Cutting for Stone: A novel
by Abraham Verghese
|
List Price: Our Price: $15.69 You Save: $13.26 (46%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $7.17 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Cutting for Stone: A novel
Book Review: A Cut Above The Rest
Summary: 5 Stars
As a reader, I'm always in search of that book I would rate a "10" but, unfortunately, these books don't come around that often. Sure I've read books in the past year that I've given 5 stars to but their actual rating was less than a "10". They probably fell in the "8" or "9" range. I've read some really good mysteries this year but I rate them according to their genre so I don't really put them in the same category as good literature. I knew the second half of this year had some potential as three of my favorite authors, John Irving, Pat Conroy and Richard Russo, all have books coming out. But then I started hearing some buzz about this book set in Ethiopia, Cutting For Stone, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's not one I would have picked up on my own simply because the title was so weird. Cutting For Stone....what the heck is that? With the long 4th of July weekend looming before me, I knew I wanted to read something great and decided to take a chance with Verghese's novel. I'm so glad I did.
I've always been the type of reader who loves when an author takes me somewhere I've never been before and, while there, teaches me things I've never known. When they're able to do this teaching without preaching, it's an extra added bonus. I've never been to Ethiopia and I know I'll never go there. When I think of Ethiopia, I have visions of a totally undeveloped country. While I'm sure these visions are partially true, Verghese really opened my eyes to another part of the world in a country where medical teams still strive for perfection without the kind of money that easily flows into many of the hospitals of which we're familiar. Verghese's Ethiopia is filled with people who love their country and their food and their smells and their customs. And when a time comes that they leave their beloved country behind, they miss it as much as we would miss ours. Just recently, I was driving down a street in Manhattan and I saw an Ethiopian restaurant. Other than thinking that they surely have every single kind of restaurant in NYC, my other thought was, "Who would go to an Ethiopian restaurant?" After reading this book, it is clear to me how much business this restaurant probably gets from all of the people who have made their way to this country from Ethiopia and what a blessing it must be for them to get some real home cooking on foreign soil.
When you have an author who grew up in the country he's writing about, it makes everything seem so much more real as these are his real experiences. It reminded me of reading The Kite Runner by Hosseini and how much I got to learn about Afghanistan because it's where that author spent most of his life. In this case, not only did Verghese grow up in Ethiopia but, while there, he also became a doctor. The fact that a majority of this book takes place in a hospital lends itself to some more first hand knowledge from this very gifted author. Another part of the knowledge I amassed was about the politics of Ethiopia under the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie and the political coups during that time to try to take him down. I found this part of the book fascinating.
Before I give you the impression that this book has no story and it's just a learning experience about a country and its ruler, I have to say that it is every bit the story for which every avid reader is searching. It's a novel that's epic in scope and begins on a ship sailing from India to Yemen where a young nun meets a very seasick British doctor and is able to nurse him through that voyage. Some years later, they will meet again in a hospital in Ethiopia where she will become his right hand through every one of his surgeries. Until one day, she doesn't show up in the operating room and the real story begins. Twins are born, secrets are not revealed, lives are shattered and all of this will be narrated by one of the male twins...Marion. I am not even going to go into the entire summary of the book because too many other reviewers here have given too much away already. Suffice it to say that you will not be able to put it down. Every time I picked it up, I was wondering where each of these characters had been since I was last reading. The author does an amazing job of inserting you into their lives and developing characters you will come to love...Matron, the ruling nun of the hospital; Hema, the gynecologist; Ghosh her beloved husband and surgeon; Dr. Thomas Stone, head surgeon; Sister Mary Joseph Praise, his loyal assistant and the twins Shiva and Marion. I'm already making this review longer than I wanted so I'll leave the story there because I know you will be reading it yourself.
It's a tale of love and hope and desire and "enlightenment". I say enlightenment for two reasons. Clearly each of these characters will have their eyes opened in such a way that it will make a mark on their souls. But I can't help but think that there are some references to Buddha that can't just be coincidental. In two separate cases, the author has one character returning from prison...after 49 days of imprisonment...while he has another character becoming unconscious....after 49 days of the onset of an illness. This is the exact number of days (49) that Buddha meditated before he became enlightened. I would love to know if this was done intentionally.
Some other reviewers have stated that there were a lot of medical references and explanatons of surgeries that they found tedious. I found these fascinating. They were told in such a way that the lay reader could actually understand what the surgeon was doing. The book also opened my eyes to the importance of donations and how much these foreign organizations depend on us to keep them going. I'm always afraid that my money is not being used appropriately but it's clear to me now just how much these places rely on us to give them aid. My eyes were also opened to the fact that these foreign doctors come to America and never get interviews with the major hospitals which is why you'll find so many foreign doctors in remote areas of our country or hospitals where American doctors wouldn't think of working.
And how can I end without an explanation of the title...Cutting for Stone. It is part of the Hippocratic Oath taken by all doctors and it says..."I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art." So I guess the title wasn't that weird after all. The fact that one of the main characters has the last name "Stone" makes this title even more poignant. English Lit classes would have a field day analyzing this one. I'll just leave it at that.
I recently had a friend tell me that they had given up on reading books that had in excess of 500 pages. I can't understand this statement because most of my favorite books were definitely in that category. So what else can I say about the book that was clearly my favorite so far this year. I just wish there were more books like this and more authors who could tell a story like Verghese. All I can say is thank you for 534 pages of reading bliss.
Book Review: Cutting for Stone: Look deeper for its meanings
Summary: 5 Stars
Abraham Verghese has layered his tale that spans continents, moving as it does from India to Africa and then to the US, full of double meanings - like flavor upon flavor. The overall story is rich, multifaceted. As a straight-up tale the book is a very good read. But for me, much of the delight of this novel was to catch the double entendres Verghese has laden into the story. Here are some examples:
*NAMES: The main characters, twin boys, born to a beautiful Indian nursing nun whom no one even suspected was pregnant, were technically conjoined, sharing a short stalk of flesh at the top of their heads, essentially one organism in the womb. They are identical - mirror images of each other on the surface - separated during their brutal cesarean birth. The surgeon, their presumed father, cannot even comprehend their existence. Dr. Thomas Stone is so horrified by his failure to save the beloved nun, his surgical assistant for several years, he runs from the operating theater at Mission Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, abandoning the newborns.
With no guidance from the newly dead nun, nor from the abandoning surgeon/father, Hema, a fellow surgeon and eventually their adoptive mother, names the boys Marion and Shiva. Marion is said to be named after a famed groundbreaking surgeon Hema admires. However, it is a potent signal from Verghese about Marion's ultimate nature: he is more like his mother (Marion - Mary-like) in that he will grow to be compassionate, brave, willing to help in whatever way he can and yet very contained about his own sexuality. It will be much of his undoing. The name choice of Shiva for the other twin is said in the story to be a nod to Hema's own cultural heritage as she is also Indian. But again, there are more subtle meanings that Verghese is alluding to. In Hinduism, the god Shiva is complex, contradictory. He is Lord Shiva, the transformer, aloof, above sentimental considerations, and also the dancing destroyer. Yet destruction, in Hindu belief, also makes way for renewal. The child Shiva will reflect his father: a gifted intellect, skillful, yet incapable of grasping the emotional destruction his choices have on others, ultimately betraying his brother, transforming their relationship. Will there be an ultimate rebirth for them?
*PLACES: Even the hospital compound where the boys are born and where they spend their childhoods has a double meaning. The charity Mission Hospital compound is somewhat mispronounced, called "Missing" by the locals. The entire medical, religious and support staff form an extended surrogate family for the boys - each leaving their own formative mark on them. (One will precipitate a rift between the brothers that will take their lifetimes to heal.) Like any home, it is the center of the children's world. Yet all the while the boys, especially Marion, are acutely aware that there is something "missing" for them at Missing - they have no personal sense of either birth parent, not even a photograph. They only know their mother was dearly loved and their father was a difficult man as well as a fearless surgeon greatly treasured for his skill. But who are Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Dr. Thomas Stone? As they learn, so do we.
*IMAGES: At Missing Hospital Sister Mary Joseph Praise does her clerical work in a cramped space near the sterilization unit. We should ask ourselves what Verghese is trying to bring to our attention with this choice. Sterilizers use steam; the imagery is the contrast of being both pristine and literally steamy. Above her small desk hangs a photo of Bernini's sculpture of St. Theresa in the throes of religious ecstasy, orgasmic in its quality. Verghese knows that for centuries that sculpture has provoked discussion about its blatant sexual overtones, implying a similarity of being lifted out of oneself during utter surrender, whether to God or while giving oneself completely to another. He uses it as symbolic of the Sister's double and conflicting desire - thereby yet another double meaning - one for the service of God and the other for her one time intimacy with her god of medicine, the man who was able to miraculously restore life even in seemingly hopeless cases - Dr. Thomas Stone. However, to the orphaned four year-old Marion, seated at his dead mother's desk, gazing up at that photo, his child's mind fantasized Theresa was his mother. As readers we understand that image in ways that will take Marion decades to comprehend.
Both Stone boys choose surgery as careers, despite the legacy of their father (and hence the title), a specialty that is both brutal and awe inspiring. Dr. Verghese clearly loves his own medical craft as well as writing. There are multiple situations that arise throughout the book where he describes surgical procedures with spot-on accuracy. For some readers, perhaps too much accuracy. In several circumstances they become a vehicle to explain the progress of surgery through the hands of medical pioneers.
Verghese handles these cases like he handles his characters - with utter compassion, never shrinking away from the truth of their dysfunction or destructiveness, yet bringing us along for the glory of their triumph. Marion, Shiva, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, Dr. Thomas Stone, Drs. Hema and Gosh are all unforgettable. And because the book spans decades, the culture and history of Ethiopia have the space to saturate the story. Excellent!
Book Review: "Your 'Gloria' Lives Within You."
Summary: 5 Stars
CUTTING FOR STONE (a reference to the Hippocratic Oath, "I will not cut for stone"), Dr. Abraham Verghese's first novel, is a massive linear story of over 500 pages reminiscent of the great 19th century British novels-- Charles Dickens comes to mind, and one of the characters reads George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH-- and first cousins with the novels of John Irving and Khaled Hosseini, another physician who, as the whole literary world knows, gave us THE KITE RUNNER and A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. (That is not to say that this fine work of fiction is derivative in any way.) Verghese writes with the passion of Thomas Wolfe; but contrary to what that North Carolina writer said, sometimes you can go home again. The narrator of CUTTING FOR STONE is Marion, an identical twin of Shiva. They are born in Ethiopia in 1954 of an Indian mother and British father. Marion and Shiva's lives resonated with me-- at least a little-- since I am also a twin, through fraternal. Just like Marion and Shiva, my brother and I will go to our graves remembered by many (if at all) as simply "the twins." The action covers continents: Africa, Asia, Europe-- at least a brief stopover by Marion and his stepmother Hema in Rome near the end of the novel-- and North America. In addition to these three characters, there are Hema's husband Ghosh, Genet, Thomas Stone, Sister Mary Joseph Praise and a host of others you will be haunted by when you finish this novel.
Dr. Verghese's first book, a work of nonfiction, MY OWN COUNTRY, may well be the best thing ever written about AIDS. It is the doctor's account of the time he spent treating AIDS patients in the mid-eighties at the VA hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee, some sixty miles from where I grew up so I recognized many of the people he wrote about. His second book THE TENNIS PARTNER is a sad but beautifully written treatise on friendship. I wondered then if the author could match these two earlier successes with a work of fiction. The answer is a resounding "yes." This novel has everything going for it. In addition to the story that covers continents and characters whose fates will break your heart, The tone of the novel and Verghese's themes certainly satisfy Matthew Arnold's requirements for high seriousness: betrayal, missed opportunities, the definition of family-- doesn't our family consist of those people who love us?-- love and forgiveness.
Dr. Verghese in CUTTING FOR STONE returns to concerns he has written about previously, particularly in MY OWN COUNTRY, where he went to great lengths to express his belief that patients are people, regardless of their illness or station in life and should be treated as such-- or as Marion says here, not just a "'diabetic foot in bed two' or 'myocardial infarction in bed three.'" He also has written of the plight of Indian doctors in the U. S. who are too often seen as second class citizens who are caring for other second class citizens. Here Marion's friend Gandhi reminds him that at hospitals that he calls "Ellis Island" hospitals, that the physicians are Indian, Pakistani, Filipino or Persian while white doctors work at "Mayflower" hospitals such as Massachusetts General. Most importantly this writer's humanity is evident on every page. Notice, for instance, Marion's guilt when he has to kill a man in order to save his own life and the lives of his family. While this book is certainly about doctors as healers-- and I sometimes felt as if I were taking Surgery 101 and looking over the shoulders of Hema, Ghosh and other doctors' shoulders as they performed surgical procedures and learned more medical terminology than I wanted to know-- this book is also about Ethiopia, where Dr. Verghese was born, a country that he obviously loves passionately. His descriptions of that country, particularly the sky, are beautiful: "In a country where you cannot decribe the beauty of the land without using the word 'sky,' the sight of three jets streaking up in a steep climb was breathtaking." Or "The sky had started off bluffing, convoys of gray clouds scurrying across like sheep to market. But by afternoon a perfect blue canopy stretched from horizon to horizon." And finally "The sky was a mad painter's canvas, as if halfway through the artist had decided against azure and had instead splashed ochre and crimson and black on the palette."
In one of dozens of moving passages in this novel, Marion says that he became a surgeon because the character Matron goaded him, telling him that he should not settle for playing "Three Blind Mice" when he could pay Bach's "Gloria." He, who played no instrument and did not read music, responded that he could not dream of playing the "Gloria," to which Matron answered :"Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you.'" If Dr. Verghese were a concert musician, his "Gloria" would receive a standing ovation from a grateful audience whose eyes would be burning, or in the words of the writer himself "foggy."
There should be a law against fiction being this good.
Book Review: "We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime."
Summary: 5 Stars
This brilliant novel revolves around what is broken -- limbs, family ties, trust -- and the process of rebuilding them. It starts with the birth of twin boys to a nursing nun, Sister Mary Praise Joseph, in a small hospital on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; an event which no one had expected: "The everyday miracle of conception had taken place in the one place it should not have: in Sister Mary Praise Joseph's womb." The delivery rapidly becomes a debacle when it's clear that Mary Praise Joseph can't deliver her baby normally; the last minute arrival home at "Missing" (the Mission Hospital) by Indian obstetrician Hema saves the children, but their mother dies and their presumed father father, surgeon Thomas Stone, disappears into the night.
That brief summary does no justice to Verghese's powerful and remarkable prose style or the structure of the first part of the book which, although it revolves around the tragedy that claims the life of the twins' mother, also introduces the other main characters who will take the place of their biological parents. Darting back and forth between the events in the surgical theater (as Thomas Stone, horrified at what he sees, first tries to save Mary Joseph Praise's life by collapsing the skull of the infant he believes cannot be born alive), the mundane daily activities of his fellow doctor, Ghosh (trying to escape what he believes is a hopeless love for Hema) and Hema's struggle to get home to Missing from her annual holiday in India, the reader will find it impossible to put the book down and wants only to find a way of reading faster and faster to discover what happens next. By the time the twins are born, attached by a blood vessel at the head and separated at the last moment by Stone and Hema to save their lives, the reader will find himself or herself resenting every moment not spent following this story until the tale is told. And even when you are finished, the novel and its more-than-compelling characters will linger on in your mind...
Separated at birth, the twins grow up in the Ethiopia of the Emperor Haile Selaisse's reign, and Verghese introduces the reader to an ancient world that will be new to most readers, with all its flavors, colors, scents and sounds. His remarkable artistry ensures that this is never jarring but always intriguing and that the characters -- Indian expatriate doctors raising their two foster children, born to an Indian nun and an American surgeon, with the help of an Eritrean caretaker and her own daughter -- feel as familiar to us as if they were members of our own family. In the manner of a classic epic, Verghese picks his themes -- separation, the intersection of sex and death, wounds and what surgery can and can't accomplish -- and sticks to them throughout. And yet, those themes -- sweeping ones for any novelist to tackle -- never overshadow the fact that this is, at its core, the story of two brothers, Shiva and Marion -- or ShivaMarion, as Marion, the narrator, describes their single-minded unity in their youngest years.
Ultimately, the political events in Ethiopia and family betrayals send Marion fleeing to the United States. His odyssey seems to rupture all these ties and yet by the time the novel ends, we realize that every step has, in fact, been bringing Marion, Shiva and their extended family closer together as well as toward a resolution of the various plot twists. Training as a surgeon in a Bronx hospital where the only interns are from overseas ("the bloodlines from the Mayflower hadn't trickled down to this zip code", Marion reflects wryly), the finally encounters his birth father in person -- with dramatic consequences -- and has a chance to make peace with Thomas Stone, Shiva -- and himself.
Anyone familiar with Veghese's non-fiction writing (two very compelling memoirs, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story and The Tennis Partner) knows that he is an impeccable prose stylist. But relatively few non-fiction writers can also write wonderful fiction, much less produce this kind of complex drama. Rarer still is that this is a debut novel. Even the remarkable coincidences of the final third of the book never feel anything less than pitch-perfect: a real tribute to both Verghese's carefully-constructed plot and his eloquent, pitch-perfect writing.
It is rare for me to stumble over a novel of such a high caliber, one that creates the kind of characters I have never met before, characters who now are as vividly alive in my mind as any of the real individuals who populate my world. May this be only the first of many novels that Verghese produces for us, his lucky readers.
Book Review: Great Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
It's hard to know where to start with Cutting for Stone, because it is so complex. There are so many themes interwoven within the novel. It found it difficult to put down. It was a gripping read for me, but it also left me with an uneasy feeling that there was something not quite technically right about the novel. It felt like a sophisticated writing exercise that one might produce at a writer's workshop, rather than true inspired literature. It seems to contain all the points, plots, twists, and devices of a great novel...yet it fails to really be great.
The book is medically visceral in a way that was unexpected, but enjoyable for me. Yet, I think it is this emphasis on the visceral and medical that unhinges the novel from being great to just good. I was fascinated by it and learned from it, but as a reader I was also distracted. Verghese's instance on educating the reader on the history of surgery and other medical details was too much. Yet, the book has so many wonderful redeeming qualities to it that it's hard to give it a poor review or say that I didn't enjoy it. I read it in 6 days!
Verghese's character development is outstanding. You just fall in love with these characters...they are achingly human and sympathetic. Even Ghosh in his early rapscallion days is sympathetic, mainly because of his devotion to Hema. He was my favorite character because he grew so much as a person, both professionally and emotionally throughout the novel. Is it possible not to be trained as a surgeon and then suddenly one day have to rise to the occasion?
Ultimately, I felt the book was about birth and reconstruction/destruction which was parallelled by Marion and Shiva with nods to Christianity and Hinduism. Marion is said to be named after a famed groundbreaking surgeon Hema admires. It is a signal from Verghese about Marion's ultimate nature: he is more like his mother (Marion - Mary-like) in that he will grow to be compassionate, brave, willing to help in whatever way he can and yet very contained about his own sexuality. The name choice of Shiva is said to be a nod to Hema's cultural heritage. However, in Hinduism, the god Shiva is complex, contradictory. He is Lord Shiva, the transformer, aloof, above sentimental considerations, and also the dancing destroyer. Shiva lives up to his namesake in that he destroys his relationships and his brother's relationships with women, yet in his career he is the one who reconstructs what a birth gone wrong has physically damaged. It's these double meanings that continue, like Marion and Shiva two halves of the same whole. Life/death, chastity/sexuality, illness/health.
Even Missing has a double meaning. The charity Mission Hospital compound is called Missing by the locals. The entire medical and religious and support staff form an extended family for the boys - each leaving their own formative mark on them. One will precipitate a rift between the brothers that will take their lifetimes to heal. Like any home, it is the center of the children's world. Yet all the while the boys, especially Marion, are acutely aware that there is something "missing" for them at Missing - they have no personal sense of either birth parent, not even a photograph. They only know their mother was dearly loved and their father was a difficult man as well as a fearless surgeon greatly treasured for his skill. But who are Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Dr. Thomas Stone? As they learn, so do we.
At Missing Hospital Sister Mary Joseph Praise had done her clerical work in a cramped space near the sterilization unit. Above her small desk hangs a picture of Bernini's sculpture of St. Theresa in the throes of religious ecstasy, orgasmic in its quality. For centuries that sculpture has provoked discussion about its blatant sexual overtones, implying a similarity of being lifted out of oneself during utter surrender, whether to God or while giving oneself completely to another. Verghese uses it as symbolic of the Sister's double and conflicting desire - thereby yet another double meaning - one for the service of God and the other for intimacy with her god of medicine, the man who was able to miraculously restore life even in seemingly hopeless cases - Dr. Thomas Stone. However, to the four year-old Marion, seated at his mother's desk, gazing up at that photo, his child's mind fantasized she was his mother. As readers we understand that image in ways that will take Marion decades to comprehend.