A book I’ve read recently, Chapman’s Odyssey, is about an old man, Harry Chapman. He is an actor and author who has wrote a lot of books in his life and came up with a lot of characters all with different personalities and histories. Unfortunately Harry is getting ill and has to be at hospital where he waits for himself to get better. While he balances at the threshold of consciousness he receives visitors like his characters, his dead family members and also his living friends. As a reader you follow Harry until he dies at the hospital. During his journey when he slowly sees his life march past he gets to know his visitors better and he also understands his parents better.
I think it’s a beautiful book about a curious man with a lot of thoughts. Which I think is good for his in his situation when he can’t do anything but stay in his hospital bed waiting for his recovery without knowing when or if it’s coming. I think it’s easy to get mad in that situation which you might consider that he becomes when he goes back in his thoughts and hear voices from long dead family members and former lovers. One of the good things about Chapman is that he is all through a nice person and even though he is so frustrated because of the pain and not knowing if he’s ever coming out of the hospital he is nice to everybody that surrounds him (with exception from those times when his dead mother yells at him). He is becoming a friend to the nurses and doctors at the hospital and he’s telling them beautiful poems that he remembers from his long career as an author and actor. I’m not saying that it’s hard to be nice to people but as I’ve spend a lot of time working with caring of people I know that it’s hard to hold everything back and it’s much easier to throw it at someone nearby. How to react in a situation like Harrys is individual for each person. Not only in a hospital situation, in all situations it’s easy to get irritated at people without them actually not doing anything wrong. I can tell by myself in situations of hunger and tiredness that it’s hard to keep the good temper up. Does it have to be that way? Of course we all have our bad moments but it helps you so much if you have someone that understands you in those situations, and of course a little extra effort from yourself.
