Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

I first read this book in 2010 having purchased it, as I do many of my books, at an airport - This time it was Gatwick.  My sister's recent musing that my brother, a surgeon, might enjoy this book led me to pick it up again from my bookshelf and pore through its pages as though there was no tomorrow. I am certain something will trigger me to read it again a third time....And even then there will still be some unfinished business that beckons me to reopen the book.

As I flipped through the pages in this book tears rolled, unbidden, down my cheeks.  I could not tell whether it was the book or the state of my emotions. What is it about writers that they are able to scratch the deepest recesses and draw juxtapositions (my most frequently used word) through the fiction that they purport to transcribe?  When I read the book the first time round in 2010 the sole sentence that I bothered to underline was 'indeed to think of life as tragic is a posture of delusion, for life is infinitely worse than tragic'.

The book's title derives from the ancient Greek Hippocratic Oath which includes the phrase: "I will not cut for stone, even for the patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners,".  It is a book by a physician and perhaps physicians would be better able to analyse  the book in a way that we mere mortals might not.  Indeed some terms were foreign to me as a laywoman but they demystified - to some extent - the profession.

The saga is broad and takes us through India, Africa and the United States of America. Each part of the story covering a distinct part of a generation very different from the other but with the characters intertwined.  There are so many quotes - medical and otherwise - that I would like to remember for a rainy day.   Except for Genet, I loved most of the characters, even Dr Thomas Stone - the estranged father. My best character is Matron...The Doyen of the mission hospital in Addis.

I am drawn to the family strands throughout the book from Justifus and Hilda Stone in India; their only son Dr Thomas Stone in Ethiopia & Boston; to the twins Marion and Shiva Stone (from Dr Thomas' one night stand with Sister Mary Joseph Praise) in Ethiopia and the linkages between them. I love the twins' adoptive parents, Hema and Ghosh, cast in that role so unexpectedly but who take the challenge in its stride. The unrequited and forbidden love by Sister Mary Joseph Praise for Dr Thomas Stone was nothing but intriguing. I am sure one could spin many a yarn from real life that matches those of the characters because indeed life is not always so linear even when one 'goes to the beginning and goes on until they come to the end'.  From this family saga, I was touched by a comment made by Hema which I hope I shall always remember '...A mother loves her children equally...but sometimes one child needs more help, more attention, to get by in the world.'.  One might wonder whether indeed mothers have the wisdom to make this judgement call and I may be forgiven in perhaps concluding that this call is a burden too great for a mother to decide upon. For in so doing, might she not hurt the other child whom she thinks needs less help? This reminded me of a discussion I often had with my own mother - Did she love me less than she did my more pliant sister or did I need more moulding & discipline? 

Marion refers to a time when he  '... is fearful that he might sink into an abyss and where there is no promise of  return'.  Although this is whilst he is in hospital there are many instances through out the book that remind me of my mother's  reference to the idiom 'crossing the Rubicon'.  Like Caesar's army,  many  actions by the characters are like 'crossing the Rubicon from which there is no return'.  In real life, we make choices and take chances and when we do, we must go forth and live by them without the benefit of a second chance.  Most of the characters (major or peripheral) face many voids...Be it Hilda, Thomas, Sister Mary, Shiva, Genet or even Marion. Voids that destroy them or threaten to draw them into the abyss that is so aptly defined by Marion.

Although not my forte, I am somewhat amazed about the historical (political) backdrop of Ethiopia - from Emperor Menelik, Emperor Haile Selassie, Colonel Haile Meriem Mengistu and the start of the Ethiopian Eritrean conflict. Every time I bump into an Ethiopian or Eritrean, I will always think of Marion and Shiva Stone.  An Eritrean taxi driver to Gatwick airport once educated me on his view of the struggle between Eritrea & Ethiopia. I ended up giving him a huge tip for all Eritrean troubles!

Ultimately, there is too much untimely pain, tragedy, suffering and death in the book. Indeed the book starts with a verse 'And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well...'  I guess death is inevitable but it would seem that the author quite enjoyed to dispense of his characters before they had experienced the fullness of life.