Charité, a pandemic history

The ongoing pandemic challenged not only our way of living, loving and thinking, but introduced the medical vocabulary and references into our everyday lives. References to various medical aspects, as well as to medical institutions are so often nowadays that I felt the need to start to know more about the history of medical centers in the forefront of health research. Like, for instance, the Charité, Berlin´s top hospital.

There are many books and series dedicated to this hospital, covering various episodes of its development from its creation until nowadays, including covering some less meritorious episodes, like for instance during the Nazi times when horrendous human experiments were done here. 

The first part of Die Charité /Hoffnung und Schicksal - Hope and Destiny/ by Ulrike Schweikert, which I had access to in the original German language as audiobook is taking place during another pandemic time: during the 1853 cholera epidemic in Berlin. 

There is something special about German literature that I am pleased to discover lately: the good quality of historical novels, both in terms of research and reconstruction of the original facts, as well as from the point of view of the topics approached. This combination makes me always keen to read a German historical novel as it helps me to discover facts and characters that maybe don´t find it so attractive when set in another language and country. It may be an element of curiosity and eagerness to get more acquainted with a relatively new culture but right now, those books are my favorite in German (hopefully in the next weeks and months I will share many more German reviews of this kind). 

In this first installment of the series, we are witnessing not only the setting up of the Charité-family, by the creation of a specific work ambiance and personal connections - actually, some of the personnel used to live in buildings around the main hospital, situated within the nowadays headquarters of Berlin Mitte - but also the raise of the women working in the medical field. The research trying to cope with the cholera outburst is featured not only from the academic perspective, but also by featuring the social realities of the time - the classes separation within the city for instance; as cholera was mostly the result of the scarcity of clear water resources, this distinction is directly connected to the widespread of the pandemic in certain geographical areas and not others. 

In this complex context, there are individual stories created, of love, betrayal and loneliness, but at a certain extent I felt that the historical weight of the momentum is by far too powerful and on this background, the stories are lacking the intensity and the glamour requested by the historical drama unfolding. I suppose it is not easy to keep the right writing balance but overall, the audiobook experience was useful, although I am not sure that I would be interested in reading the rest of the series. But my interest in audiobooks and in German historical novels will continue and I can´t wait to share my bookish discoveries.

Rating: 3 stars