Metamorphosis

byRobert Douglas-Fairhurst, Peter Caulfield (Read by)

A Life in Pieces

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"We all have trapdoors in our lives. Sometimes we jump off just in time: we defuse an argument with a joke; we swerve to prevent a traffic accident. But sometimes we are unlucky enough to be on the trapdoor when the lever is pulled. My own trapdoor was hidden in the consulting room of an Oxford neurologist."

When the trapdoor opened for Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, he plummeted into a world of MRI scans, a disobedient body and the crushing unpredictability of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. But, like Alice tumbling into Wonderland, his fall did something else. It took him deep into his own mind: his hopes, his fears, his loves and losses... and the books that would sustain, inform and nourish him as his life began to transform in ways he could never have imagined.

From Kafka to Barbellion, this is a literary map of the journey from the kingdom of the well to the land of the sick, and forwards into a hopeful future. It's an ode to great writing, to storytelling, to science and to the power of the imagination. And, above all, it's a darkly comic and moving reflection on what it means to be human in a world where nothing is certain.

Metamorphosis is the best book I have read about multiple sclerosis, and that is because it is about so much more... It is simply a beautiful piece of writing.

The Times

About Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His books include Becoming Dickens, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, The Story of Alice, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, and Metamorphosis. He writes regularly for publications including The Times, the Literary Review and the Spectator. Radio and television appearances include Start the Week and The Culture Show and he has also acted as the historical consultant on TV adaptations of Jane Eyre, Emma, Great Expectations, the BBC drama series Dickensian and both of the Enola Holmes feature films for Netflix. He has judged the Booker Prize and the Baillie Gifford Prize, and in 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781529902112
  • Length: 428 minutes
  • Price: £13.00
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