amazon.com

Review
'A wild adventure through 18th-century England and Russia, medicine, madness, landscape and weather, rendered in prose of consummate beauty.' (Independent Books of the Year )

'Dazzling . . . Miller tackles notions of mortality and humanity to brilliant effect . . . truly wonderful' (Evening Standard )

'Astoundingly good . . . it shines like a beacon among the grey dross of much contemporary fiction' (The Times )

'A really remarkable first novel, original, powerfully written . . . Miller's narrative is gripping and his imagination extraordinary.' (Sunday Telegraph )

'A timeless and thought-provoking fable about human nature . . . It is something very rare in modern fiction, a true work of art.' (Spectator )

'Strange, unsettling, sad, beautiful, and profound' (Literary Review )

Customer Reviews

Creatively daring, totally unconventional, and successful.
This first time author so skilled and so committed to his subject that he has been able to reject all the conventions of novel writing and still get his surprising book published--receiving rave reviews on two continents in the process!

Miller sets the book in the eighteenth century and begins with a graphic autopsy of the main character. Here he recreates the philosophical and scientific attitudes of the period, attitudes which are alien to our own, and which he will explore as a subtext throughout the book. He summarizes the life of the main character--which he spends the rest of the book recounting--in the first chapter, eliminating any climactic excitement he might have created. His main character is a man with the inability to feel pain, someone with whom the reader cannot possibly identify, and his adventures are weirdly melodramatic, so unusual the reader's interest lies primarily in their curiosity.

Yet the book "works," and very often thrills. Somehow he does manage to make the reader care about James Dyer and his fate, and he does create excitement in a plot which skips from small town England to the court of Russia. Miller's masterful and controlled use of description is a primary factor in his ability to further the action of this unusual story and bring the characters and the period alive. This reader was awestruck by Miller's creative daring--and by his success. Mary Whipple

A fresh look at what it means to be human
I loved this book. Every detail was fresh with insight into the human condition. Suffering (both physical and mental), love, ambition, death - all were addressed with freshness, warmth and compassion. Even now, eight months after reading the book, I feel as if I have a film of the book's events running through my thoughts. Every detail had meaning. Every plot turn was the natural result of the character's personalities, flaws and desires. Nothing felt contrived. Amazing.

A Biography of a man trapped in cage of no feeling
This book was an absolute page turner for me. A friend reflects back over the strange life of a man from early age to adult surgeon. The man in question, after several adventures becomes one of the most sought after surgeons in the whole of europe, only one thing...he cannot feel any emotions or physical pain. And this of course creates problems. Towards the end of the book there is a great climax of events and then ends as it began. (Nice closure!) Set circa 17-18th century ? (sorry dates were never my forte) when a good bleeding was a cure for what ails you and much experimentation was going on . The scenes are graphic, incredibly beautiful, sometimes mystical.