I have jokingly poked fun at my fellow LOL’ers who come to book club for the wine and the food and of course, the fun. Some of us read more than others. There’s Vikki, consumer of books extraordinaire. A member of three book clubs, she is a voracious reader. I marvel at her ability to make it through, not just one, but three novels a month. Then there’s Gail, who I believe bought all our book selections for the year back in September and by Christmas was crying for more. And we have our cast of characters who read the occasional book, try to come to the meetings, but for reasons like demanding work schedules and even more insistent family commitments and upcoming events, struggle to get through a few books a season.

I love to tease my dear friend, KP, who started reading Cutting for Stone last month, and still isn’t through it, but the truth is, she has the craziest–though most exciting–spring imaginable. Her daughter is getting married next month and KP, along with fellow member, Sheila, has spent the last year planning and putting together the lovely affair, largely because her daughter is also…get this super girl…graduating from medical school this year and moving into her first house! Of course mama has traveled back and forth to Alberta to help out, not to mention organized all aspects of the event to be held here, in Kelowna. She and hubby, David, have also devoted a significant amount of time to their home and yard in preparation for guests and garden parties. If anyone has an excuse for being a little behind in her reading, it’s KP.

Then there’s me. What’s my excuse? I find myself, just two days before our meeting to discuss this book, not even half way through it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t the organizer of the book club be on top of her reading? I’d love to list off my reasons, not the least of which is the sprint triathlon I signed up for. Sorry but I’m swimming instead of sorting through my book,  running instead of reading, biking instead of blogging.

BUT…please don’t take my tardiness as an indication of my feelings about this book…my lack of organization, perhaps, but not a shortage of enthusiasm. Cutting for Stone is exceptional…though long…

So far the twins are still babies and the development of the wonderful Hema and her smitten fellow surgeon, Ghosh, is intriguing and the story captivating. Reading reviews of this book, a number of people complained that it is wrought with medical terminology that slows the pace. I have to disagree. Fair enough…I live with a physician so the language isn’t unfamiliar, but I actually appreciate the truth and learning about medicine. And let’s face it–when you buy a book written by a doctor about doctors, well…

So, I leave you with something exciting. Remember when I was 27% thru (according to my trusty Kindle)? I’m at 31% now!

Interested in a little review singing the book’s praises? Click here:http://bestsellers.about.com/od/fictionreviews/gr/cutting_stone

Read on!

Cheers,

Shannon

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One of the things I am enjoying about my Kindle reading experience, is the capability to record notes at specific points in the text. Where as I used to run around with sticky notes and a pen, inevitably finding myself without one or the other as I came across a particularly powerful piece of text I wished to highlight, now I simply scroll to the section and type a note. Recorded notes are then saved in a list. What still feels strange is not knowing what page those notes are on. Instead they are recorded as location #’s, which ultimately means zippo to me.

Ah, the give and take of technology.

As I continue to read this fine novel, I am compelled to share with you now, some of the notes I’ve made.

When Hemlatha is rocking the newborn twins, she is exhausted from the traumatic delivery and grieving the loss of Sister Mary Joseph Praise, but she is also elated at the miracle of the boys’ birth. The mixed emotions of the moment define our lives, full of sky-kissing highs and earth shattering lows and Verghese captures the sentiment beautifully:

The twins were breathing quietly, their fingers fanned over their cheeks. They belonged in her arms. How beautiful and horrible life is, Hema thought; too horrible to simply call tragic. Life is worse than tragic. Sister Mary, bride of Christ, now gone from the world into which she brought two children.”

And again, this very poetic author captures a poignant moment when Hema, still holding the new twins, realizes the inevitable coming and going of life, the giveth and taketh:

Hema felt light-headed, giddy. I won the lottery without buying a ticket, she thought. These two babies plugged a hole in my heart that I didn’t know I had until now.

But there was a danger in the analogy: she’d heard of a railway porter at Madras Central Station who won lakhs and lakhs of rupees, only to have his life fall apart so that he soon returned to the platform. When you win, you often lose, that’s just a fact. There’s no currency to straighten a warped spirit, or open a closed heart, a selfish heart–she was thinking of Stone. Stone had prayed for a miracle. The silly man didn’t see that these newborns were miracles.

And because I’m married to a physician and indeed, because the LOL member who selected this month’s book is a physician (Gail), I must include this section, which I noted for what I call a physician-like moment. There’s humor in the comment, yet there’s something so sensual about the way Verghese compares the act of lovemaking to that of practicing medicine. The language is the same; the intent is entirely different, yet there is an intimacy to both as Dr. Ghosh–mourning what he thinks is unrequited love from Hema–prepares  to engage a prostitute.

He had a theory that bedroom Amharic and bedside Amharic were really the same thing: Please lie down. Take off your shirt. Open your mouth. Take a deep breath…The language of love was the same as the language of medicine.

I love that! Clearly author Verghese is the kind of physician who relishes the art inherent in the science.

See you on Free-for-all-Friday.

Cheers!

Shannon

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Abraham Verhese, New York Times bestselling author of Cutting For Stone

Why is it that the months seem to be soaring by this spring? According to my Kindle, I’m 27% of the way through our current novel, Cutting for Stone. With our book club meeting to discuss this novel scheduled for next week, I am lamenting the fact I am not a speed reader. Yikes!

I’m enjoying the book immensely, however, so should be able to devote some evening time to it. The beautiful prose combined with intriguing characters will keep me turning the pages.

At this point, the great conflict between the narrating protagonist, Marion Stone, and his twin brother, Shiva, has not yet developed–probably because they are newborn babies! Although it’s interesting, and I do appreciate the manner in which Verhese hints at the conflict to come between brothers and father and brother, as the competent but completely crazed surgeon attempting to deliver his own children, Dr. Thomas Stone, makes a mess of things in the operating theater. It isn’t until Sister Mary Joseph Praise is on her death bed in delivery that Dr. Stone admits to himself that he is in love with her. After she saved his life on that dreadful ship and then worked with him for seven years at Missing Hospital, the two became more than colleagues. Connected constantly, they became as one in many ways, with Sister Mary reading and meeting the needs of the surgeon at work, and clearly, outside of the operating theater as well. Dr. Stone is sadly tragic as his focussed obsession with work leaves him blind to the gift of love before him. As Sister Mary slips away, Dr. Stone’s grief manifests itself in a loss of control, both surgically, as he attempts to kill Shiva in order to save the mother, and is unable to perform the C-section the situation calls for, and of course, personally, as he is about to lose the love of his life.

Meanwhile, the very competent, bold and beautiful obstetrician, Hema, is enroute back to Missing Hospital after visiting her parents in India, when she too is called to dramatically examine her life. As the plane she is traveling spirals out of control, the ocean below rising up to meet the belly of the bird, Hema is struck with the realization that she hasn’t led the beautiful life she’d like to. As  a young boy is thrown off balance, his foot becoming wedged between two jute sacks, resulting in a fracture, Hema comforts him and it occurs to her,

…the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled. She was ashamed that such a simple insight should have eluded her all these years. Make something beautiful of your life , Wasn’t that the adage Sister Mary Joseph Praise lived by? …

…this whimpering little fellow with his shiny eyes and long eyelashes, his oversize head and the puppy-dog scent of his unruly hair…he was about the most beautiful thing one could make.

And with that, wonderful foreshadowing is set in motion, as surely Hema will live to make her way back to Missing, where she will mother the abandoned boys.

See you on Wednesday for more on this marvelous book.

Cheers,

Shannon

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My husband is a trauma doctor and a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu…he sees blood in both places. So where does he stand on the legalization of mixed martial arts in Canada…and how do I…nauseous at the sight of blood…feel about the whole thing? Check into this week’s Wed to the Med. Then tell me, what do you think?

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The first quality I noted when I started this month’s book, Cutting for Stone, was the beautifully descriptive prose. Certainly author Abraham Verghese is poet. Right off the top, a lovely description of the change of seasons in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, captured my attention: Overnight in that hushed silence, the meskel flowers bloomed, turning the hillsides of Addis Ababa into gold. In the meadows around Missing the sedge won its battle over mud, and a brilliant carpet now swept right up to the paved threshold of the hospital, holding forth the promise of something more substantial than cricket, croquet, or shuttlecock.

And this one, describing that soulful gratitude we are sometimes overcome with when we are one with our surroundings, self, and something higher:

I hear the high-pitched humming of the stars and I feel exultant, thankful for my insignificant place in the galaxy.

I particularly love that sentence! It’s so beautifully humble, so knee-bent grateful.

Certainly Verghese is a poet.

And this is his strength. The characters are very intriguing. Our protagonist, the twin Marion Stone, and his brother, Shiva (whom we really  have yet to get to know at the 1/4 mark), both physicians, and their beautiful and loyal mother, the nun Mary Joseph Praise, who meets and saves the life of the boys’ father, the noted surgeon, Dr. Thomas Stone, while the two sail on some God awful cargo ship to Africa. Described as “The BLACK-AND-RED FLOATING PACKET of misery that called itself a ship,” the conditions sound akin to the voyage described in our last novel, The Kitchen House.

I have to say, having sailed the Greek islands a few summers ago with good friends, I am no stranger to sea sickness, and just reading about the voyage with its cramped quarters and endless tossing and rocking and the sad, sad state of affairs as desperate passengers cling to life, made me slightly woozy!

It is upon this fateful voyage, however, that Sister Mary Joseph falls in love with her doctor Stone–and he with her. I leave you today with another lovely passage describing how the Sister knew Dr. Stone was not only the most competent physician she’d ever meet, but something more:

She felt such confidence in his being that her fear for Anjali vanished. Kneeling by his side, she was euphoric, as if she had only at that moment come of age as a nurse because this was the first time she had encountered a physician like him. She bit her tongue because she wanted so much to say all this and more to him.

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