In
All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot, whose real name is James Alfred Wight, describes his first years
of practice as a veterinarian in the Yorkshire region of England in the 1930’s. The work is composed of sketches that have some continuity but that are not arranged in strictly chronological order. Herriot begins with a compellingly detailed scene of a calf being born, and descriptions of such incidents from his practice make up much of the book. Animals become characters with roles that vary from the humorous to the tragic. He tells of puzzling and interesting cases, and he relates his mistakes and failures in treating cases as readily as he relates his successes. Herriot’s accounts convey the practice of a veterinarian in the 1930’s with accuracy. He presents cases which demonstrate the amount of luck that often combined with his medical training to produce triumphs, and he indicates the fine line between spectacular success and dismal failure.
All Creatures Great and Small also serves to document advances in technology and knowledge in an age when many important discoveries were being made in the areas of both animal and human medicine. The excitement and frustrations of practicing veterinary medicine in an age of transition are quite evident. Sometimes Herriot is able to save an animal with a new drug or technique, and sometimes he loses an animal that could have been saved with a drug not yet discovered. Herriot balances the reality of his life as a veterinarian with the expectations of both himself and others.
In
All Creatures Great and Small, Herriot remembers his student days, especially in the context of his relationship with Tristan Farnon, who is a student and the brother of Herriot’s employer, Siegfried Farnon. Herriot also recounts his first meeting with his employer and his anxieties about getting and keeping a job in economic hard times. These memories are interesting in their own right and provide a good balance to the accounts of experiences in veterinary practice.
The book also provides portraits of the wide variety of people Herriot meets in his practice, and the work is almost as much a biography of Siegfried and Tristan Farnon as it is the memoirs of James Herriot. Herriot punctuates
All Creatures Great and Small with descriptions of clients whose personalities stand out and who become memorable characters. A good example of such a character is Mrs. Pumphrey, whose Pekingese dog Tricki Woo is one of Herriot’s regular patients. Through vivid descriptions, Herriot conveys a sense of the infinite variety of life, both animal and human, that he encounters on a daily basis.
Herriot includes honest and intimate accounts of personal experiences in addition to episodes from his practice. He tells of his nervousness about dating and of the mishaps of his courtship of Helen Alderson, whom he eventually marries. He recounts feelings of inadequacy on the personal and on the professional level, but he is also very genuine in expressing his love of his work.
All Creatures Great and Small contains vivid, almost photographic descriptions of the Yorkshire countryside. The high craggy fells, the peaceful green fields filled with sheep and cattle, and the charm of the village of Darrowby emerge with great clarity. His descriptions add depth and variety to the narrative style of the work.