Ingenious Pain (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Andrew Miller
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: Middle to late eighteenth century
- Setting: England, the Mediterranean, Cuba, France, Latvia, and Russia
- Principal Characters: James Dyer, Elizabeth, Marley Gummer, Robert Munro, Agnes, Mary, Reverend Julius Lestrade
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Emotions, England or English people, Pain, Surgery or surgeons, Eighteenth century, Pleasure, Sympathy
- Locales: France, England, Cuba, Russia, Mediterranean, Latvia
Ingenious Pain is Andrew Miller’s first novel. Stretched over eight parts, its structure starts near the end, shows everything that leads to this end, then proceeds to the denouement. This classic plot line gives Miller a chance to focus on the meaning of what happens to the main character, James Dyer, whose adventures dramatize how he changes from someone who feels nothing to someone who feels everything.
The time line in the novel begins in 1739, when Dyer is born, and ends in 1772, when he dies, with the latter event first in the story. Indeed, Dyer’s death is not...
[The entire page is 1926 words long]
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