Friday, December 3, 2010

Quote: Fiction is the great lie about truth!

In an interview Abraham Verghese explains, “To paraphrase Dorothy Allison, fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world really lives. It is why in teaching medical students I use Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych to teach about end-of-life issues […] A textbook rarely gives them the kind of truth or understanding achieved in the best fiction.”

Abraham Verghese is the author of novel "Cutting for Stone"

(From a book review by Chloe Malle is a freelance journalist currently based in Addis Ababa: Chloe.Malle@gmail.com)

Similar statement is...Literature mirrors society of the time!

...Another interesting passage from another critic of this book:
A major strand of the plot is the love that one twin, Marion, has for a girl he knows from childhood, Genet; but there is surprisingly little imaginative projection of what Genet might feel. Which of course is a character's prerogative - except that it was a niggle I had with The Tennis Partner as well: Verghese was recklessly honest about his feelings and vulnerabilities, but there might have been a bit more sympathy for what his friend was suffering. Perhaps this is a function of the detachment of observation and, specifically, a medical manifestation of it: a doctor must be the most attentive observer, but also, ultimately, a judge as well. And that is a tricky place for a novelist to occupy.

Aida Edemariam, The Guardian.

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