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Title: Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon
Author: Mike Bostridge
Genre: Biography
Thingummies: 2.5
Synopsis: Did you know the majority of Florence Nightingale's work was post-Crimea? And that she didn't actually do that much of the nursing herself? A biography of a somewhat cantankerous organization god.
Thoughts: This exhaustive biography is...exhausting.
Nightingale is an interesting figure--basically canonized in her own lifetime for entirely the wrong reasons, she emerges much more complex when examined. The Victorians didn't know what to make of a lady with will and fortitude who was enthusiastic about getting her hands dirty caring for ailing lower classes and even more enthusiastic about organizing all the proper logistics for doing so. Nightingale didn't want to make the endless useless social calls prescribed for her class--the tedium brought her to the brink of suicide. She didn't want to be a maid at the beck and call of doctors, either. She fought some remarkable political games to consolidate power, and helped revolutionize the visualization of statistics while she was at it. She was brilliant, stubborn, ruthless, selfless, selfish, and a master of the humblebrag. But the Victorians weren't really equipped to handle that, so they declared her to be a ministering angel whose soft hand cooled fevered brows and called it a day.
Detangling the very interesting aspects of the story out of the overabundance of detail in the book is a bit of a chore, though. Nightingale not only kept all her letters, she kept all her drafts of letters. And she wrote a lot of letters. After awhile, it starts to become clear that the biographer believes that if he had to read it, so should we. This book could easily have been a third shorter. We have chapters of information on Nightingale's family history. Now, in the biography of, say, a monarch, this is relevant information because it sets the political scene. If a subject had a particularly unusual family situation, it's relevant because that must inform the character of the child. But Nightingale was the daughter of a completely unexceptional gentleman. The details of his father's fortune are mostly irrelevant. Similarly, the two entire pages about cats that she owned at various points of her life were unnecessary.
Meanwhile, some of the important and dramatic events get lost in the blizzard of details. The evenness of tone, regardless of the drama of events, makes the high points of her life feel relatively dull. We get a number of ominous foreshadowings about a frenemy who would one day betray her--the betrayal itself is wrapped up in about a page, and does not seem to cause much in the way of impediment or distress. The section on Crimea feels strangely flat.
It has been fashionable at various points to declare Nightingale a saint. There have also been waves of backlash that ascribe devious impulses and deviant sexuality. This book, mercifully, walks a moderate path of showing the hard work of a brilliant but difficult woman. However, the number of times the author points to less balanced portrayals, demanding a cookie for not going overboard, does somewhat lessen the accomplishment.
Author: Mike Bostridge
Genre: Biography
Thingummies: 2.5
Synopsis: Did you know the majority of Florence Nightingale's work was post-Crimea? And that she didn't actually do that much of the nursing herself? A biography of a somewhat cantankerous organization god.
Thoughts: This exhaustive biography is...exhausting.
Nightingale is an interesting figure--basically canonized in her own lifetime for entirely the wrong reasons, she emerges much more complex when examined. The Victorians didn't know what to make of a lady with will and fortitude who was enthusiastic about getting her hands dirty caring for ailing lower classes and even more enthusiastic about organizing all the proper logistics for doing so. Nightingale didn't want to make the endless useless social calls prescribed for her class--the tedium brought her to the brink of suicide. She didn't want to be a maid at the beck and call of doctors, either. She fought some remarkable political games to consolidate power, and helped revolutionize the visualization of statistics while she was at it. She was brilliant, stubborn, ruthless, selfless, selfish, and a master of the humblebrag. But the Victorians weren't really equipped to handle that, so they declared her to be a ministering angel whose soft hand cooled fevered brows and called it a day.
Detangling the very interesting aspects of the story out of the overabundance of detail in the book is a bit of a chore, though. Nightingale not only kept all her letters, she kept all her drafts of letters. And she wrote a lot of letters. After awhile, it starts to become clear that the biographer believes that if he had to read it, so should we. This book could easily have been a third shorter. We have chapters of information on Nightingale's family history. Now, in the biography of, say, a monarch, this is relevant information because it sets the political scene. If a subject had a particularly unusual family situation, it's relevant because that must inform the character of the child. But Nightingale was the daughter of a completely unexceptional gentleman. The details of his father's fortune are mostly irrelevant. Similarly, the two entire pages about cats that she owned at various points of her life were unnecessary.
Meanwhile, some of the important and dramatic events get lost in the blizzard of details. The evenness of tone, regardless of the drama of events, makes the high points of her life feel relatively dull. We get a number of ominous foreshadowings about a frenemy who would one day betray her--the betrayal itself is wrapped up in about a page, and does not seem to cause much in the way of impediment or distress. The section on Crimea feels strangely flat.
It has been fashionable at various points to declare Nightingale a saint. There have also been waves of backlash that ascribe devious impulses and deviant sexuality. This book, mercifully, walks a moderate path of showing the hard work of a brilliant but difficult woman. However, the number of times the author points to less balanced portrayals, demanding a cookie for not going overboard, does somewhat lessen the accomplishment.
