The Amateur Bookworm

Below I have included the review from NY times. Here is the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/books/review/Wagner-t.html “I will not cut for stone,” runs the text of the Hippocratic oath, “even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.” Those words provide an epigraph partway through Abraham Verghese’s first novel, “Cutting for Stone,” and also explain the surname of its narrator, Marion Stone, along with his twin brother, Shiva, and their father, the almost entirely absent surgeon Thomas Stone. Absent in body only: in spirit, Thomas’s disappearance after their birth haunts and drives this book. Yet until the reader comes across the oath, well into the novel, the title may seem pleasing to the ear but puzzling to the mind: it tries to do too many jobs at once. It neither suggests the book’s action — as, say, “Digging to America” does — nor evokes its mood, as “Bleak House” does. Still,...

I enjoyed learning about the unique landscape and culture of the Kamchatsky peninsula. I was a bit surprised by the striking similarity of attitudes of locals against foreigners. It was interesting to reflect on the positions assumed by women in a wide spectrum of society and how the peninsula is dealing with new cultural wave. Overall it was a good read. I was a bit disappointed by the ending although the book did a great job of tying all the different characters to the primary event and bringing it all together in the end.   Below I copy pasted the review article from LA times - it beautifully captures the essence of this book.  https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fate-and-misogyny-on-julia-phillipss-disappearing-earth/   EARLY IN Michelangelo Antonioni’s film   L’Avventura  (1960), a beautiful Italian woman named Anna disappears during a boating trip off Sicily. While searching for her, Anna’s boyfriend and her best friend fall in love and start an ...