The Physician

The Medicus is a historical novel by the American writer Noah Gordon.

The original American edition entitled The Physician, published in 1986 in the publishing house Simon & Schuster, New York, is the first volume of a trilogy, which deals with the fictional physician Dynasty of the Cole family. It describes the historical development of the medical profession in an era in Europe. The German edition was published by Earthscan in 1987 in a translation by Willy Thaler on the market.

Action

In the novel it comes to the young Robert Jeremy Cole ( short Rob ) who grows up in London in the first quarter of the 11th century. When within a short time his parents die, he is picked up as an orphan by a Bader surgeons as an apprentice and learn in this craft of medicine. From his determination to help other people, his desire grows, the best teachers for his education to find Medicus. Helpful to him is his ability to feel the approaching death of a patient in whose hands. This gift will even be inherited and also plays a role in the successor volumes.

After the death of Rob Bader is on her own and learns at his work know the capabilities of a Jewish Medicus named Benjamin Merlin and appreciate. However, even though Merlin the talent and the desire of Rob to learn healing recognizes, it does not take him as an apprentice, as the Church would not allow it. However, Merlin tells him of a great healer named Avicenna, known as Ibn Sina. This teaches medicine at the madrassa, a school of medicine in the Far Isfahan. But Rob is not acceptable as a Christian at this school. As a second Jewish Medicus rejects him as an apprentice, Rob decides to pose as a Jew in order to be allowed to attend this school. He sets out on the long journey to Persia and closes in Bohemia a caravan to Constantinople at Opel.

Along the way he learns the Scot James Cullen and his daughter Mary, but also know a group of itinerant Jewish merchants. With the Jews, he spends the winter in a village in the Balkans, learns Persian and looks at customs and behavior of the Jews, as far as this is possible. After traveling for almost two years, he finally comes disguised as the Jew " Jesse ben Benjamin ", named after the Medicus Benjamin Merlin, in Persia. Mary and her father have parted before Constantine Opel from the caravan after Rob an offer, Shepherd and Mary's husband to be, has knocked out.

Despite initial difficulties, he is picked up as a student at the medical school, where he studied together with two new friends, to Ibn Sina is carried off in a campaign of a disease. Even Mary and her father appear in Persia, but dies James Cullen, and as Mary is thinking about traveling with a caravan to England, Rob marries her spontaneously with a handshake. His two friends, the Persians Karim Haroun and the Jew Mirdin Askari find, as a result of decisions or omissions of the hard computable ruler of Persia, Ala Schahansha, death. Also, Rob is in his disguise as a Jew in danger because some people known his true religion. As a physician and scholar, he finally returns with Mary and two children in their native Scotland to be happy there.

Facts and fiction

The multi-faceted portrayal of life in a world before the Enlightenment often acts as a factual report; However, the world depicted in the novel contains many historical inaccuracies. For example, the city of Strasbourg, France is assigned, although they then part of the Duchy of Swabia. Countries and cities, which at that time did not exist or were named differently, are traveling through, such as Turkey, although these areas at that time belonged to the Byzantine and Seljuk Empire. The portrayal of stone castles in France is not necessarily historical, since such castles in England after the Conquest by William the Conqueror and were initially built from wood and only in the course of the next centuries of stone. In addition, the names of Robert and Jeremy Norman origin; However, the protagonist lives at a time when England was ruled by the Danes and overall still Anglo-Saxon was coined. The naming Cole is accordingly unfounded as this is derived only from the Middle English and Altfranzösischem. Other than that it was in pre -Norman England still no feudalism and, accordingly, no guild system, although Rob Cole's father member should have been one such. The "disguise " as a Jew is also a construct, as this example, the visit to the synagogue and family cohesion with fellow believers missing what his friend Mirdin Askari should not be hidden. The novel describes the extent largely more of a medieval fantasy world as the historically accurate real-world of the 11th century. This is confirmed in the epilogue by Noah Gordon himself.

Effect

Gordon's books have been published in 42 countries. The Medicus has sold better than Noah Gordon's home country United States in Europe. But the German translation sold more than six million times. In 1999 the book was chosen at the Madrid Book Fair as one of the ten most popular books of all time.

Noah Gordon wrote two sequels: Shaman ( German: The shaman ) and Matters Of Choice ( German: The heirs of the Medicus ), but could not build on the success of its predecessor. His published in 2000 novel The Last Jew was published in Germany under the title The Physician of Zaragoza, however, has nothing to do with the content of the Medicus.

Expenditure

• Noah Gordon: The Physician. Translation of Willy Thaler, 1st edition, Earthscan, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-426-19192- X
• Noah Gordon: The Physician. Translation by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann, 1st Edition, Blessing, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89667-010-7

Audiobooks

• Noah Gordon: The Physician. Translation by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann, read by Christian Brückner, Random House Audio, Cologne 2002, 8 CDs ( abridged), ISBN 3-89830-344-6
• Noah Gordon: The Physician. Translation by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann, read by Frank Arnold, Random House Audio, Cologne, 2013, 8 CDs ( abridged), ISBN 978-3-8371-2183-4; also unabridged mp3 download (1700 min), ISBN 978-3-8371-2199-5

Filming

Directed by Philipp Stölzl the book was filmed in the summer of 2012. The main roles inherit Tom Payne, Ben Kingsley and Olivier Martinez. The official launch of the film was 25 December 2013.