Dec 14, 2010

Cutting for Stone

This morning I finished my reading group book, Cutting for Stone.  Insert huge spoiler alert here.  This book stinks!  And it's 560 pages so it stinks for a REALLY long time.  It has the most unlikeable central character to come along since Humbert Humbert of Lolita but without all the redeeming aspects of that seminal work (pun intended.)

Cutting for Stone is not without potential.  Author Verghese starts out with an intriguing and likable female character, Sister Mary Joseph Praise.  Later he introduces another female character, Hema, extremely interesting and uber capable.  He puts the reader on the high seas and in the air, in life-and-death situations and in humorous one. But Verghese kills off Praise early on and relegates Hema to a supporting actress role.  He also brings us the delightful Ghosh, his best male character, who thankfully does get substantial page time.

But it is Marion, the less interesting of the twin sons, whom Verghese puts at the center of the book.  Marion can nurse a grudge like nobody's business.  The guy is like a pit bull with a marrow bone.  Genet doesn't love him.  Boo hoo hoo.  Shiva sleeps with Genet.  Boo hoo hoo. For christsake, they're barely pubescent and Shiva is obviously a Spock-like guy with a penis that does new things Shiva's glad to discover.  Genet pays a horrible price for her rampant hormones but Marion is the one with the grudge. And did I mention he loves her?  He will always love her?  He carries his virginal ass around until he's twenty-five-ish because "he loves her."  When he finally comes face to face with the love of his life, Genet is feverish and bleeding but Dr. Marion Stone doesn't hear warning bells loud enough to stop him from consummating his 'love' while she is less than 100%.  Then he gets her hepatitis, nearly dies, get a liver transplant from not-yet-forgiven Shiva, who dies, then Marion nearly but not quite forgives and warms to his real father, who performed the transplant, then accuses his adoptive mother of always favoring Shiva, now dead, then finally finds the letter, the oft mentioned letter from his real mother, (the actually interesting but now dead nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise), behind the framed picture that he has been schlepping from continent to continent.  Is there really a reader out there who wasn't yelling early and often at the book "Look behind the picture!!  Look behind the picture!!"

Oh my, one downside of reading on a Kindle is you can't throw the book at the wall for a satisfactory thud.

15 comments:

  1. I've never even heard of this book but I was LOLing at your commentary. I just bookmarked your blog and can't wait to read more, so keep it going! Blog early and blog often!
    xoxo
    K.

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  2. I'm so glad you feel the same way I do! I just went to book club last night and I was the only one who thought this book was horrible. I was appalled at Marion's treatment of Genet when she was clearly terribly ill. I called it rape and they said no, it was consensual sex because she wanted to be punished. Huh? That's like saying that because a woman stays in an abusive relationship that the guy is not an abuser.

    I found the storyline about Marion and Genet uninspired and the idea of a pregnant nun to be a stale story idea. The Madonna-whore complex was clearly present in this book.

    Anyway, it is not just you and thank heavens it isn't just me. Thanks for the blog. Alice

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  3. Dear Space Lady, you are the first and only person to publicly agree with me on this. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I actually heard Verghese read and speak at an event last year (I went to hear someone else on the roster) and in person he is charming, self-effacing, and quite engaging, but he did go on way too long, another problem with the book, I thought.

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  4. Dear Cathy and Space Lady, I am so glad you feel the same way I do. Dr. Verghese is unfair to the character Genet.Genet did not love Marion, there was nothing wrong with that;however,she was punished for not loving Marion and for losing her virginity to his twin brother Shiva.She could be come a psycho person for many horrible things happened in her life( loss of father, loss of mother,near death genital mutilation..) I think she was brave girl who manged

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    1. Thanks for commenting. Yes, Genet is the unfortunate object of Marion's affection, with the emphasis on 'object.'

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  5. I was appalled at the way Marion took ownership of Genet's body, as if he had a right to do what he did even when she was terribly sick and tried to protest. And then she was still blamed for him almost dying. Her tragic death in Texas was presented as something she well deserved. I was bothered by many other portrayals of women in this book. Yes, women's lives are very often tragic in the culture where this book was set. You can say the same thing about the culture where Kahled Hosseini's books are set, yet he treats his female characters with much more respect and empathy. I found Verghese to be completely lacking in his respect and empathy for women within the Ethiopian culture. I wish I could get back the two weeks it took me to read this book.

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    1. I don't remember Verghese's portrayal of other women being lacking. I'd have to go back and read Cutting for Stone again to see if I agree with you and I'm not going to do that! Thanks for commenting.

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  6. Oh my god -- thank you! All the Ethiopian women in that book are either pathetic, callous, if not evil, or borderline crazy. Alternatively insert any other negative adjectives to your liking. I'm Ethiopian, a female one at that. I was fuming through the book but still managed to finish it. Thank god that book and its characters are nothing like the women who raised me, and the ones I grew up with.

    Given the character of Ghenet, makes me wonder what some Ethiopian woman did to him as a kid.

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    1. Glad to get your comment, Anonymous. This post is still the most-read of my blog posts, so I often wonder what readers think when they read it. Cutting for Stone was so problematic!

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  7. This is a terrible story. I had to read this for my World Litature Class. My professor proclaims that this book is very popular and that many people relate to the story. I know that there is more meaning to the story, but the whole thing is just awful. It is not necessary to be 560 pages at all. At some points the story was interesting.

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  8. And agreed, didn't need to be that long, either!

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  10. I'm baffled by the big reveal of the letter that opens Ch. 55. So was she not a nun? If not, who was she at the beginning on the boat? If not, how did she get the habit--off the dead nun from the boat? But why would she take that before she knew she'd need it--after she was, I suppose, raped? So did they just have a one-nighter when Stone was on one of his drunken binges? If so, why would she do that, meaning what would be her attraction to him in that state? I was so disappointed that the plot became unnecessarily complicated at that point. Perhaps, the letter should have stayed lost. I think it's interesting that I've yet to discover a review that analyzing the letter.

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  11. I'm baffled by the big reveal of the letter that opens Ch. 55. So was she not a nun? If not, who was she at the beginning on the boat? If not, how did she get the habit--off the dead nun from the boat? But why would she take that before she knew she'd need it--after she was, I suppose, raped? So did they just have a one-nighter when Stone was on one of his drunken binges? If so, why would she do that, meaning what would be her attraction to him in that state? I was so disappointed that the plot became unnecessarily complicated at that point. Perhaps, the letter should have stayed lost. I think it's interesting that I've yet to discover a review that analyzes the letter.

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  12. Hah, it's not just you. I was okay with Marion for the first eighty percent of the book, because while his obsession and rage and blame toward Genet was despicable and unjustified, it also rang true for me as a character flaw. In fact, his attitude toward her is one I've unfortunately seen up close in real life from men of certain other cultures: the woman exists to please the man and is not credited with having any right to be her own person - if the man isn't happy, it's the woman's fault for not pleasing him.

    However, Marion's ugly thoughts were crazy enough that I assumed the book was moving toward growth for him. I thought that he and Genet would eventually cross paths and he would find enlightenment and realize she was not a she-devil, just a woman living her own life and staying strong despite far vaster traumas than he'd ever faced.

    The rape scene made me gasp. But I didn't lose all hope. I flipped ahead, still assuming there would be a reckoning for Marion - guilt? regret? penance?

    When I came across the few brief mentions of Genet after the rape (him asserting that she destroyed his liver, his neighbor and family coming together to support his rapey self and to cast blame on Genet for daring to bleed on his rapey penis; and finally his nasty, petty assessment of her character upon her death) I felt ill.

    And apparently we're supposed to find it heart-warming that he forgave his lousy father and his slightly strange brother - while ignoring the fact that he endlessly condemned his foster-sister, who (unlike dead old dad) had never done any intentional harm to him.

    The final insult is that throughout this book, the author presents us with about five hundred characters, major and minor ( the minor ones are mostly obsequious black females) showering Marion with adoration and telling him how wonderful he is.

    I was utterly confused that the author never endorsed any outrage toward Marion. The other shoe never dropped. The rape was never called out. Verghese seemed to applaud Marion and despise Genet with a straight face, all the way to the end.

    And yet.... this book is loved?

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