The Case of Dr. Sachs reminds students and practitioners of medicine of the profound effect that illness has on patients, their families, and those entrusted with the responsibility and privilege of caring for them. This novel will inspire physician readers to reflect on the close attention with which their patients listen to and watch them during a time of illness....It is a wonderful book, poignant without being maudlin or sentimental, and one that I had difficulty putting down.
New England Journal Of Medicine
The original version of this immensely engaging, painstakingly composed journal about a provincial doctor who makes house calls was hailed in France upon its publication in 1997. Like the physician whose logbook it describes, Winckler, the nom de plume of French author Marc Zaffran, is a general practitioner who, according to the publisher, has chosen writing as his preferred method of helping sick people. Bruno Sachs, "single-minded, hypermoral, kind of jerky," sets out his shingle in the small French town of Play because it needs a doctor and his abiding ambition is to obey the Hippocratic Oath. The journal is made up of discrete chapters or vignettes written in the unassuming voices of his patients, mostly farmers and small tradespeople, employees and family members. Throughout, Sachs is referred to as "You," e.g., "You're a good guy and you're very clear, but I do think you ask some questions that are a little too personal." Sachs's "part-shrink part-father-confessor" manner wins the trust of his flock, whose litany of physical torments gradually plunges him into a paroxysm of grief and pity. He is especially sympathetic to the needs of women; he gives them abortions at the clinic, and eventually falls in love with his patient Pauline Kasser. Above all, Sachs is a good listener, and it is by this gift alone that he often comes to the heart of a patient's suffering. Sachs finds true love with Pauline, who in turn encourages him to heal through writing. There is no unifying, cohesive drama to the novel save in the personality of Sachs, but rather a series of deeply felt leitmotifs (smoothly translated with the American reader in mind). As Sachs opens himself to the inexorability of human misery, Winckler allows glimpses into the doctor's personal notebooks and confessions, thereby completing his affecting portrait of a fallible and saintly fellow tortured by his powerlessness to turn back death. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Bruno Sachs is a French country doctor, but don't mistake him for a Gallic Marcus Welby. This doc is a paradox: cynical but compassionate, emotional yet reserved, reassuring but troubled. His personality is revealed bit by bit in over 100 short chapters as related by his patients and associates. He cares deeply about them and a few close friends but seems remote and unfulfilled until he falls in love. The episodic structure seems choppy at first, but over time several subplots develop, and a variety of different patients are portrayed in some detail. This book is simultaneously a powerful critique of modern medicine by a former country doctor, a realistic romance, and a fascinating character study. Published as La Maladie de Sachs in 1997, this book was a French best seller and the winner of the Prix du Livre Inter. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.--Jim Dwyer, California State Univ., Chico Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
A provincial doctor's dedication, intensity, and rebellious attitude toward the medical establishment of France is rendered movingly and vividly here...The author's experimental narration heightens the novel's immediacy, doing full justice to the messiness of the body and the variety of its afflictions.
[A] lively translation...Winckler's use of the second person makes elegant sense:
this is the right voice for recounting a life defined by other people's
demands...a
startlingly frank portrait of a small-town
physician who acts as healer, confessor
and scapegoat to an entire community.New York Times Book Review
A piecemeal portrait of the days of a provincial French physician, this appealing 1997 novel (the second by its relatively late-blooming author, himself a retired doctor) won France's Prix du Livre Inter (just how many French literary prizes are there, by the way?) and was the basis for a highly popular recent film. Organized according to the stages of the doctor-patient experience (Presentation, History, Examination[s], Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prognosis), it employs the many voices of patients treated by Dr. Bruno Sachs, who address him as"you," and whose cumulative testimony gradually reveals his deep empathy with, and genuine love for, those who need him—which reaches critical mass in his relationship with a beautiful woman on whom he has performed an abortion. Our inherent fascination with medical stories aside, Winckler's patiently detailed exploration of a life lived almost solely for others makes his low-keyed tale as heartwarming and life-affirming an experience as it is an unpretentiously realistic one.
The Case of Dr. Sachs is a startlingly frank portrait of a small town physician.” –New York Times Book Review The Case of Doctor Sachs is a touching human document by a physician-writer who does honor to both terms of his appellation. . . . His words, simple and unpretentious, move us deeply.” –Washington Post Book World New England Journal of Medicine
