Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
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Book Summary Information
Author: Abraham VergheseEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-01-26
ISBN: 0375714367
Number of pages: 667
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Cutting for Stone
Book Review: Dharma Do: Fodder for the Western Mind
Summary: 4 Stars
"Cutting for Stone" is a profound portrait of the enlightened man, and as such it is almost overwhelming in its magnitude. Its truths about the human condition encompass such themes as brotherly love, medical science, politics, Western hegemony, greed, power, betrayal, selfishness, failure to assume responsibility, African social turbulence, class distinctions, poverty, and racism; but in the end the negative aspects of human existence are trumped by the themes of compassion, forgiveness and love. Reading this book as a guide to how to live meaningfully, mindfully and "in the now" allows one extraordinary insight into what endows human life with dignity and meaning.
The story centers around the birth of twin infants, Marion and Shiva Stone, born in Ethiopia to a Catholic nun and a world famous surgeon. Conjoined at birth, the twins grow up with a healthy respect for their similarities and differences. While Marion is an idealist, dutifully compliant and orthodox, Shiva is more self-absorbed, unconventional and inwardly rebellious. Both boys are highly intelligent and gifted in their understanding of surgery. Marion is compassionate in his relations to all people, but in Shiva we see devotion less to his fellow students and family than to the suffering, the "untouchable" patients - those who lack the resources to pay for medical services, but whose suffering is intense and without respite. The narrative voice does not penetrate the person of Shiva, but in the voice of Marion a depth of emotions is portrayed through moving internal passages, thoughtful dialogue and actions that speak louder than words, as well as a restraint of language on Marion's part when it seems counterproductive and possibly injurious to do otherwise.
Conversely, Shiva's actions are not always conscious; that is, he tends to react on the basis of impulse or self-gratification while the more socially concerned Marion always considers the effects of his actions on others. Since Marion is driven by a strong sense of social conscience, it is understandable that Shiva's seeming betrayal of his brother arouses such enmity in Marion. Through his ordeals and the consequent miraculous intercessions of Shiva, Thomas Stone and others, Marion finally realizes the significance of his relationship with his twin, with his absent and surrogate fathers and mothers, and with "the love of his life," Genea. Since all of these relationships of Marion's are complex, the journey to manhood of Dr. Marion Stone is ennobling to read about because during the entire process of achieving emotional maturity, Marion never flinches in his pursuit of righteousness or hesitates to fulfill his dharma, the Hindu concept of one's spiritual duty.
In his profession and in his personal life, Marion proceeds through the most adverse circumstances to heed the goal his adopted mother urged upon him: "to make your life something beautiful for God." Nor is Marion the only character who adheres to Hema's moral law. In the end, Shiva, Ghosh, Hema herself, Marion, and even Stone, as well as a host of minor characters live by Hema's adage as if to live otherwise were to perpetuate the darkness of suffering humanity in every soul. This book is ultimately about the need for altruists to relieve man of his afflictions and thereby glimpse the beauty of truth, which is, in fact, goodness, the very basis of the world, despite appearances to the contrary.
Dharma in Hindu theology is the idea of duty. As such it means doing that which is right in regard to one's station or profession in life. Dharma is related to truth and is a requirement of the moral law and spiritual discipline of the Hindu religion as well as the Vedic tradition. This is not to say the book is religious in the sense of illustrating Hindu doctrine. In fact, the boys, Marion and Shiva, were raised in a Catholic hospital environment and born of a nun. Yet their mother and the woman who raised them were both Indian. Thus, the boys were raised with the implicit tradition of yoking the body and mind in service to the quest for truth and ultimately "moksha," or liberation. Shiva's violation of what Marion considered to be moral law resulted in Marion's feeling betrayed and his negative judgment of and hostility toward his brother. It is only when Shiva reveals his true altruism on Marion's behalf that Marion realizes how mistaken he was about Shiva's true nature. Thus, the reader finally understands that like his natural father who was unable to express human emotion, Shiva's clueless actions were also misunderstood.
Hema's fears that the children would be adopted out from under her maternity prevented her from acknowledging the depth of Stone's feelings for Sister Mary Joseph Praise, even though he so clearly demonstrated them upon the nun's death. Hema subsequently misconstrued Stone's actions even though she knew that she, too, had difficulty expressing her feelings for Ghosh until he finally broke down her defenses. She persists in her judgmental approach toward Stone until she sees for herself in his operations on Marion and Shiva that he has made a life of surgery to compensate for his fears of living in any kind of emotional dependency. Finally she acknowledges that his actions as a doctor have been consistently noble. Stone makes clear that his own personal dharma was to be the best surgeon possible: "Work was his meat, his drink, his wife, his child, his politics, his religion. He thought work was his salvation until the day he found himself seated in Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, in the room of a child he had abandoned; only then did he admit to his son how completely work had failed him." In the end, Stone did fulfill his dharma by extending his love to the sons he previously failed. The operations are his final attempts to right his moral lapse, to provide "perpetual succor" to his family as well as his patients -- to fulfill his dharma.
As Dr. Thomas Stone makes apparent, he has always demonstrated compassion as a doctor. This is evident in his textbook when he advises surgeons that they must listen to the patient and "speak words of comfort." They must understand human suffering before they can step across the threshold of the surgical theater. Ghosh tells Marion that Thomas Stone must be forgiven because "he had no understanding of life" with which to navigate the paradoxical relationship with Sister Mary Praise. However, Verghese seems to realize that by fulfilling his dharma in his profession, Thomas Stone had achieved a necessary step toward the enlightenment he would eventually experience utterly through his ties to his sons, their adoptive parents and the letter left behind by Sister Mary Praise.
Likewise, Marion appreciates the great gifts bestowed on him and his brother by Ghosh, who "taught Marion to hear with his heart" and modeled for him how to be married, how to doctor, and how to die. Ghosh is movingly described through Marion's perspective: "For a moment I saw the world through his eyes, his intellect, his sweeping vision that took in Hippocrates, Pavlov, Freud and Marie Curie, the discovery of streptomycin and penicillin,... on the now, on a moment when the love was so palpable between father and son that the thought that it might end and this memory be its only legacy, was unacceptable." For Marion, Ghosh was the embodiment of human love, compassion, dharma, and professionalism. In one passage of pathos after another, the reader is reminded of how important goodness is in the world and that it is there - always persevering amidst the injustice. As Marion notes, in America just when things seem very bad indeed, "there are always good people out there to balance the bad."
And thus even in the darkest of his hours, when catastrophes have affected his family and him, the clinic, Ghosh, and Shiva, Marion is still able to see the glory of the world and to rejoice in the family that nurtured him. He does this without regret and with compassion for those who have defiled his dreams and irrevocably affected his physical and emotional health. Because of Ghosh, Hema, Matron, Shiva, Thomas Stone, and others, Marion will go on to achieve many more unselfish acts of compassion and love. In the end it is the memory of all these contributions by others that heal Marion and return him home to where he can do the most good, finally and irrevocably fulfilling his surrogate parents' legacy: "Make your life something beautiful for God." As well as fulfilling Matron's observation that "your glory lives within you" even if in Marion's and Shiva's case, the twins in the birth process "entered in a world - so much already amiss," both twins embrace their obligation to heal the world as much as it is possible for two surgeons. It is never too late, suggests Verghese, to make the world a better place; it is never too late to apply oneself to the betterment of humanity. This Shiva did as well as Marion because they were parented by people who set the appropriate example of what the path to righteousness entailed. In this sense the book is born of the Vedic Tradition; as such it is a timeless message that goes back 4,000 years or more to ancient India.
The book is a page turner although there are scenes and extraneous details that could be edited out without diminishing the story and characterization. The plot is rendered in a linear fashion so it is easy to pick up and set down without interrupting the narrative flow or causing confusion. The characterization is complete and in depth with some shifts in point of view. A story of five masterful surgeons, there is much in the novel that is scientifically and medically interesting. As I said, the book is a "big" one, and reading it is not only an entertaining and enthralling experience, but also a spiritual one. The exercise of reading "Cutting for Stone" is like walking hand in hand down a semi-dark tunnel with a guide whose extraordinary example sets you on the path to enlightenment. That is because through the narration of Marion, a gifted human being, we come to see in the internal passages in particular hallmarks of human wisdom. That is not to say this book is religious; it is not. Instead it is analogous to following Plato's seeker out of the dark cave of his own limitations through the arduous ascent into the realm of light and Absolutes. An idealist, Dr. Marion Stone is the ultimate vehicle for Abraham Verghese to employ the Socratic approach in literature. This book is in the grand tradition of the novel - Dostoyevskian, and Tolstoyan, Dickensian, and the likes of Maugham - bighearted and generous, insightful and inspiring. This is an excellent novel, if a little wordy.
Marjorie Meyerle
Colorado Writer
Author of "Bread of Shame"
Summary of Cutting for Stone
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother?s death and their father?s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles--and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.
Amazon Exclusive: John Irving Reviews Cutting for Stone
John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times--winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. In 1992, Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules--a film with seven Academy Award nominations. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of Cutting for Stone:
That Abraham Verghese is a doctor and a writer is already established; the miracle of this novel is how organically the two are entwined. I?ve not read a novel wherein medicine, the practice of it, is made as germane to the storytelling process, to the overall narrative, as the author manages to make it happen here. The medical detail is stunning, but it never overwhelms the humane and narrative aspects of this moving and ambitious novel. This is a first-person narration where the first-person voice appears to disappear, but never entirely; only in the beginning are we aware that the voice addressing us is speaking from the womb! And what terrific characters--even the most minor players are given a full history. There is also a sense of great foreboding; by the midpoint of the story, one dreads what will further befall these characters. The foreshadowing is present in the chapter titles, too--?The School of Suffering? not least among them! Cutting for Stone is a remarkable achievement.--John Irving
(Photo © Maki Galimberti)
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