Book Review: Cutting for Stone
Dr. Abraham Verghese’s brilliant masterpiece — a truly invigorating and transporting experience
Fiction ain’t my thing. But, that changed after a profound experience. I was on a Southwest Airlines flight from San Jose to Los Angeles, sitting next to a man who was busy reviewing a bunch of papers. The flight was normal and weather was great. But, I was not. Earlier that morning, I had woken up feeling uneasy, and decided to brute force through the short commute back home. I remember feeling panicky as the flight descended into the Greater Los Angeles area, so in an effort to get out of my head, I started chatting with my fellow passenger. His name was Abraham Verghese, renowned Indian-American author, doctor, and the recipient of Barack Obama’s Presidential Medal of Freedom. He sensed my anxiety, recommended I buy his novel, and gave me his business card. I couldn’t fathom what had just happened.
I went home and ordered the man’s book. I remember being glued to it and losing my sense of time. Cutting for Stone’s characters are incredibly inspiring and transporting. They feel real, like next door neighbors, and the storyline is gripping. Verghese’s masterful ability to narrate so richly, to articulate human feeling and thought with such meticulous precision all inside a story so beautifully architected leaves the everyday layman, such as myself, craving access into the majestic lands of fiction. And I mean real access, almost to the point where I want to meet Shiva Stone, Marion Stone, Hema, Dr. Stone, Ghosh, Matron, Rosina, Genet, Almaz, and others. I am desperate to get to know them personally.
My anxiety is embodied by Dr. Stone, who remains brilliant in one dimension, namely his career, but lacks in others. He is a master surgeon with iron-still hands, but can barely drink a cup of water without spilling all of it before the styrofoam reaches his lip. On the other hand, my admiration is swept away by Shiva Stone — fearless, ahistorical, living in the here and now, embracing life per one’s human capacity. In short, Shiva is whole. My resilience takes the form of Hema, unshakeable, always connected to the infinite. And my authenticity is carried by Marion Stone through virtuosity, honesty, and the simple adage of doing the right thing.
Everyday life can be dull, unexciting, but Verghese is so brilliant in his observance, that it serves as a much needed reminder about the vivid excitement that unknowingly takes shape, around us, everyday.
Fiction or not, I do think characters in either world are real on some plane of human experience. Fiction, to me, gives that much desired access into a land of freedom. It is within these majestic lands of imagination that I am able to create freely, and roam without hesitation. The ability to imagine and conceive a distant or even fictional reality is, for me, the most powerful and compelling attribute of the human experience. And it is so because it comes without reservations, inhibitions, without the ceilings and floors imposed on us in everyday life.
For those who struggle to climb out of the dark tunnels of anxiety and fear, or for those who wish to rise above life’s everydayness through vivid inspiration, Verghese’s Cutting for Stone provides access to a type of freedom that is incredibly intoxicating, and reassuringly liberating.
The work is timeless, a true masterpiece.
