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Loading... The Anatomy of Edouard Beaupreby Sarah Kathryn York
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Edouard Beaupre was born in 1881; he was Metis and was the first child born in the small Southern Saskatchwan settlement of Willow Bunch (which happens to be about an hour from where I grew up). He died in 1904 at the age of 23; he was 8’4” and still growing. He spent parts of his adult life as a giant and strongman in travelling sideshows and circuses. Where the story actually starts and ends is with a doctor who is studying his corpse. I knew of Edouard Beaupre when I was younger, but knew him as the “Willow Bunch Giant”; I don’t remember if I knew his name when I was younger. There is a museum in Willow Bunch that I have been to, once about 15 years ago. I was very interested to find this book about him. I think I initially thought it was a biography, but it’s actually fiction, but it sounds like a lot of research went into it and so it sounds like most of it is probably fairly accurate. I found it very interesting and a little bit sad, for him. no reviews | add a review
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?The giant's body has been ravaged not only by the treatment it received immediately after Edouard's death -- being paraded in shop windows and in freak shows -- but also by the attentions of a professor who in 1907 bought the body for his experiments and classes.But the strictly clinical and physical isn't enough, and the anatomist begins to reveal the story of the man through a series of events selected from his short life. Beginning with a sixteen-year-old's dreams of being a cowboy, it follows Edouard's seemingly inevitable move into strongman displays and freak sideshows, showing the uneasy mix of his need and desire for money with his self-dislike and weariness of being unable to escape his stature. The spectre of his physical weakness - caused, conversely, by his size and superhuman strength - is ever-present, as first his muscles and later, his lungs, begin to fail. By the book's close, the physical mystery is solved, a paper published, acclaim afforded, but the narrator understands he is perhaps farther than ever from understanding Edouard Beaupré's true anatomy. No library descriptions found. |
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This is a quiet book....the incidents are usually told in an understated matter. After reading about Mr. Beaupre, though, the sadness of his life and his quiet braveness and integrity gave the book so much poignancy. I am glad his remains are back in Willow Bunch, and I plan to visit next time I'm in Saskatchewan. ( )