#2 for Movie Challenge

The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Last King of Scotland is Giles Foden's debut novel of Idi Amin's fictional physician Nicolas Garrigan. Garrigan like most westerners goes to Uganda full of good intentions and idealism. Through the unfortunate run in of Amin's mazerati with a hapless cow Garrigan finds himself inescapably drawn into the horrifying and fascinating orbit of the legendary tyrant. Through the course of the novel Amin becomes more ruthless and erratic. Garrigan continuely allows Amin's charisma to cloud his own better judgement until he finally finds himself the object Amin's wrath. After I finished the book, I read a few wiki's and other internet sites about Amin's reign and was fascinated to learn that many of the major events of the novel were in fact true. Foden seamlessly weaved Garrigan into real situations and into the lives of real people that you never questioned if he was in fact Amin's doctor. Garrigan's ambiguous feelings towards Amin directly reflects the western world's morbid fascination with the dictator and more specifically the to reflect the west's own morbid fascination with the figure as well as western governments complacency in promping up dictators like Amin.


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