From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Feb 02 2009 - 08:45:51 EST
"... the story touches the edges of history. Primarily it's an indictment of
the cruelty of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. As the boys grow up they
both come to fall in love with a young African woman named Genet, the love
interest of the plot, who is the daughter of a rebel figure, Zemui, and who
later becomes an Eritrean rebel herself."
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese By WILLIAM J. COBB Jan. 30, 2009,
5:52PM
*CUTTING FOR STONE.*
By Abraham Verghese.
Knopf. 560 pp. $26.95.
Abraham Verghese is a physician whose nonfiction books *The Tennis Partner**My
Own Country* received rave reviews. Now appears his much-anticipated first
novel, *Cutting for Stone*. Set primarily in an Ethiopian hospital called
Missing (a misprint of "mission") in the capital of Addis Ababa, it's a
contradiction of sorts — half literary novel, half soap opera, an exhausting
and fantastic evocation of the life of a pair of twins whose mother was a
nun and father an English surgeon.
The twins both grow up to be doctors and become patients in a
ground-breaking live organ transplant, performed by their estranged father,
which is both the tragic and triumphant end of the novel. Written with a
lyrical flair, told through a compassionate first-person point of view, and
rich with medical insight and information, it's a novel that transcends its
weaknesses and makes for a memorable read.
Spanning the half-century between the boys' birth in 1954 to the discovery
of a lost letter that solves a plot mystery in 2004, the story touches the
edges of history. Primarily it's an indictment of the cruelty of Ethiopian
Emperor Haile Selassie. As the boys grow up they both come to fall in love
with a young African woman named Genet, the love interest of the plot, who
is the daughter of a rebel figure, Zemui, and who later becomes an Eritrean
rebel herself. Deplorable poverty and vicious dictatorial rule are what
these people fight against.
Here's an example of that viciousness: At one point the twins, Shiva and
Marion, see the emperor pass by; he waves to them graciously. "It was 1963,
the year Kennedy was assassinated. ... Of the twenty-six cars at His
Majesty's disposal, twenty were Rolls-Royces. One was a Christmas present
from the Queen of England. ... An old woman waving her paper must have
caught the Emperor's eye. The Rolls stopped. The old woman, bowing, thrust
her paper to the window with both hands. She seemed to be speaking. The
Emperor was evidently listening. The old woman became more animated,
gesturing with her hands, her body rocking, and now we could hear her
clearly. The car moved on, but the old lady wasn't done. She tried to run
with the Rolls, fingers on the window. When she couldn't keep up, she
yelled, 'Leba, leba' — 'Thief, thief.' She looked around for a stone,
finding none, took off her shoe and bounced it off the trunk before anyone
could react. I saw only the rise of the policeman's club and then she was
slumped on the ground, like a sack. The palace gates swung shut. The old
woman, motionless, nevertheless got a vicious kick to her ribs."
The mention of Kennedy and the Queen of England underscore the implicit
cooperation of Western governments with Selassie's despotic rule.
*Cutting for Stone's *most melodramatic element is its plot, which is
supercharged by a series of mysteries that include the dire fate which
befell their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, the less-than-immaculate
conception of the twins, the unknown existence of a letter that explains
all, and how and when the beautiful Genet will tear apart the bond between
the brothers. The novel is a bit of a potboiler, full of minor characters
who have significant roles in plot twists, and that fuels in part its
excessive length and numerous digressions.
Verghese's first book described working at an AIDS clinic in Tennessee, and
his medical expertise informs and enlivens much of this story. He describes
the death of Sister Mary Joseph Praise while giving birth to the twins in
lavish and queasy detail — the introductory section of the novel spans 166
pages. After their mother dies, the twins are adopted by two other doctors,
Hema and Ghosh. These two doctors become the pillars of their world, guiding
them through entanglements with Ethiopian resistance to Selassie and toward
a life as surgeons.
All through the novel Shiva and Marion struggle with their cursed history,
trying to unravel the mystery of their conception and their abandonment by
their father, Thomas Stone. He's a good man with a troubled past: a dominant
father and a mother who died of syphilis complications, contracted from her
husband.
Why did Thomas Stone abandon his sons? How did he and Sister Mary Joseph
conceive them? (The old-fashioned way, an easy guess.) Which of the sons
will live and which will die? All of these central mysteries are presented
early in the novel. Ultimately all are answered.
Contemporary literary comparisons are not easy with Verghese. At times he
seems to be reaching for the magical realism of Gabriel Garcí a Márquez, but
with a more pragmatic bent. He is of Indian heritage but does not have
Salman Rushdie's satiric tendencies. He glorifies doctors but does not
possess the irony or levity of John Irving's sick physician in *The Cider
House Rules*.
Ultimately, he is a particular hybrid creature, both novelist and physician,
and like a mythical beast, has a style and magic all his own.
*William J. Cobb's most recent novel is **Goodnight, Texas**.*