Two minds

[Ben Lawers]

I'm not being flippant when I say I'm in two minds about John McDonald. To an extent, I believe the author is working through certain elements of, or divisions in, his own psychological make-up (of course, this is what authors do). But I also think any reader (as I did) will bring something of themselves to the protagonist, layering him with our own self-perceptions and seeing something of our "split" selves in both of him.
What I am confident about, is that McDonald is a marvellously original and thought-provoking creation and goes right to the heart of what makes "Freak of Nature" such a captivating, intelligent and emotionally engaging novel.

[Ursula Green]

I agree with you Ben that the author is probably working through divisions in his own psychological make-up it cannot be a coincidence that the author's chosen career path is split between being a GP and a writer. Initially I had some difficulty in engaging with the character of John McDonald (he was rude, a layabout, bad mannered and ill tempered) but I warmed to him as the novel progressed and found myself having quite a lot of sympathy for him towards the end.

For me the book was very successful in establishing the separate identities of the conjoined twins. I found the introduction of the idea of one brain raised profound questions for me which distracted my attention in the second half of the book. My questions were:

If there is only one brain - which head is it in? or is it meshed across both heads? or what?
Why is it assumed in the novel that it is Mick's head which is real? Is it a prejudiced view based on intelligence? it seems obvious to me that John must be real since he has the oesophagus!

Towards the end of the book I began to see that the book was encouraging me to question what it is that defines self. In that sense it was thought provoking and the parallel story in the Western was an excellent foil to the main story line. However for me there is never any doubt throughout the novel that there are two people here regardless of how far we explore the possibility of what it must mean if there is only one brain.

I wonder if the author, in his research, came across any examples of conjoined twins who have only one brain?

Despite finishing the novel with more questions than answers, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read and has sent me away to explore in greater depth the philosophical ideas about the nature of self!

[Mark Vardy]

I certainly agree with Ben's sentiments. However the fact that the author might have drawn on areas of personal experience is perhaps the key to this remarkable novel. For me it was the immersion of the story in the reality of everyday life that made it so believable. So many of the elements that I perceived in the duality of the characters are, I feel, so ever present within all of us.

Ursula makes an intersting observation about the inital assumption of Mick being considered real. Was this simply not the result of Mick's formal accreditation within society (degrees, marriage, income etc) whereas John owned little or none of these trappings. Is this not what we seem to be defined by nowadays? The fact that John possessed none of these standard attributes might have naturally caused the experts to question his existence. Perhaps the oesophagus is merely a red herring; an attempt to separate the concepts of mind and body?

I found the novel both witty and intelligent and the literary examination of some of the complex ideas of the self fascinating. Surely any good novel should leave more questions than answers? It's certainly what drives me to read further.

[Edward]

We’re lucky to have Phil as one of our literary professionals on Arts Council funded YouWriteOn.com, where budding writers upload and rate each others opening chapters. At the moment, I am coming from the slightly different position of having read the opening chapters Phil has kindly uploaded on the site and very much looking forward to the completed book arriving.

I found Freak of Nature a very thought provoking and humourous read. I agree we as readers take the book as our own and ‘rewrite’ it according to our experiences. This happened pretty much while reading Freak of Nature, it reminded me of twins I knew throughout school, the first was tall and extrovert, the other introvert; the first excelled at sport, the other was in charge of the half-time oranges; in the school play, the first was Joseph with his multicoloured raincoat, the second a ‘Hairy Israelite’ whose job it was to bring Joseph’s muli-coloured bike on stage. Much like Mick and John in the story, this made me wonder at the time whether they had each taken different personality parts, or whether their personalities were a reaction to each other to assert individuality. Sentences like John’s “I have been forced to grow a goatee to assert my individuality’ seemed just one small part of their polar personality differences, and it will be intriguing to read on and wonder about the reasons why.

I though the characters were excellently done, John’s sexism practically leaps off the page, and I think some readers will find this a repulsive aspect of his character, while others will have a wry smile of recognition. To me it was an intriguing personality aspect, as part of a conjoined twin he has been objectified by strangers all his life, in the past conjoined twins were ‘monsters’, and is his response to Adriadne nuture or nature? In contrast to John’s reaction to Adriadne, and other peoples reaction to conjoined twins, was John’s niece, Ellie, who, through her short life’s experience of complete familiarity with John and Mick, found nothing odd in a two-headed man.

One of the opening chapter reviewers on YouWriteOn raised the very interesting thought, from the opening chapters, of how Mick's patients would react ... wouldn’t they object to having an observer to some of their most private consultations? How would I react in such circumstances? Thought provoking.'

This was an excellent, humourous and indeed thought provoking read and I’m really looking forward to reading about the intriguing aspect of John’s relationship with Mick’s wife Jules!

Edward
YouWriteOn.com

[Fury Rabbit]

I found this enjoyable book intriguing. When I first started reading, I wasn't convinced whether I was going to like it as I found the unconfortable concept of conjoined twins quite daunting. However Phil Whitaker has managed to bring to his audience a real depth of understanding that threads its way throughout the book.

This is a fast-paced, contemporary journey, from childhood to parenthood through the eyes of one of the twins. The descriptions of everyday life for them demonstrates the many frustrations and hardships that they face. But I found I didn't develop much sympathy towards the two characters. Firstly perhaps because it seems unlikely that they would become part of the celebrity TV circuit and secondly, perhaps I was expecting to read about more of the negative reactions to the twins by the general public;even if it was on a superficial level, I'm sure there would be more people who would have been 'freaked' by their mere appearance.

This aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.