Category: Books & Reviews
-
The Painted Veil: Death from cholera in China
The 1925 novel The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham derives its title from Percy Shelley’s 1824 sonnet, which begins “Lift not the painted veil which those who live / Call Life.” The action takes place during a cholera epidemic in which a missionary doctor quotes on his deathbed the final line of Oliver Goldsmith’s famous…
-
Book review: Disease and Healing in the Indus Civilisation
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The Indus (Harappan) civilisation was one of the three contemporaneous ancient civilisations, the others being the Egyptian and Mesopotamian. First excavated by the British in the 1920s, it existed from 3300–1300 BC, extending from the south in Gujarat to northwest India and Pakistan across the Indus and the now often dried…
-
Book review: Rearranged: An Opera Singer’s Facial Cancer and Life Transposed
Amanda CalebScranton, Pennsylvania, United States “Keeping secrets? We don’t keep secrets. Do we?” (23). This internal questioning precipitates Kathleen Watt’s disclosure of a bump on her gum to her partner Evie, which begins the story of her winding journey with cancer in Rearranged: An Opera Singer’s Facial Cancer and Life Transposed. Secrets are exactly what…
-
A Silent Voice: A case study of suicidality
Ryan XiaSan Francisco, California, United States During the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths from suicide surged as social isolation disrupted daily routine and promoted feelings of loneliness and anxiety.1 The pandemic shed light on risk factors that increase one’s likelihood of committing suicide,2 such as the loss of a loved one or the loneliness of being isolated…
-
Martin Chuzzlewitt by Charles Dickens
Although Charles Dickens called Martin Chuzzlewitt immeasurably the best of his stories, it was at first unsuccessful and even caused him to have his pay cut. Suspenseful and gripping, with murders and poisonings, Martin Chuzzlewitt takes place at a time when hospitals were largely places where the poor went to die1; the wealthy were treated…
-
The smell of dystopia: Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It’s a sad commentary on our age that we find Dystopias a lot easier to believe in than Utopias: Utopias we can only imagine, Dystopias we’ve already had.”– Margaret Atwood Brave New World1 is a science fiction novel about a high-tech, controlling dystopia. It is clearly a satire. Nineteen Eighty-Four2 is a…
-
Ingmar Bergman reading psychiatry and psychology texts
Eelco WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States Ingmar Bergman’s films are existentialist cinema. Cineastes revere his work, despite its allegedly problematic treatment of women and his unapologetically misogynistic and sexist protagonists. His personal life was just as complicated as his films; he married five times and had problematic, intense working relationships with his actors, including sexual affairs.…
-
Book review: Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom In her new book, Selina Mills, an award-winning journalist who is legally blind, takes us on a journey through the cultural history of visual impairment and blindness. It is both informative and empowering, weaving together research and the author’s personal experience. Throughout time, loss of sight has been associated with…
-
Book review: Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Sir William Osler was a great admirer of Sir Thomas Browne’s 1643 Religio Medici, one of his favorite books and on his recommended reading list for medical men. Browne influenced many writers, such as Samuel Johnson, WG Sebald, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Conrad, and EM Forster. In this slim volume, Gavin…
-
Book review: Fighting for Life: The Twelve Battles That Made Our NHS, and the Struggle for Its Future
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) was born on July 5, 1948, and on the seventy-fifth anniversary of its existence, British journalist and broadcaster Isabel Hardman has produced a book using military analogies to focus on the many political battles and political contests that have shaped its current form. The…