Category: Reviews

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

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“I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.” ~ the Hippocratic Oath

We’re in the middle of Virago Reading Week at the moment (I posted my thoughts on Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier on Tuesday and will be posting on The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim at the weekend) but today I want to talk about a non-Virago book I read earlier this month. It’s taken me a while to put this post together as I’ve had trouble finding the words to convey how wonderful the book was.

Cutting for Stone is the story of Marion and Shiva, the identical twin sons of Sister Mary Joseph Praise, an Indian nun, and Thomas Stone, a British surgeon, who are both working at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. When Mary Joseph Praise dies in childbirth, Thomas Stone is unable to cope and, refusing to take responsibility for his children, disappears from the hospital. It falls to two of Missing’s other doctors, Hema and Ghosh, to give the twins a loving home and ensure their safety amid the political instability and military coups that affected life in Ethiopia in the second half of the twentieth century.

Cutting for Stone has an epic feel, spanning several continents and several decades. Through the eyes of our narrator, Marion Stone, we meet the people who live in and around Missing Hospital from the Matron and the Staff Probationer to Thomas Stone’s former maid, Rosina, and her daughter, Genet, the girl Marion loves. All of the characters, even the less likeable ones, have a lot of depth and as we learn more about them, we are able to understand what makes them behave the way they do. But at the heart of the story is the relationship between Marion and Shiva. Conjoined twins, born attached at the head, they have a very special bond which is put to the test several times throughout the novel.

There are some very detailed and graphic descriptions of surgical procedures throughout the whole book. This didn’t really bother me, and a lot of it was very interesting, but I feel I should warn you so that those of you who are squeamish can be prepared! Without even reading the author bio, it was obvious that Abraham Verghese must be a doctor himself because the language he uses is very technical. The fact that the book was written by a physician gives it a real authenticity and the author’s own passion for medicine and healing shines through. Medical care in 1950s Ethiopia was very basic and I had a lot of sympathy for the Matron of Missing Hospital, who did her best for the patients under her care despite the limited resources available to her. I could really feel her frustration as the hospital patrons gave her Bibles in place of the medicine and food she so desperately needed.

I think this is the first book I’ve read that is set in Ethiopia. Before I started reading I knew almost nothing about the country and its political history, but this didn’t matter at all as everything was explained in a way that was both informative and easy to understand. Little facts and details were dropped into the story, building up a clear picture of Marion’s life in Ethiopia. I love books like this one that leave me feeling that I’ve really learned something new while being entertained by a great story at the same time!

Although I’ve had a copy of Cutting for Stone since last summer I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it and hadn’t felt like reading it until I saw how many people had named it as one of their top books of 2010 and I finally decided I’d better read it as soon as possible, in the hope that it might become one of my own top books of 2011. Well, even though it’s still only January, I can’t imagine I’ll be reading a lot of books this year that are better than this one.

Highly recommended.

Virago Reading Week: The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

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Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier was written during World War I and published in 1918. The soldier of the title is Christopher Baldry, who has just been sent home from a hospital in Boulogne. Chris is suffering from severe amnesia and is unable to remember the last fifteen years of his life. He can’t wait to be reunited with his girlfriend Margaret Allington, the daughter of an innkeeper on Monkey Island. Unfortunately, though, Margaret is no longer his girlfriend – she’s married to another man and is now Mrs Grey. And to make matters even more complicated, Chris has a wife of his own.

The story is narrated by Jenny, Chris’s cousin, who has been staying at his home, Baldry Court, with his wife, Kitty. Jenny is unmarried but appears to be in love with Chris herself and is devoted to making him happy. When it becomes obvious that Chris really can’t remember Kitty and is still in love with Margaret, the three women are faced with a decision. Is it better for him to be ‘cured’ and regain his memory, even if it means bringing back the horrors of war – or should he be left as he is, blissfully unaware of what has happened during the last fifteen years?

Despite being a quick read at less than 200 pages, The Return of the Soldier raises some interesting issues and leaves the reader with a lot to think about. Although the title character is a First World War soldier, this is not really a book about the war itself and we learn almost nothing about what Chris experienced (in fact, I felt that we didn’t really get to know Chris very well at all). Instead, West takes the war as a starting point to explore some of the consequences that arose from it, such as memory loss as a symptom of the shell shock which many soldiers suffered due to their horrific experiences in the trenches.

But to me, the major theme of this novel was West’s portrayal of class differences, with the rich, spoilt Kitty on one side and the poor, plain Margaret on the other. Kitty treats Margaret with disdain and contempt and Jenny initially shares the same views. I actually found the first couple of chapters quite difficult to read because of their nasty attitudes. For example, this is what Jenny thinks of Margaret on their first meeting:

She was repulsively furred with neglect and poverty, as even a good glove that has dropped down behind a bed in a hotel and has lain undisturbed for a day or two is repulsive when the chambermaid retrieves it from the dust and fluff.

Eventually Jenny’s attitude starts to change and she begins to see why Chris loves Margaret so much. However, Kitty’s character is never really developed at all. I was expecting Kitty and her relationship with Chris to play a bigger part in the story, but this didn’t happen. Instead, as Margaret comes into the forefront of the story and we start to see her inner beauty and warmth, Kitty’s role becomes less significant.

This book can easily be read in one sitting, which is exactly what I did as I didn’t want to put it down. Rebecca West’s writing is beautiful and for such a short book it was very moving and poignant. Just a word of warning, though – don’t read the back cover first as it gives the ending away!

I read this book as part of the Virago Reading Week hosted by Carolyn of A Few of My Favourite Books and Rachel of Book Snob.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

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I’m planning to read a lot of Victorian classics this year for the Victorian Literature Challenge (and because I love reading them anyway, of course) so I decided to start with one that has been on my TBR pile for a long time: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.

Last year I read Bleak House and although I didn’t love it, it didn’t put me off reading more Dickens. However, this one at first felt very similar and some of the aspects of Bleak House that I didn’t like were present here too (a huge number of characters were introduced within the first 100 pages and a lot of different storylines were begun then abandoned for several chapters). I wondered if I really wanted to continue, or if I should choose a different Dickens book to read instead. Then suddenly, things improved. The story started to make sense and I found I was enjoying it. Really enjoying it!

Our Mutual Friend opens with Gaffer Hexam and his daughter Lizzie discovering a dead body in the Thames. The body is assumed to be that of John Harmon, who was on his way to London to marry Bella Wilfer. John’s father had recently died and one of the conditions of his will was that unless John married Bella, he would not be allowed to claim his inheritance.

Bella is disappointed when she learns that he has drowned. It’s not fair: not only has she missed out on the money, now she’s going to have to wear mourning for a man that she’s never met and who died before they were even married! Mr and Mrs Boffin, the kind-hearted couple who inherit the Harmon fortune in John’s absence, feel sorry for her and invite her to stay with them. However, the Boffins soon become the target of fortune hunters and blackmailers such as Silas Wegg and Mr Venus.

Being almost 800 pages long, and being Dickens, this is only one small part of the story. There are several other plots and sub-plots which eventually become woven together – and some very memorable characters, including Jenny Wren, the ‘Dolls’ Dressmaker’, Mrs Higden, who lives her life in terror of the workhouse, and Bradley Headstone, a murderous schoolmaster who falls in love with Lizzie Hexam.

Although I did enjoy this book and found most of it entertaining and gripping, I did struggle with the chapters that took place in the ‘fashionable world’ of the Veneerings’ dining room. This world of dinner parties and politics contrasts sharply with the other main setting of the book, the River Thames, where most of the action takes place. We meet the people who earn their living from the river, we spend some time in the riverside inns and taverns, and in a way the river becomes the most important ‘character’ in the book.

And as the great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to her view in the gloom, so she stood on the river’s brink unable to see into the vast blank misery of a life suspected, and fallen away from by good and bad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching away to the great ocean, Death.

I liked both of the two main female characters. Lizzie Hexam is a typical Dickens heroine, but she didn’t irritate me like Esther Summerson did in Bleak House. Bella Wilfer, though, turned out to be a surprisingly complex character. Although she was quite self-absorbed and materialistic, I liked her because she was warm-hearted and despite admitting she wanted to marry a man with money, she also seemed to feel genuinely guilty about it. Money, and how it can change people, is one of the main themes of the book, as Bella explains to her father here:

And yet, Pa, think how terrible the fascination of money is! I see this, and hate this, and dread this, and don’t know but that money might make a much worse change in me. And yet I have money always in my thoughts and my desires; and the whole life I place before myself is money, money, money, and what money can make of life!’

Fathers and daughters play a big part in the story and it’s interesting that with only a few exceptions, the relationship is always the same – a strong, loyal and loving daughter with a weak, villainous or child-like father. Mr Wilfer is described as ‘cherubic’ and devoted to Bella, who treats him like a baby. Then there’s Pleasant Riderhood and her criminal father, Rogue, as well as Lizzie and her father, Gaffer, who was a former associate of Rogue’s. And there’s Jenny Wren, who refers to her alcoholic father as her ‘bad child’ and makes him sit in the corner in disgrace.

Our Mutual Friend is such a big, complex novel it does require the reader to invest a lot of time and effort in it, but it was definitely worth it for me! I now feel much happier about reading more Dickens in the future.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

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For some reason I have found this review very difficult to write and have started and re-started it several times. I think the problem is that Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a very simple novel, but also a very complex one. On one level it’s a gentle, romantic story about sixty-eight year old Major Ernest Pettigrew and his love for Mrs Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani woman who runs the village shop. But there’s so much more to the book than that. In Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson explores a number of issues including racism, religion, loneliness, family relationships and tradition vs progress.

The book is set in the small English village of Edgecombe St Mary where Major Pettigrew, a retired British army officer, lives on his own at Rose Cottage. Both he and Mrs Ali have suffered recent bereavements and are starting to feel very alone in the world. The Major welcomes Mrs Ali’s friendship as she’s refreshingly different from the other women in Edgecombe St Mary; she’s quiet, dignified and shares his love of literature. Unfortunately, the Major’s middle-class friends and neighbours disapprove – they can’t think of Mrs Ali as anything other than the woman from the village shop. Meanwhile, Mrs Ali’s nephew, Abdul Wahid, is also unhappy about his aunt’s new relationship – he’s hoping she’ll move away to live with family so that he can take over the management of the shop. Can the Major and Mrs Ali overcome these obstacles and find happiness?

Major Pettigrew is a wonderful character, both endearing and annoying at the same time. It seemed to me that while he was accusing others of being judgmental, he was constantly making his own judgments about people: northerners, teenagers, Americans and even his own family and friends. However, he is never rude to other people and he does come to discover that some of his own prejudices are unfair. He has a certain amount of old-fashioned charm and I could sympathise with him as he tried to adapt to a rapidly-changing world. I loved him from the beginning because he was a polite, honourable person who genuinely wanted to do the right thing.

I also loved Mrs Ali. She wanted so much to be accepted by her neighbours but struggled to fit in with such a narrow-minded community where most of the other ladies were wrapped up in a world of parties, dances and committees, and didn’t even seem to realise how hurtful and insensitive some of their comments were. Almost all of the other characters, as seen through Major Pettigrew’s eyes, were loud, selfish and bad-mannered, which reflected the way the Major viewed the modern world. The Major’s son Roger was particularly obnoxious!

I really liked the setting of Edgecombe St Mary. Although the story was presumably supposed to be taking place in the 21st century, the descriptions of the village could have been from decades ago and showed a stark contrast with the commercialism and development that the Major hated so much.

If there was one thing that spoiled this book for me, it was a plot development near the end that I thought was unnecessarily dramatic and which felt completely out of place. Up to this point the story had been fairly slow-paced and subtle, concentrating on the small dramas of day to day life, and I would have preferred it to have continued this way to the end. Apart from this small criticism, I really enjoyed this book. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a lovely, inspiring story and for such a gentle, leisurely read it was very difficult to put down!

Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas by Judy Parkinson

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My sister gave me this pretty little book for Christmas, which was great because it’s not the type of book I would usually think about buying for myself. The title might leave you wondering exactly what this book is about, but the subtitle helps to explain: Popular Expressions – What They Mean and Where We Got Them.

The book looks at some of the well-known phrases and proverbs which appear in the English language and explains what they mean and how they originated. Do you know what ‘to shoot the moon’ means, for example, or why we give someone ‘the third degree’. Why do we ‘steal someone else’s thunder’ and why do we ‘go to the Land of Nod’ when we fall asleep?

The phrases appear in alphabetical order. I was a bit disappointed by some of the entries which are little more than a straight definition of the phrase or proverb, but the majority were interesting and I learned a lot of fascinating little facts. Some of them such as ‘ballpark figure’ and ‘take a rain check’ have American origins. Others stem from Ancient Greece or Rome. There are others that come from the Bible, some that are derived from Aesop’s fables and some that were made famous by Shakespeare. A few of the phrases have no definite origins and in these cases the author tells us that the definitions she’s providing are merely speculation.

I particularly liked the explanation for the phrase ‘to blow hot and cold’.

The expression has its origins in the Aesop’s fable that describes the experience of a traveller who accepted the hospitality of a satyr (one of the gods of the forest, a creature who is part goat and part man). The chilly traveller blew on his cold fingers to warm them – and then blew on his hot broth to cool it. The indignant satyr ejected him because he blew hot and cold with the same breath.

This is not really a book you would read from cover to cover in one sitting; it’s perfect for dipping in and out, reading a few entries at a time. It’s strangely addictive though as the entries are temptingly short (usually no more than two or three paragraphs). I’d recommend it to anyone with a love for the English language. It’s a perfect book to buy as a gift too, as it even has a special page at the front where you can write your ‘to’ and ‘from’!

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

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Dick Young is at a turning point in his life. He has recently left his job at a London publishing firm and needs to decide what he wants from his future. He’s been offered another job in New York and his American wife Vita wants him to accept it, but Dick’s not so sure. When his friend Professor Magnus Lane invites him to stay at his farmhouse in Cornwall for the summer, he agrees, looking forward to a few days of peace before Vita and his two stepsons join him. But when Dick arrives at Kilmarth, Magnus convinces him to take part in a secret experiment: he has developed a new drug which allows the user to travel back in time – and he wants Dick to test it for him…

Choosing to begin 2011 with a book by one of my favourite authors was the right decision. The House on the Strand is a strange and unusual book which blends historical fiction, science fiction, time travel and psychology. I loved it! In fact, it might even make my best of 2011 list at the end of the year. Although Rebecca is still my favourite Daphne du Maurier book, this one ties with The Scapegoat as my second favourite. It actually has a very similar mood and feel to The Scapegoat even though the plots of the two books are entirely different. Both books have a male narrator and both have themes of identity and escaping from reality.

I enjoy reading about time travel and this book took a slightly different approach to the question of time travel than any other book I’ve read. Rather than physically going back in time, it’s only Dick’s mind that travels while his body stays in the present – and as you can imagine, this has some disastrous and embarrassing results. The 14th century world that Dick witnesses when under the influence of the drug seems completely vivid and real to him, yet he’s unable to interact with any of the people he meets. He feels a special connection with Roger Kylmerth, steward to the Champernoune family, and also with the beautiful Isolda Carminowe. As Dick’s fascination with Roger and Isolda grows, he spends more and more time in the past and becomes increasingly dependent on the drug.

Du Maurier wrote this book in the late 1960s when psychedelic drugs such as LSD were at the height of their popularity and the drug which Magnus invents seems to be very similar to what I’ve read about LSD. As Dick becomes psychologically addicted to the drug, he gradually grows more distant and withdrawn and his relationships with his family start to suffer. His life in the present is portrayed as dull and boring in comparison to the vivid events of the 14th century and when seen through Dick’s eyes, Vita and her two sons are unlikeable and obnoxious. To me though, they were normal, reasonable people who were trying to make sense of their husband and stepfather’s bizarre behaviour.

Despite my own interest in history and historical fiction, I didn’t find the 14th century subplot particularly compelling. The story wasn’t very strong and there were too many characters with similar names who all seemed to be married to their cousins, which made it very difficult to keep all the relationships straight. I was constantly turning to the family tree at the front of the book and still couldn’t remember who was who. My advice to anyone reading The House on the Strand would be not to worry too much about following the 14th century story. By far the most interesting part of the book is the part which takes place in the present.

There were only one or two other negative points. First of all, I was disappointed that we didn’t get to know Magnus better, as I thought he was potentially the most interesting character in the book. Secondly, du Maurier made a point of describing the landscape and the locations of the various 14th century farmsteads and manor houses in great detail. I know this was supposed to show us how the appearance of the landscape had changed over the centuries (which is quite important to the plot), but I found it confusing and even by referring to the map at the front of the book, I couldn’t seem to build a picture in my mind of what the area looked like. Apart from these minor complaints though, I loved this book.

I’ve now read around half of du Maurier’s books. The good news is that I still have the other half to look forward to!

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

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The last book I read in 2010 was The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This is a book that has been hugely popular with book bloggers over the last few years and as usual, I appear to be one of the last to read it. I don’t have any excuse for this other than that certain books just seem to pass me by!

The Thirteenth Tale is the story of the reclusive and secretive Vida Winter, the world’s most popular author. Despite Winter’s fame, her past is shrouded in mystery; every time a new book is published she agrees to be interviewed – and every time she gives the journalist a different version of her life story. Now that she’s approaching the end of her life, she decides it’s time to tell the truth and summons Margaret Lea to write her biography.

Margaret is surprised by the request – after all, she’s just an amateur biographer who works in her father’s bookshop – but she agrees to visit Miss Winter and listen to what she has to say. As the story of Winter’s childhood unfolds, Margaret discovers what it is they have in common and why she was chosen to write the biography.

The Thirteenth Tale borrows elements of classic novels such as Wuthering Heights, The Woman in White, Jane Eyre, and The Turn of the Screw and it felt instantly familiar to me: the Yorkshire moors, twins, mistaken identities, ghosts and governesses all play a part in the story. I’m not saying this book was unoriginal or an exact copy of any other novel – it wasn’t – but Diane Setterfield was obviously trying to capture the overall mood of those gothic classics. Not only are the books I just mentioned referred to over and over again in the story, but they are cleverly incorporated into the plot.

Yet despite the familiarity, I didn’t guess everything that was going to happen. When the solution to the mystery (or one of the mysteries, as there are a few) was revealed, it surprised me – although the clues had been there all along and I’m sure if I read the book again it would be obvious.

One thing that struck me while I was reading this book was that we are never told when the story was supposed to be set. There are no historical references to suggest when the events of the book are taking place. Even Margaret’s timeframe, although obviously fairly recent, is still vague. I’m sure this was deliberate and it does help to give the story a timeless feel, but I’m one of those readers who likes to know when a story is set!

I can see why The Thirteenth Tale has been so popular because it really is a book for book lovers, with lots of great quotes like this:

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes – characters even – caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

And this:

Do they sense it, these dead writers, when their books are read? Does a pinprick of light appear in their darkness? Is their soul stirred by the feather touch of another mind reading theirs? I do hope so.

While I didn’t love this book as much as I hoped I would (which I suspect might just be because I’ve read too many books of this type recently), it was fun, entertaining and very quick to read for a book with over 450 pages. It was also a perfect read for late December – a book to curl up with indoors while it’s cold and dark outside.