Review of 'Call the Midwife (The Midwife Trilogy, #1)' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Call the Midwife is a really great example of how to write a collection of real-life anecdotes.
- Live an interesting life. Okay, she did not find a long-lost pirate treasure, did not prevent terrorists from blowing up everything, did not invent starships, and did not circumnavigate the globe. But a midwife is present at very intimate moments, and has more stories to tell than the average professional.
- Unique story-telling thanks to the reality of the stories. The characters are much less predictable and knowable than in fiction. I love the stories where the narrator had to revise her opinion of someone, not by a great reveal, but by slowly getting to know them better.
- Technical details. I love learning about anyone's profession. There are always a lot of ideas that are surprising to outsiders. Specifically midwifery has a lot to learn about. It includes a lot of …
Call the Midwife is a really great example of how to write a collection of real-life anecdotes.
- Live an interesting life. Okay, she did not find a long-lost pirate treasure, did not prevent terrorists from blowing up everything, did not invent starships, and did not circumnavigate the globe. But a midwife is present at very intimate moments, and has more stories to tell than the average professional.
- Unique story-telling thanks to the reality of the stories. The characters are much less predictable and knowable than in fiction. I love the stories where the narrator had to revise her opinion of someone, not by a great reveal, but by slowly getting to know them better.
- Technical details. I love learning about anyone's profession. There are always a lot of ideas that are surprising to outsiders. Specifically midwifery has a lot to learn about. It includes a lot of medicine for starters, but it also focuses on a more private part of it. I have witnessed two childbirths myself, but had no idea of half of the stuff explained in the book.
- Setting. I got the impression the poor areas of post-war London would be a good setting for any story. It is just on the brink of the age we live in. But still running water, toilets, electricity, heating, the comforts we never lacked are not at all guaranteed. People still keep chickens at home and engage in much different enterprises than today. I also enjoyed the very technical take on Cockney language in the appendix. It was a bit similar to how the appendix of The Lord of The Rings details the fictional languages!
I also checked out the first episode of the TV series. The stories in the book are too short to fill an episode. So I was surprised that the series opted to further compress them. I felt like a lot was left out, and I thought it may be impossible to follow the stories in such an abridged presentation. (But my wife managed fine.) The written word can and does draw the attention to small details, background information, and internal thoughts much better than the TV screen. These are pretty much my favorite things about this book, so I think reading it is way better than watching the series.
