Cutting for Stone -- A great reading experience

Cutting for Stone, this  intriguing first novel by Dr. Abraham Verghese pulls the reader into the story at once. His characters are people you want to know more about. The story takes place in countries scattered over  three continents and involves a variety of ethnic and religious groups:  Indians, British, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Americans, and more.  People worship one or many gods. All struggle. Some win, some lose, some find peace.  

Young, beautiful Sister Mary Joseph Praise from India is the operating room nurse assisting a brilliant British surgeon Dr. Stone at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.  She learned to know him on the ship coming from India, nursing him to health when he became deathly ill.  He may be a great surgeon but is a flawed human being. Personal relationships are not his strength.

The unexpected premature  birth of the twins  Marion and Shiva to  this nun  is the setting for this novel of passion, personal and political trauma,  and family rifts, and a resolution that leaves one wondering – and yet content. 

The question I am asked is the meaning of the title “cutting for stone.”   The Internet informs me that the phrase derives from the Hippocratic Oath that doctors swear on graduation from medical school.  No surgeon cuts for stone (kidney?) if there is someone better equipped to that. 

This theme of cutting is introduced early in the novel at the impending birth of the twin boys, the main characters.  The Matron of Missing Hospital  stands helplessly over  Sister Mary Joseph’s dying body. She says to Stone, a skilled surgeon: “Your patient, Dr. Stone.”  She wants him to cut, to do a C-section, but he is helpless, unable to function because he loved the woman dying  before  him.  He attempts an abortion with an anatomy book propped in front of him, planning  to crush  the skull and pull the infant out. 

Fortunately,  Dr. Hemalatha, gynecologist, arrives to “cut,” perform a C-section, only to discover that there are two babies waiting to be born. She names them Marion and Shiva.   The babies are joined at the head by a shaft, which she cuts not knowing whether that will start a massive bleed or be the babies’ salvation.  That mashing of one baby’s head is key to later events. Her cut saves their lives.

Both boys become surgeons and Marion, who should have been born second in a normal birth, is the first to see the light of day in a C-section.  I am reminded of the story of Jacob and Esau, sons of the patriarch Isaac, who all their lives vied with one another for their father’s affection, with firstborn Esau selling his birthright to his brother.  

The author enjoys double meanings, so “cutting for stone” as well as  other terms and events have  more than one meaning that weave in and out of the action.  The setting for the book is Missing Hospital, yet the original name for this institution is Mission Hospital. Because it was often misspoken by native speakers, some clerk registered it as Missing Hospital, and that’s what it became.  People and objects are often missing in this novel.  Yet missing does not mean the matter is ended. 

Missing is a finger of Dr. Stone’s hand which he self-amputated when it became infected.  Because he only has four fingers on that hand he is able to poke into body cavities with greater facility than someone with five.  The finger shows up later in a bottle of formaldehyde and becomes a symbol of something bigger than a mere digit.

Missing also is the doctor’s memory of how he impregnated this young nun. It is a mystery to him although he knows he was deeply in love with her.  

Missing also is a letter the desperate young nun wrote to her lover, Dr. Stone, before her death.  It doesn’t show up until the end in the “afterbird,” the Amharic mispronunciation of “afterbirth.” It reveals the events leading up to the  conception.

Missing is Stone as the father of these boys during  their growing up and development. 

But back to “cutting for stone.” The twin boys are brought up by Hema and Ghosh, surgeons at Missing Hospital, in a loving home. Both boys become surgeons, Marion through formal education, Shiva through self-education. Shiva  becomes a  surgeon of women with fistula, a tragic condition that afflicted countless African women  because they were married too  young, received nonexistent prenatal care and came too late for help after the baby was already jammed down the birth canal and hospitals where C-sections could be performed  too distant.  The result was a fistula, or tear between bladder and vagina, causing persistent dribbling of urine.  Such women soon reeked and were ostracized by husband, family and community.  Shiva becomes the world’s expert on fistula surgery and leading advocate for women  in Third World countries for better care of women.

Women with fistula found their way to Shiva by bus, foot, and donkey.  They often came with a piece of paper in their hand that simply said in Amharic “Cutting for Stone.”   Shiva Stone was the expert without having taken the Hippocratic oath.

This is a great novel because, first of all, it is a good story.  It makes the reader want to know what’s coming next.  What will happen to the twins? Will they ever be united with their absentee father?  The reader soon begins to care for them and their generous caretakers Hema and Ghosh and about the conflicts in their lives, which, though in a different culture, are not so different from ours – family tensions, personal traumas, political turmoil.   

The novel is also gripping because the actions of the main characters move them ahead—or backwards. There is clear cause and effect. The twins, their father, their adoptive parents,  and other characters in the story live out their lives using their strengths and weaknesses,  but not without consequences.  

I recommend the book. I understand it has already sold millions. 

Okay, life isn't fair, so what?

What is the best piece of advice someone has given you? 

Someone asked that question and for a moment I couldn't think of an answer. 

My father often mentioned that life isn’t fair. I don’t  think he offered this comment as advice as much as a statement of fact he had learned to be true. He grew up disadvantaged as far as education, social standing, and money were concerned.  But he had above-average intelligence and a huge curiosity as well as compassion for people’s needs. He worked hard to make life a little fairer for people in worse circumstances than his.   

 I didn’t understand his words of wisdom until much, much later, when I was hit with the overwhelming blow  of low income  and single parenthood.

It took me a while to realize  that it’s not what life does to you that matters, but what you do with life. I read the words of the psalmist again and again, “Who passing through the valley of Baca (bitterness) make it a well.”   So I started climbing out of my personal valley of sorrow and bitterness. And climbing. And climbing.  Sometimes it was just clambering.

A second piece of advice came to me much later. I don’t know who said it. But the words were simple:  Be yourself. Don’t try to be like some great person.  Prefer mentors to models.  The temptation is always to use the rich, famous and powerful as models – the celebrity, the powerful, the  top icon on the totem pole.  Yet a  celebrity is just a well-known person, someone puffed by PR people,  not necessarily someone with wisdom to share. A mentor is someone who is ready to guide a younger person through life's rough paths.

Be yourself is not advice for the masses. I look at photos in the daily newspaper of persons who have been newly hired, promoted,  or given awards. There are these rows of mug shots, one after another.   Sometimes, without exception, they all seem to look alike,  especially the women:  same arched eyebrows, same eye makeup, same hairstyle, same hair color,  and sometimes same smile – mostly lots of teeth and little genuine joy. 

When I started writing and speaking, I was looking for models, not mentors.   I began speaking publicly at a time when women in the church were expected to keep silent, so models were few and mentors even rarer.  I tried to copy men, only that was a problem.  A woman trying to sound like a man has a tough battle, lacking the voice and the stature. I couldn’t roar.  I wasn’t about to pound the pulpit.  I wasn’t about to sit back on my chair on the platform with one ankle resting on the other knee like a man, so I had to learn to do it my way.  

I found mentors in older women, not those who had been writers and speakers, but who were wise in living.  For years I looked for an older woman in my community to spend time with, first through circumstances of living close to one such woman and then deliberately.

The first was Hannah Willems who lived across the tracks from us. She was a great encourager.  Then there were Viola Wiebe, former missionary to India,   and Esther Ebel, former dean of women at Tabor College. Each had persisted and excelled in areas without women models.  They intuitively understood my longings and hopes and said, “Katie, you can do it.”  

They had lived in a different era and sometimes a different country, but they understood that women of any era should be given opportunity to use their gifts. I always returned from a visit with one of them ready to pick up my own aspirations once again. 

So what advice would I pass on?  Probably these two cherished items that were passed on to me:  Life isn’t fair but make it fair for others.  Be true to yourself. To achieve that goal find a mentor.  Models won’t always measure up.  

We oldsters are in our own Olympics

I enjoy watching the Olympic trials – the precision, speed, agility, flexibility, endurance, and much more.  At the end of each competition the gold medal winner as well as two runners-up are honored  with the backdrop of the country’s national anthem The rest are losers.

Losers?  Well, hardly.  They also trained, strained, practiced, endured, journeyed to London, yet sometimes “lost” by a small fraction of a second. Still  they are the so-called “losers.”

I think we need to honor  losers  more. They aren’t real losers in any sense of the word.

We live in a win/lose culture. It’s either/or.  If a coach doesn’t produce a winning team, he or she is soon sidelined as the powers-that-be search for someone who will produce winners.   The same happens to players. Similarly, in  the entertainment, business or academic world it is important to stay on top.  Politics is all about winning.

We are encouraged to stay on top, if not by brains, then by luck.  Some people regularly buy lottery tickets when they get gas or groceries; it’s part of their budget.  Others faithfully enter mail sweepstakes, rationalizing that the only investment is the cost of a stamp. And who knows, they might win a few million dollars and live a life of ease forever after. And forever after they will be considered a “winner.”

The other day in conversation friends implied I was a loser. Almost. As I left the church service, someone asked me, “Did you drive yourself to church?”  The implication was that people my age didn’t drive. Earlier, during coffee time, someone asked if I was still writing.  Again, the  implication was that as a member of the older generation I was probably losing my faculties. 

And I am, in some respects. I have diminishing eyesight. I have to admit it. I sometimes request people to repeat themselves, especially those people accustomed to doing business over the telephone mumbling the same words over and over again.  Names of people I know very well suddenly  slip into the black hole of forgetfulness to pop up about ten minutes later when I don’t need them.

Wrinkles are showing up in surprising places. Beauty is equated with young people with smooth skin, supple limbs, and a full head of hair. By implication the old are ugly and not as easy to look at. Old then becomes a four-letter word.

Physically, my strength is declining.   I said good-bye to agility a long time ago. Gold winner swimmer Michael Phelps at 27 sees himself as possibly declining in physical prowess.  Reporters are making a big deal about  one female gymnast who is about 40. Olympic winners don't include those my age. 

I lose friends more often because of death. 

We of my generation may be losing in some respects, but we are winners in other areas.  We are winners when it comes to experience and wisdom. We are winners in knowing what life is all about. We know much about dealing with loss and suffering, about hurt and forgiveness, about betrayal and faithfulness. We are winners in knowing that we can have faith without certitude or even clarity in every area.

Like the athletes we have gotten up before dawn many a morning to tend to a child’s need for comfort. We  have stayed up late, very late, waiting for a child to come home. We have trained, strained, endured, fallen, picked ourselves up and moved on.  

 

Yet these actions are not the ones awarded  gold medals.   Nor do we expect one.  All we want is to not be relegated  to the sidelines before we get there. That comes soon enough.  The "old" winner is the one who chooses to live until the end. Encourage us to do that.

Nurtured into violence

It is now a few weeks after the mass shooting in a Colorado theater, and as many have predicted, the furor has already calmed down.  People are going about their business. They have other things to do than obsess about this aberration by one man who didn’t know what he was doing.

I don’t know much how the human mind works, but I have wondered whether he would have attempted such a crazy exploit, even if mentally unbalanced, if he hadn’t been nurtured into violence all his life.

Decades ago, I recall two boys about my age tearing into one another behind the old skating rink.  Of course, we children all gathered to watch.  As did some parents.

The father of one of the boys, a prominent businessman in town, instead of pulling the boys apart, acted as his son’s second, and stalked around the squirming knot of boys, urging his son to really give it to the other boy.  Even when grown men in a drunken brawl on a Saturday night staggered around, jabbing one another, a crowd always gathered.  It gave them a charge and encouraged the fighters.   

Such incidents puzzled me then as does the present increasing trend to violence to settle disagreements.  That father believed his son’s smashing the other boy in the nose was the way to stay on top. 

In sports violence is increasing.  Consider games like football and wrestling.  Recent news reports mentioned one football coach promising bonuses to players who seriously sidelined opposing players.  A athletic director shoved reports of sexual abuse aside to keep the university on the winning side.

We are culturally committed to violence and  nurturing ourselves into accepting it as normal.  I sometimes do an unscientific experiment using my TV remote.  I flip slowly from channel to channel, spending no more than one or two minutes on each.  If I see a gun, a dead body, fighting, or people blasting one another with words, I move on.  Sometimes that leaves me few channels to watch.

 More and more shows use the  word “war” in them:  Storage Wars, Parking Wars, Man Versus Food, and now the new  Market Warriors, etc. Even a cooking contest is staged to look like a war:  The contestants line up solemnly before the judges  looking like condemned  criminals, and when declared losers, slink away through a back door as if to a dungeon.   

Movies and television and video games are a particularly violent form of entertainment in this age of violence. All these forms of media have a special affinity for violent behavior because they deal mainly with action, and the extreme form of action is violence of any kind. 

How much excitement and suspense, the main attraction of movies, can you pack into a film about peace and harmony?  Life that is decent, orderly, and peaceful does not attract viewers or readers.  Even in some so-called religious films,  directors find it hard to stay away from portraying violent incidents to keep the interest up. 

TV and videos have a particularly strong effect on the viewer because where they are watched there are no back pews. Everyone has a ringside seat, upfront and central. The bad guys and the insignificant good buys are killed with less compunction than most people squash a mosquito.  Motor accidents, war casualties, police beatings, theater mass shooting are all tossed into the same category – and dismissed by the viewer: Now I see it; now I don’t.

This unintended nurturing into violence makes viewers callous to other’s hurts and more ready to inflict injury on others when upset.  I find TV characters are always shouting at one another,  being less than civil. And no one dies in great agony.  Violence on TV is painless. 

Can this overload of violence do anything but shape attitudes toward the role violence plays?   How can we live watching people shouting at one another on the screen  without eventually seeing it as normal? And natural. I see our culture  caught in a riptide like a weak swimmer and not struggling to get free.  Violence whether in its mild forms or violent ones like the Colorado shooting is becoming acceptable.

Jacques Ellul in Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective sets forth rules that to govern violence:

1.    Once a person starts using violence, he or she will never stop using it, for it is easier, more practical  than other methods of solving problems. Violence is a primitive shortcut to one’s goals. It is simple and effective.

2.    There is no distinction between a good and bad use of the sword. “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52).

3.    All violence is identical whether physical, economic, or psychological. Jesus declares there is no difference between murdering a fellow human being or being angry with him or her through insults (Matt. 5:21-22).  Another writer adds that to condone violence of one kind, even psychological manipulation of an evangelist, to persuade people to come to the altar, is to consent to the adversary to use it too, whether a propagandist, advertiser, or murdered.

4.    Violence begets violence –nothing else. Not freedom, not liberty, not equality.

5.    Persons who use violence always try to justify both it and themselves. Violence is so unappealing, writes Ellul, that every user of it has produced lengthy apologies to demonstrate it is just and morally warranted.

The question is how to persuade this  huge elephant cavorting up and down our main streets to leave. It is  destroying our structures yet we enjoy watching its antics.

The day I (almost) shook hands with the King of England

The British are celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a momentous occasion.  Sixty years on the throne.  She is the reigning monarch of 16 sovereign nations. And they still like her.

In 1939 I (almost) shook hands with King George VI.  Kings and queens were mysterious,  distant figures in my young mind.  I had played with paper dolls resembling their two young daughters Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, but it was hard to imagine what they were like in real flesh.

Then, in the year I began high school,   George and Elizabeth visited Canada.  A few years earlier he had ascended to the throne following the abdication of his brother Edward,  who declined the position in favor of “the woman I love,” Wally Simpson.  That  created quite a furor in the commonwealth. 

We children were quite excited to hear that the king and queen were coming to Saskatoon, and that we would be trucked (literally) into the city from our little village of Blaine Lake if our parents weren’t able to drive us there.  Each town had been given its allotted spot along the parade route to watch the king and queen in their open vehicle smile and do the royal wave.  It was a quick drive-by.  Now what?

Someone shouted that the royal pair would be leaving from the Canadian National Railways train station shortly.  We young teenagers rushed there, and sure enough, the king and queen showed up in the open rear platform and waved once again.  And I, having squeezed myself in front of some adults,  stood as close as six feet from them.   

That fall, as Hitler’s armies invaded Europe, including England,  King George VI spoke to his people scattered over the world by means of radio, quoting Minnie Louise Haskins: “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.”

The English people walked in darkness that fall as the bombs fell on London  and their king gave them hope and courage.

I recall his death due to lung cancer and the ascension of the present Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, a very charming young woman.   But then our family moved to the United States and keeping track of British royalty was a little more difficult. Americans put their energy into politicians, not a royal family.

I returned to Canada regularly to visit parents and siblings.  In 1994 as my mother lay dying in the hospital, each evening my sister Anne and I returned home to watch Anne of Green Gables videos together and retrieve memories of these wonderful novels about a vivacious but courageous  young girl. 

One evening we came home to find out that Princess Diana, the people’s princess, had been killed in a tragic car accident.  Her marriage  to the Queen’s son had become unraveled earlier.For the next weeks back home I watched the people grieve for this young woman and the tragedy of her life.  Queen Elizabeth found it hard to accept this and her son’s affair with Camilla. But in the extended royal family, something was always happening.

I watched the wedding of her grandson William’s marriage to Kate from my easy chair and scanned all photos to catch glimpses of familiar faces and how they had changed.  I couldn’t get over my need to keep  track of British royalty.

Now it is sixty years since Elizabeth II took over the throne,  making hundreds of trips to all the  countries we children studied in geography classes.   The  sun never sets on on the British Commonwealth, we were told.  The map of the world showed a lot of “pink,” the color of British-controlled territory.  Much of that has changed, but the tradition of British royalty goes on.

The queen is the titular head of these 16 sovereign nations.  As such she is the symbol of tradition and  stability,  accompanied with a lot of pomp and splendor. And lots of money. The upkeep of royalty  is expensive. 

Prime ministers come and prime ministers go, but kings and queens go on for forever, unhampered by political bickering and jostling, as was the custom several centuries ago.  She binds the people together.