Cutting For Stone

This month I read Abraham Verghese's novel, "Cutting For Stone." It's a national bestseller that a friend recommended to me last year but I'd put off picking it up so I was glad when my book club chose it to read for February. It's the story of twin brothers whose father was a gifted surgeon and whose mother was a nun who died giving birth to them in Ethiopia at the hospital where their parents had worked as a surgical team. When their mother died, their father disappeared and they were raised by two surgeons at that hospital.

It's a tale of complex relationships that revolve around medical settings plus it's historical fiction -- perhaps with a little bit of liberty taken. It also delves into how death is viewed in different cultures - a particularly telling description of the differences between how it is viewed in Ethiopia and Nairobi as opposed to America is recounted on pages 708-710 of the large print edition. It is so well written that I felt immersed in and part of the lives of the main characters. There are also some great quotes throughout the book.

Some of my favorites:

Page 148 in the large print edition: "Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted?"

Page 515: "The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny." (The author on page 963 states this last sentence is a line from Heinrich Zimmer's "The King and the Corpse," edited by Joseph Campbell.)

Although this is a fairly large book, I was able to read it in about 2 1/2 days on vacation. Happy reading - pazt