Second Opinion: A Doctor's Dispatches from the British Inner City

by Theodore Dalrymple

No-one has travelled further into the dark and fascinating heart of Britain’s underclass than the brilliant Theodore Dalrymple.A hospital consultant and prison doctor in the inner city, he is also a writer of world renown. In Second Opinion, he lays bare a secret, brutal world hidden to most of us.Drug addicts and desperate drunks, battered wives and suicidal burglars, elderly Alzheimer's sufferers and teenage stabbing victims. They all pass through his surgery.It’s the tragic world of ‘Baby P’ and Shannon Matthews – a place where the merest perceived insult leads to murder, where jealous men beat and strangle their women and where ‘anyone will do anything for ten bags of brown’.In unflinchingly honest prose, shot through with insight, feeling and bleak humour, Dalrymple exposes the unseen horror of our modern slums as never before.‘Dalrymple’s clarity of thought, precision of expression and constant, terrible disappointment give his dispatches from the frontline a tone and a quality entirely their own… their rarity makes you sit up and take notice’ – Marcus Berkmann, The Spectator‘Dalrymple is a modern master’ – Steven Poole, The Guardian'I promise you'll enjoy his books' - Daniel Hannan, Daily Telegraph

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Cultural, Medical, Crime, Medicine, Essays

423 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 10, 2009

About the author

Anthony Malcolm Daniels, who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is an English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the east end of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.

Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, and Axess magasin.

In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think tank Libera!.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

The erstwhile bf didn't bother even texting me Happy New Year so that's obviously that. I have been so down I thought that psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple's Luddite and pessimistic musings on the prisoners and patients, often their victims in the very working class area he was an NHS doctor in, might cheer me up. He's just so grumpy, snarky, sarcastic and tongue in cheek. You know he writes with a sparkle in his eye as he uses his fountain pen, I don't think he's come as far as computers considering what he has to say about cell phones.

And the thing which is currently raising my ire – easily raised, admittedly – is the mobile telephone. A pox (or should I say a brain tumour?) upon all those who carry this frightful instrument.

Alas, as any gimcrack psychiatrist will tell you, there is in all hatred a liberal dose of self-contempt, and so it is with my abhorrence of the mobile telephone, for I possess one myself, even though I know it makes me look a little like a Jamaican drug-dealer.

At least my conversations on it are sensible and important, however. I have to keep myself contactable at all times wherever I may be, just in case one of the newspapers wants me to write a ringing denunciation of one or other of the many manifestations of modern British degradation and depravity. It is possible, after all, to make money out of depravity without being depraved oneself.

He's very cheery with the prisoners who are mostly small time criminals in and out of prison, and who mostly treat their women and children very badly, beating up one and not supporting the other, and many of them are on drugs, some out of boredom. The women of these men are uniformly stupid. Their men kick their bellies to cause abortions, say they aren't really violent to them, "just a smack on the face, nothing she had to go to hospital for," and about choking, "I know when to stop". The women are frightened to leave them because of being tracked down and there being further violence, but also, most say they are in love with them, and 'he's not like that all the time. Only when he drinks.'

It's a fairly entertaining book, as most of Theodore Dalrymple's are. It isn't for the reader who gets outraged easily, or thinks cancelling people with unpleasant views is a good thing, or doesn't get that humour sometimes is not politically correct. Despite all this, it is amusing and he is an excellent writer with points to make:

Each man kills the thing he loves, but each woman is killed by the thing she loves.

[Петър Стойков · Rating 3 out of 5]

Всеки път като чета Theodore Dalrymple се опитва да ме налегне депресията. Харесвам описанията му на утайката на британското общество, които са му пациенти, но постоянното му дуднене за неефективността на британската социална и медицинска система е главозаболяващо.

[Steph Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always find theodore dalrymple's books highly amusing. He's very controversial and only those with an open mind should read his books, otherwise one could possibly feel insulted. I love the way he just writes what he thinks, the sarcasm and actually reading a book by someone who is truthful. A very good book.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Dalrymple's erudite and humored grumbles about bureaucracies (specially concerning the NHS, where he used to be a doctor) and idiotic patients who keep causing their own (and their children's and spouse's) miseries.

I find Dalrymple to be somewhat of a treasure. How often will we find someone who happens to meet the criteria of: a) being a doctor in the public sector; b) being highly cultured; c) writing wonderful prose; d) being highly critical of the system which pays his salaries; e) not following the PC rules of thinking/discourse?

Quite rarely I suppose.

[Spencer Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of what must be Dalrymple's shortest essays. As always, he delights and provides insight like no other living author I know of. That man can say so much with so little.

[Kitty Red-Eye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was going to read Thomas Sowell, but then he reminded me so much of Dalrymple - only that I prefer Dalrymple’s writing style to Sowell’s. Actually, Sowell wrote about Dalrymple in one of his essays (he liked him very much) and then I just had to swap and read some more from the pessimistic, misanthrope, at once depressing and hilarious doctor.

If you haven’t read Dalrymple before, don’t let this be your first book of him. The essays are too much alike, you might be bored. But if you already know him, it’s more of the same that you expect. I won’t say enjoy, exactly, it’s all too depressing for enjoyment, but certainly food for thought.

Edited to add: I’d like to read more about self-esteem (overrated) vs. self-respect (what should be aimed for).

[Violet Bell]

This was like a car crash. I hated the author's judgements (if you hate your patients so much, why not set up practice in a middle class area where you can treat golfing industry and tennis elbow)? but I couldn't look away.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a good read but it became monotonous - I felt it was a bit too long and was sort of relieved to finally reach the end of it.

[S.L. Myers]

I love everything by Dalrymple. He's thoughtful and intelligent.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

personally i found that the writing style was not my cup of tea and it took me ages to read. A bit too negative to me but I understand why others may love it

[Michelle Hawcroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed the prose and wit the author uses. Though it tends to get very cynical, and he paints a rather bleak picture of humanity. Its worth a read no doubt, and I felt somewhat fond of his old school british charm.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dalrymple is ingenious. What a diamond in the rough. I love his prose, and his observations and his sharp, critical eye. I'll probably read more of his stuff.

[Mark Matthews]

Read the sample, and although I loved the authors wit, it got more and more cynical and bordering on rascism.