The Lord God Made Them All (2015) - Plot & Excerpts
Just finished reviewing the Chapter Summaries for this book, and really got a warm feeling. I love the easy-going picaresque pace and flow of this novel and how even the animals have characters as interesting as the humans that Herriot encounters. Here Herriot talks about his adventures in Russia as he travels the seas to get there by ship and those in Istanbul where he travels by rickety airplane to arrive.Whether talking about handling his clients back home or the fine cuisine he is treated to on the ship prior to his arrival in Russia, or the misadventures of his son climbing the wisteria vine outside the window or his daughter suddenly becoming the target of a rogue bull during one of his calls, I can smell the fresh country air as though it were perfume. I like Herriot's adventures because they remind me of the times when I was Down South as a little boy and many of the incidents in this book are comparable to what I experienced back in Alabama. I have always felt there is a stronger sense of community in the rural farming areas and reading this book and the others of Herriot have not disabused me of this conviction.Things are taken more in stride in the country and even though things don't always work out to the satisfaction of all parties, more often than not they do. Herriot doesn't have to exert as much muscle as before due to new advances in Veterinary Medicine. He can use special injections, artificial insemination, and techniques to cure and to heal that were not available to him before he went to war.Whether in Russia or back home or in Istanbul, Herriot's brushes with danger and tragedy are just enough to ruffle his feathers but never extreme enough to cook his goose. I marveled at how wherever he is, Herriot always seems to manage to get along with everyone and to get the job done. Somehow, there is something heroic about a fellow who solves all his problems simply because it's part of the ordinary activity of his profession.The true-to-life authentic richness of the characters and the situations they encounter or cause for themselves I leave for you to discover. But I like the way the book ends, with Tristan and Herriot remarking that they are in the prime of their lives with their families growing up and them squirreling away the fruits of hard won professional success.These people and their adventures are a treasure to tuck away in the hope chest of your heart and place somewhere in the attic. Someday soon you will come back to them and renew your delight.
This is the volume that begins "When the gate fell on top of me, I knew I was really home." Too many people don't seem to read these books with attention to detail. Many people, for example, recognizing that Herriot was a Scot, suppose that he was working in Scotland, rather than Yorkshire, the largest and most varied county in England. This volume is a good example of this sort of misconstruction. This book doesn't begin at the end of WWII. The war is still going on. Herriot has been invalided home, though he is actually better from what he was operated on for. Because vets were a 'reserved occupation' (after all, you need to keep the farm animals healthy to feed a population that can't get food, cloth, etc from overseas), he was discharged and sent home probably about 1943 (Herriot's always a little vague on dating).Falling gates notwithstanding, Herriot is very glad to be home. He'd made it very clear in the previous volume that he resented very strongly being deprived of his son's infancy. Though he did travel some later (he describes the trips in this volume), Herriot never let himself be kept away from home, family, friends, dogs, etc for any prolonged period afterward. Many people skip over the dedications of books, and especially in this series this is a mistake. This volume is dedicated to Herriot's granddaughter. Some people are born to be family members (parents, especially, but also attached to extended family). Herriot is one of these. One gap that struck me most seriously--Siegfried and Tristan marry and father children in this period, yet there's no real account of their courtships, and little about their parenting experiences. Influenced by the familiar quatrain, many people think this is the last volume in Herriot's reminiscences. I'll get to the fifth book next. But this volume contains many elements that are valedictory. I THINK this is the volume that discusses the death of Sam--but I'm not sure that it's not in the next. I'll keep an eye out for this.
What do You think about The Lord God Made Them All (2015)?
I saw many of them back in the day (the series ran when I was a kid), but I recently put a few on my Netflix list for a refresher (and because I'm sad to be finishing reading the set).
—Inder
Herriot never disappoints. If I had to choose one of his books that is the weakest, it would be this one. The stories and characters are not quite as memorable as in his other books, and there are some rather off-topic chapters (more about that in a bit). But even if it is the weakest of the five, it is still a touching, engaging, funny, and perceptive book. It picks up right where All Things Wise and Wonderful left off, with Herriot coming home from the RAF. It chronicles life post-war, and the picking up of dropped threads. It jumps a bit, and several years seem to vanish without a trace. Suddenly, Siegfried and Tristan are both married and moved out of Skeldale House. As with his other books, the chronology bounces around, but that never really bothered me (except that I'd love to hear more about how/when/to whom Siegfried and Tristan got married). This book chronicles his children, Jim and Rosie, as young children, and includes a story about a neglected boy and his dog that made me want to move to the country and adopt a bunch of kids and give each of them a rescued puppy. Herriot's gifted that way.The chapters I felt were off-topic were where he intersperses entries from his diaries from his trips to Russia and Istanbul. They were very clearly more lightly edited and less polished than the rest of his work. They also didn't seem terribly germane. They were not intriguing or well-written enough to help me overcome my feeling of "Yeah, yeah, but can we get back to Darrowby already?" That being said, even these chapters are awful, or bad, or anything. They just made me read fast to get back to what I felt was the meat of the book: his life as a vet in Yorkshire.
—Brittany
Herriot looks like remaining an attractive commercial proposition for a very, very long time to come. For a chapter summary of this book, see http://www.jamesherriot.org/the-lord-... however I find it more appealing to browse the second-hand market, buy what looks interesting – and is attractively priced – and then simply nest, read, enjoy, and think.I did enjoy this book; even though the overarching clumsy layout of chapters irritated me. Two longer chapters (foreign trips to Russia and Istanbul) are broken up and interspersed between shorter, local North Yorkshire chapters. I wasn’t convinced of a need to treat the material in this way.More than any other of the ‘Herriot’ books, this, “The Lord God Made Them All” draws its reader’s attention to rapid post-War change in small rural communities. Veterinary practice couldn’t mend all ills. Physically demanding, large animal work was (and still is) a man’s world. Hard financial loss was an ever-present risk. Yet there was still time and space for humanity and community, and recognition of a power greater than our individual bumblings through Life. This is a book about relationships, the instinctive duty of care, a society greater than ourselves alone.Though ‘heart-warming’ may perhaps the most frequently applied epithet, ‘reality’ is stronger. One can learn a lot about a person from how they physically relate to dumb animals in their care. In this book, the reader will find distressing instances of inadequate husbandry as well as inspiring relationships, great humour and practical love. It’s also a warm and very, very funny book. “Herriot” certainly knows how to tell a story against himself, such as when dealing with fertility testing and artificial insemination of cows. I was interested to discover where the TV series title, “All Creatures Great And Small” came from: the poet Coleridge, who wrote, “He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.” Love is unselfish, and this is a deeply satisfying book to learn much about what is good in Life, from.
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