Every Living Thing

Színes és sokrétű, mint az élet maga. Sok humorral és még több emberséggel megírt történetek a 20. századból. Okosan tanító és a lényeget mutató töredékek egy állatorvos mindennapjaiból. Szeretetre méltó vagy elgondolkodtató figurák. Remek érzés volt estéről estére belefeledkezni.

Wise and well written as always. Nobody can tell me though that lines like these are not intentionally cheeky:

"I was in a familiar position. Lying flat on my face on a hard cobbled floor with my arm up to the shoulder inside a straining heifer. I had been doing this for over an hour and was beginning to despair."

"In these situations I would often get a big farm lad to strip off and try to reach inaccessible places for me, but Mr. Kilding and his son were stocky, short-armed chaps—they wouldn’t get as far as I had."

Wise and well written as always. Nobody can tell me though that lines like these are not intentionally cheeky:

"I was in a familiar position. Lying flat on my face on a hard cobbled floor with my arm up to the shoulder inside a straining heifer. I had been doing this for over an hour and was beginning to despair."

"In these situations I would often get a big farm lad to strip off and try to reach inaccessible places for me, but Mr. Kilding and his son were stocky, short-armed chaps—they wouldn’t get as far as I had."

All the James Herriot books are good and are a mixture of cows, sheep, pigs, dogs and cats. Love hearing about the animals and the tough job vets have to do to help keep them healthy. Also love reading about the beautiful countryside. But especially love reading about the people, both the good and the grumpy. Love how James Herriot handles them all so good naturedly. I liked all the stories but there was one that was particular great I want to relate here. From Chapter 20 -

In lambing time the constant washing in the open pens or in the windy fields turns the skin on his hands and up his arms to raw meat . The farmers seem to only give minute portions of old scrubbing soap. Then farms usually give him a piece of sacking (hessian sack?) show more to dry his arms as towels were a scarce commodity. Sometimes an old soiled one. they are painful to rub his arms with from the coarse material.

He didn't know what one farmer, George Birrell's attitude was to towels, but his mother, old Grandma Birrell, had clear views on the matter.
"When I had finished stitching a tear on the cow's udder I stood on the cobbles, blood-spattered and expectant, waiting for the old lady. Right on cue, she came into the byre hand in hand with four-year-old Lucy, the youngest of her grandchildren. She set down a milking stool and laid out in a perfectly folded oblong a newly laundered towel of a snowy whiteness and on top of this she placed a tablet of expensive lavender toilet soap in its wrappings, virgin and unopened. A brightly scoured aluminum bucket of steaming water completed the picture, as pretty a one as ever I had seen."
He goes on a little to say how wonderful it was to be treated like nothing was too good for Mer. Herriot.
Then a while later Siegfried hands him a copy of the Darrowby and Houlton times and in the deaths column, "Mrs. Marjorie Birrell, aged 78, dearly beloved wife of the later Herbert Birrell..."

So next time he has to go to the farm to treat an animal, he didn't know what was going to happen.

As I pondered, the half-door was pushed open and little Lucy came into the byre, staggering slightly as she carrier the familiar shining bucket of hot water. Then from under her arm she produced a towel and soap and laid them on a milking stool. And it was the same spotless, geometrically folded towel and the same pristine toilet soap as before.

Slightly flushed, the little girl looked up at me, "Gran said I had to look after you," she said breathlessly. "She told me what to do." show less

The fifth book in the series, Herriot is still running his Yorkshire veterinary practice along with Siegfried. Tristam has left to start his own practice and has been replaced by other young vets, eventually by Calum. Upon moving into the upstairs flat, this new vet quickly acquires his own menagerie of badgers, dogs, foxes, and even an owl, leading to more outbursts from Siegfried.
James and Helen need to find a more modern house but get outbid at every turn, and James befriends an old man and his cat who have set up their tent along the road.
Funny and gentle despite the graphic depictions of veterinary emergencies, I'd like to read the whole series.

I am reading James Herriot's well-known series of books out of order. The five books are about his life as a veterinarian, mostly of large animals such as cows and sheep, in England. EVERY LIVING THING is the last book in the series. I read the third book in the series first and loved it so much that I grabbed EVERY LIVING THING when I found it on the shelf in a used bookstore. This book, too, is wonderful.

Each chapter of the books in this series contains a separate incident, an example from Herriot’s everyday life. Although I do not normally care for books of short stories, in the case of this series, the stories are at least in chronological order and they are so touching they’ll make you wish you could hug Herriot.

The stories in show more EVERY LIVING THING took place during the 1950s. Happily, by this time, antibiotics and other new drugs were now being produced. So veterinary medicine was more advanced by this time than it was in the earlier books in his series, and Herriot continued to learn. Also, his assistants, new veterinarians just out of college, knew more than he did when he graduated from college, also helpful to his practice.

Although EVERY LIVING THING is the last book in the series, Herriot, thankfully, does not end it with the end of his career. That would have been too sad. show less

Another collection of the animals and people of the Yorkshire Dales. I can see the stories the the original show used so clearly. The show did make Calum a little less strange but I just enjoyed reading this so much. Some stories do not end well but most are good and the dry humour of Yorkshire is in full evidence.