I finally finished this remarkable and long (almost 700 pages) book this afternoon. One of the reasons it took so long was because I'd stop to look up some event or description to see if it actually happened.
Just when I think I can maybe call myself a writer of sorts I find an author like Abraham Verghese and think - Oh, doggies. This guy's the real thing.
Verghese describes in this book of fiction the word "fistula." I've always understood fistula to mean an abnormal passageway between two organs. My husband, Ken, had a fistula fashioned in his arm to receive dialysis. A good thing.
Verghese's use of the word fistula has to do with a different part of the body. This is an opening or abnormal passageway from the bladder to the vagina or from the bowel to the vagina. I'd not heard of what he was describing so I researched it. To my dismay, I discovered that this condition is still common in many parts of Africa and Asia. So, in "Cutting for Stone," as in many other great works of fiction...
It's the truth even if it didn't happen.
Following is a quote from the book that helps us to understand this sinister situation caused by sinister practices.
... Five Failings that Lead to Fistula. The first was being married off too young, child brides; the second was non existent prenatal care; the third was waiting too long to admit that labor had stalled (by which time the baby's head was jammed halfway down the birth passage and doing its damage) and a Cesarean section was needed; the fourth failing was too few and too distant health centers where a c-section could be done. Presuming the mother lived (the baby never did,) and the final failing was that of the husband and in-laws who cast out the woman because of the dribbling odoriferous fistula...Suicide was a common ending to such a story.
And still is. It's so hard to grasp that young girls in third world countries - and sometimes here as well, are still being treated in atrocious ways.
Just when I think I can maybe call myself a writer of sorts I find an author like Abraham Verghese and think - Oh, doggies. This guy's the real thing.
Verghese describes in this book of fiction the word "fistula." I've always understood fistula to mean an abnormal passageway between two organs. My husband, Ken, had a fistula fashioned in his arm to receive dialysis. A good thing.
Verghese's use of the word fistula has to do with a different part of the body. This is an opening or abnormal passageway from the bladder to the vagina or from the bowel to the vagina. I'd not heard of what he was describing so I researched it. To my dismay, I discovered that this condition is still common in many parts of Africa and Asia. So, in "Cutting for Stone," as in many other great works of fiction...
It's the truth even if it didn't happen.
Following is a quote from the book that helps us to understand this sinister situation caused by sinister practices.
... Five Failings that Lead to Fistula. The first was being married off too young, child brides; the second was non existent prenatal care; the third was waiting too long to admit that labor had stalled (by which time the baby's head was jammed halfway down the birth passage and doing its damage) and a Cesarean section was needed; the fourth failing was too few and too distant health centers where a c-section could be done. Presuming the mother lived (the baby never did,) and the final failing was that of the husband and in-laws who cast out the woman because of the dribbling odoriferous fistula...Suicide was a common ending to such a story.
And still is. It's so hard to grasp that young girls in third world countries - and sometimes here as well, are still being treated in atrocious ways.
