Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Cutting for Stone

I really liked this book.  I resisted reading it for quite awhile after I read the reviews.....didn't sound like my kind of book.  But once I started it I never looked back.  I often complain about the length of novels where the story just plods on  as though the author can't figure out how to end it, but although this book is well over 600 pages long it held my interest to the very end. 

The author is a doctor in real life and there is a lot of emphasis on  hospitals and medical matters, but it is not (very) technical and the physicians and surgeons in the story come across as real people with compassion and concern for the human beings who are their patients.

The plot revolves around twin sons born to a beautiful Indian nun and a British surgeon.  It is a tale of love, betrayal and forgiveness, set in the exotic background of Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie.  There are many colorful characters brought together by life's vagaries and I was mindful of that"endless river of Chance and Change" on which we all float and which carries us to destinations which we could not have  imagined when we set sail. 
 

I have heard several reactions to this book from different people....one liked it a lot, one could not get into at all, one put it aside while reading something else but intends to go back to it, and so on.  So you will have to sample it  yourself to see what you think.  But for me, it was one of those books that makes reading so much fun.  I would give it 4 1/2 stars. maybe 5.

Cutting for Stone       Abraham Verghese         Vintage Books   

No comments:

Post a Comment