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The Good Doctor
Damon Galgut

Natasha Hulugalle

Any writer hoping to communicate a bleak or sour understanding of post-apartheid South Africa should accept the likelihood of their work being compared to JM Coetzee. It has therefore become an unwritten rule that any review of The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut must contain such a reference. As a comparison it's hackneyed, but understandable.

The Good Doctor is a more puzzling novel than the usual reference points would suggest. Enthusiastic reviews have labelled it as 'haunting', 'unsettling', 'brave' etc. From a brief glance at the synopsis and general subject matter of the novel this is exactly what you would expect. Who expects to read a novel about South Africa that isn't unflinchingly honest? However, although there is uneasiness to the plot, it is too vague and almost ethereal to identify with the stark horror that the hype promotes. Whilst there are characters and themes that we can instantly recognise as similar to those in a novel like Disgrace, Galgut has a very different approach to realising his subject.

This is why The Good Doctor is puzzling. All the elements appear to be in place to make it 'haunting', complete with a satisfyingly nihilistic ending. Yet Galgut has used this formula and arrived at something that is odd rather than disturbing and has the reader worrying that they are not left feeling suitably shocked. If a comparison will help, imagine Galgut as an aspiring Kazuo Ishiguro at his most maddeningly elusive.

Not that The Good Doctor is uninteresting. As a thriller it is never boring, although this is largely due to the quirkiness of the plot. Galgut settles a cabin fever-like torpor onto his oddball selection of characters and their activities. Sometimes this is effective, but the novel is loaded with red herrings. Dialogue and behaviour that carry signposts reading 'Ominously Significant', result in mere isolated incidents. The biggest of these red herrings is the Good Doctor himself. Galgut allows his crazed optimism to build up to such unbearably sinister levels that it is as if the entire novel rests on a crisis that never happens.

Laurence Waters arrives at a rural hospital, full of fanatical enthusiasm to serve a hapless community in a forgotten homeland area. Armed with a youthful ability to believe wholeheartedly in post apartheid South Africa, his progress is observed by fellow doctor Frank Eloff. Frank is the familiar middle-aged, bruised loner who chooses to bury himself in rural exile suffering acutely from intertwining strands of guilt. With the obligatory wretched personal life, he is unable to embrace a new South Africa because he is painfully aware of the hypocrisy that permeates the ideal. Whereas Laurence is young enough to start with a clean slate, Frank remains bitterly apathetic.

The portrayal of Frank is a more skilful and appealing exercise than that of Laurence. His detached understanding of South African society is particularly sensitive when he observes how it affects women. Sometimes this emerges rather obviously, like when he has an affair with a poor woman in the village. Galgut is also capable of a more delicate approach. There is a short passage where Frank looks on impassively as his prosperous, city dwelling father instructs an elderly maid to collect fallen petals from his carpet.

Betty carried the brown, limp leaves from the mantelpiece to the door.
'Betty!'
'Master?'
'You're dropping petals Betty. All over the place. Please, please…'
And the old lady in the nice blue uniform set the dying flowers down and got to her knees. She started crawling across the floor, picking up bits of flowers as she went.
'There, Betty,' my father murmured, pointing patiently, '…there…another one there…'
While I sipped the sour coffee, hearing the rim of the china cup clink against my teeth.

This short exchange is more affecting and insightful than many of the more blatantly theme-driven incidents in the book.

The Good Doctor is not exactly satisfying as a whole but it is worthy of serious attention. It has an experimental feel and Galgut likes to frustrate and taunt the reader. It is irritating to read endless favourable comparisons because Damon Galgut is far more ambitious than these gushing reviews suggest. It is entirely necessary that people write bravely about South Africa. It is limiting however when a writer like Galgut is judged solely by this criteria.