Mason, Daniel. The Winter Soldier. New York: Little, Brown. 2018. Print
First Sentences:
Description:
World War I serves as the background for many novels which present battles, trenches, military leadership, and footsoldiers in great detail. But in my opinion, no novel rivals Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier for a character study of one man, a doctor, and his struggles to repair the men sent to him from the battlefields while he harbors dreams of pursuing medical fame and new discoveries.
Lucius is a twenty-two year old medical student in Vienna in 1914, a devoted researcher and learner, eager to take a position in a reputable hospital and do great works. But when World War I arrives, he enthusiastically offers his services to the military, hoping for an appointment to a field hospital and a chance to follow in the footsteps of his wealthy, militaristic father.
Instead, Lucus is sent to a tiny outpost in the mountains of Hungary, just a broken down church which serves as a makeshift hospital. His job is to patch up and keep alive terribly wounded soldiers and make them stable enough to be transported to a better-equiped facility. When Lucius arrives, the church/hospital has recently been overrun by a typhus outbreak, scaring off all its doctors who fled to safer locations. All that is left of the staff is Sister Margarete, a knowledgable, efficient woman who is silent about her earlier life.
She trains Lucius, still just an inexperienced student who has never even treated a patient, in everything from how to amputate limbs to perform surgery under impossible conditions. Together they begin to create some semblance of order and begin administering medical assistance to the wounded in an organized manner.
But one patient who is wheeled into their hospital is a man almost catatonic, not speaking or moving. Jozsef proves a unique challange, a magnificient triumph, and a disasterous failure to Lucius and Sister Margarete. The man becomes a turning point in Lucius' education in both medicine and wartime brutality when a military officer comes to the hospital looking to comandeer any able-bodied men to return to the battlefields.
Author Mason brings us readers deeply into the mind of Lucius as his dreams of medical glory face the reality of a bitter cold in an isolated church/hospital doing emergency surgery. He finds himself curiously attracted to Sister Margarete and tries to uncover her background story but to no avail.
So there it is. A story that brilliantly depicts the life of one single man and the individuals he encounters in a bitterly cold Hungarian outpost during World War I. It's engrossing, sobering, and unpredictable to the very last page. Highly recommended.
First Sentences:
They were five hours east of Debrecen when the train came to a halt before the station on the empty plain.
There was no announcement, not even a whistle. Were it not for the snow-draped placard, he wouldn't have known they had arrived....He was the only passenger to descend.
Description:
World War I serves as the background for many novels which present battles, trenches, military leadership, and footsoldiers in great detail. But in my opinion, no novel rivals Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier for a character study of one man, a doctor, and his struggles to repair the men sent to him from the battlefields while he harbors dreams of pursuing medical fame and new discoveries.
Lucius is a twenty-two year old medical student in Vienna in 1914, a devoted researcher and learner, eager to take a position in a reputable hospital and do great works. But when World War I arrives, he enthusiastically offers his services to the military, hoping for an appointment to a field hospital and a chance to follow in the footsteps of his wealthy, militaristic father.
Instead, Lucus is sent to a tiny outpost in the mountains of Hungary, just a broken down church which serves as a makeshift hospital. His job is to patch up and keep alive terribly wounded soldiers and make them stable enough to be transported to a better-equiped facility. When Lucius arrives, the church/hospital has recently been overrun by a typhus outbreak, scaring off all its doctors who fled to safer locations. All that is left of the staff is Sister Margarete, a knowledgable, efficient woman who is silent about her earlier life.
She trains Lucius, still just an inexperienced student who has never even treated a patient, in everything from how to amputate limbs to perform surgery under impossible conditions. Together they begin to create some semblance of order and begin administering medical assistance to the wounded in an organized manner.
But one patient who is wheeled into their hospital is a man almost catatonic, not speaking or moving. Jozsef proves a unique challange, a magnificient triumph, and a disasterous failure to Lucius and Sister Margarete. The man becomes a turning point in Lucius' education in both medicine and wartime brutality when a military officer comes to the hospital looking to comandeer any able-bodied men to return to the battlefields.
Author Mason brings us readers deeply into the mind of Lucius as his dreams of medical glory face the reality of a bitter cold in an isolated church/hospital doing emergency surgery. He finds himself curiously attracted to Sister Margarete and tries to uncover her background story but to no avail.
So there it is. A story that brilliantly depicts the life of one single man and the individuals he encounters in a bitterly cold Hungarian outpost during World War I. It's engrossing, sobering, and unpredictable to the very last page. Highly recommended.
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Shreve, Anita. Stella Bain.
Stella Bain awakens in a field hospital tent somewhere in France during World War I. She has no memory of any previous existence, so stays on at the make-shift hospital as a nurse. Extraordinary character study and historical depiction of war and medicine. (previously reviewed here)
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