A burnt-out case post III

The book ends with the themes of faith, Catholism and love still at the forefront and your anger at the demise of Querry is very cleverly cut short and replaced at a deeper anger at the injustice of leprosy.

Bullet points between pages 119 - 199

* Querry talks to Dr Colin about life and the subject of women comes up and the Dr reveals that his wife died at the mission

* The superior leaves the mission leaving Father Thomas in charge, who has just returned bearing the article written by Parkinson

* In a rage Querry goes to see Rycker, who he blames for the intrusion into his life but finds him unwell and heads off the Luc to get supplies and takes his young wife who needs to see the doctor to discover if she is pregnant

* To help her sleep he tells her an autobiographical story about a man losing faith in live and religion and reveals more about how he came to be so bored and uninterested that he decided to bury himself in Africa

* Rycker turns up accusing Querry of sleeping with his wife and they argue but Querry walks out and warns his wife and then heads back to the mission

* The young Rycker wife turns up and makes up lies saying that Querry is the father of her baby. She then admits to him she cannot go back on her lies because she has burnt her bridges, to which he replies that she has burnt his home

* Rycker tracks them to the mission and then calls out Querry who laughs, he says at himself, but is shot twice by Rycker who thinks he is laughing at him

* The superior returns for the funeral and the book ends with him talking to Dr Colin about Querry and how he was perhaps returning to faith. Dr Colin angrily dismisses questions of faith as he starts to plough through 60 patients starting with a three year old boy he diagnoses with leprosy

A very powerful ending that leaves you wondering about your own personal search for meaning and your own reaction to the anger that can be provoked by diseases like leprosy.

Sticking with the idea of how people react to a community suffering from an illness the rest of this week will be spent reading The plague by Albert Camus. The first post on that will go up tomorrow and a book of books review of A Burnt-out case will also go up tomorrow...