The Private Patient: What Went Wrong?

  

By: Harmony Lehman

  The Private Patient by P.D. James is a mystery novel about a woman who mysteriously dies in a manor that was converted into a hospital. What else happened in that book? I couldn't tell you. I genuinely cannot remember (and I read it around a week ago). As a big fan of mystery, I was excited to read my first P.D James book, as she is a fairly popular author in that genre. Unfortunately, she did not live up to my grand expectations.

    The pacing was probably the worst of it, considering I never actually finished the Private Patient. And yes, I tried, very hard, to finish that book. Every time my mind wandered I figured it was probably because I had to do something important, and so I did it. But everytime I returned to the book my mind somehow found another thing to think about. I got three quarters of the way through Private Patient before I finally, reluctantly, set it down for the final time. P.D James writes extremely descriptively. She spends paragraphs describing how the coffee was made, pages on the character's outfits, "Helena Cresset was elegant in slim-fitting trousers in a white-and-black check topped with a black turtleneck cashmere jumper" (James, 143). And through all of that description, I grew completely bored. 

   The characters were underdeveloped, and somehow overdeveloped at the same time. Each chapter spent a thorough amount of time explaining the backstory of each and every character in the novel. This goes against one of my favorite rules: show and not tell. It went to great lengths to tell me all about the character's family life, back story, and even house structure. But it never showed me these things. There were never conversations in which a character let slip something about who they were or how they felt. For example, in chapter 8 it says, "Sharon, with her obvious need to chat, might well be the one most likely to reveal them", which could have very easily been portrayed in a manor aside from description, catching my attention better (James, 57). There was very little dialogue to begin with, and whenever it did come up I almost got into the book. And then the chapter ended. Oh, well. Don't get me wrong, a book can be great without dialogue, just not this book.

   Finally, the details were far too much for my brain to handle. I really don't need to know about the detective's girlfriend's' countertop material. Spare me, please. Early on in the book, the author narrates "There was a mahogany bureau with a desk large enough for comfortable writing" (James, 35). This may not seem like a lot of description, but I simply only put a short part of the long description of the room. I did not want to provide a quote a paragraph long. But, if one of the descriptions is somehow (I doubt it, but hey, you never know) a factor or hint to the case at large, then fine. Here's the thing, though. If you bury me in details about every little thing, instead of remembering later on when the case is revealed those details and thinking "oh, how clever!", I forget everything. I am too overwhelmed by all of the details that I manage to know less than if it had been more concise and to the point. It would not have made these details to the case obvious, either, because if the mystery is complicated enough I won't put the pieces together (not that I won't have theories: I'll have a million theories. They're just always wrong).

    In conclusion, I do not recommend the Private Patient. I reserve judgement on P.D James, as this was one of her later books, and she wrote it when she was in her 80s. Her books written when she was younger could be wonderful. I want to clarify that I'm aware that the ending is the most important part of a mystery, and that's what got me through the 3/4 of the book. However, at a certain point, I just didn't care anymore. I didn't care what character had done it and I didn't care why. If you're looking for a great mystery writer, I can't help but point you to Agatha Christie. Her books are entertaining, clever, and well-written (she's famous for a reason!). Just please, I beg of you, don't read the Private Patient.