the Gothic Novel

Number 5 in the discussion questions asks you about The Thirteenth Tale and how it fits the definition of a Gothic novel. For those who don't read Gothic novels, here is some background info:

Gothic (goth-IK): a literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in such “gothic” surroundings. Other times, this story of darkness may occur in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the man goes mad from the "beating" of his guilt in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.” In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of view. This literature gave birth to many other forms, such as suspense, ghost stories, horror, mystery, and also Poe's detective stories. Gothic literature wasn't so different from other genres in form as it was in content and its focus on the "weird" aspects of life. This movement began to slowly open may people's eyes to the possible uses of the supernatural in literature.

List of some Gothic novels that you may have read:

• Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1818)
• Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1850)
• Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847)
• Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (1838), Bleak House (1854), Great Expectations (1861) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)
• Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn (1936), Rebecca (1938) and Don't Look Now (1970)
• Henry Farrell's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1960)
• J.G. Farrell's Troubles (1970)
• Elizabeth Gaskell's The Doom of the Griffiths (1858), The Grey Woman and Lois the Witch
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
•  Susan Hill's The Woman in Black (1983)
• Shirley Jackson's The Lottery (1951), A Visit (1952), The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1963)
• W.W. Jacobs's The Monkey's Paw (1902)
• Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) and The Real Right Thing (1899)
•  Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby (1967) 
•  Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987)
•  Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818)
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
• Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911)
•  Donna Tartt's The Secret History (1992) and The Little Friend (2002)
•  Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
• Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind (2001)

Thirteenth Tale Reading Group Guide

1. Much of the novel takes place in two grand estates --- Angelfield and then Miss Winter’s. How are the houses reflections of their inhabitants?

2. As the story unfolds, we learn that Margaret and Miss Winter are both twins. What else do they have in common?

3. Margaret and her mother are bound by a singular loss --- the death of Margaret’s twin sister. How has each woman dealt with this loss, and how has it affected her life? If her parents had told her the truth about her twin, would Margaret still be haunted?

4. Books play a major role in this novel. Margaret, for example, sells books for a living. Miss Winter writes them. Most of the important action of the story takes place in libraries. There are stories within stories, all inextricably intertwined. Discuss the various roles of books, stories, and writing in this novel.

5. Miss Winter asks Margaret if she’d like to hear a ghost story --- in fact, there seem to be several ghost stories weaving their way through. In what ways is The Thirteenth Tale a classic, gothic novel?

6. Miss Winter frequently changes points of view from third to first person, from “they” to “we” to “I,” in telling Margaret her story. The first time she uses “I” is in the recounting of Isabelle’s death and Charlie’s disappearance. What did you make of this shifting when Margaret points it out on page 204?

7. Compare and contrast Margaret, Miss Winter, and Aurelius --- the three “ghosts” of the novel who are also each haunted by their pasts.

8. It is a classic writer’s axiom that a symbol must appear at least three times in a story so that the reader knows that you meant it as a symbol. In The Thirteenth Tale, the novel Jane Eyre appears several times. Discuss the appearances and allusions to Jane Eyre and how this novel echoes that one.

9. The story shifts significantly after the death of Mrs. Dunne and John Digence. Adeline steps forward as intelligent, well-spoken, and confident --- the “girl in the mists” emerges. Did you believe this miraculous transformation? If not, what did you suspect was really going on?

10. Dr. Clifton tells Margaret that she is “suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination” when he learns that she is an avid reader of novels such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Sense and Sensibility. What do you think he means by drawing such a parallel? What other parallels exist between The Thirteenth Tale and classic 19th century literature?

11. When did you first suspect Miss Winter’s true identity? Whether you knew or not, looking back, what clues did she give to Margaret (and what clues did the author give to you)?

12. Margaret tells Aurelius that her mother preferred telling “weightless” stories in place of heavy ones, and that sometimes it’s better “not to know.” Do you agree or disagree?

13. The title of this novel is taken from the title of Miss Winter’s first book, Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation, a collection of twelve stories with a mysterious thirteenth left out at the last minute before publication. How is this symbolic of the novel? What is the thirteenth tale?

14. When do you think The Thirteenth Tale takes place? The narrator gives some hints, but never tells the exact date. Which aspects of the book gave you a sense of time, and which seemed timeless? Did the question of time affect your experience with the novel?

November book: The Thirteenth Tale

If for some reason you didn't get to read the book, here is a 2 minute version:

The Thirteenth Tale- Wikipedia

And a scathing review from The Independent, here , and a nice review from author Carol Birch, also published in The Independent, here. And finally, a mixed review from the Washington Post, here.

Using the virgin cure today

The virgin cure is still in use today:

Science in Africa:  http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/april/virgin.htm

BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6076758.stm

From the author's website: Past & Present

Reading Guide

From the author's website, here is THE READING GUIDE for The Virgin Cure, by Ami McKay.

Book Trailer for The Virgin Cure

The Virgin Cure Trailer

Click on the link above to see Ami McKay's trailer for the book.

Virgin Cure: reviews

Globe & Mail: Dickens in the Brothel

National Post: The Virgin Cure

Quill & Quire: The Virgin Cure

Our October book: The Virgin Cure, by Ami McKay

And here are the books we selected .....

Our October book is:

The Virgin Cure, by Ami McKay

Our November book is:

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfeld

Our December-January book is:

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

The remaining books are:

Through the Glass, by Shannon Morony

 



The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton

Best Laid Plans, Terry Fallis

 

And finally, or June book, Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple

 

 

 

Welcome back to our 2012-2013 book club season

Here are the books that we considered for this year. It was tough picking only eight!:

1. A Good Man, Guy Vanderhaghe

2. Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan

3.The Best Laid Plans, Terry Fallis

4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

 5. Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple

6. Please Look After Mom, Kyung-Sook Shin

7. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin

8. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfeld

9. The Virgin Cure, Ami McKay

10. Running the Rift, Naomi Benaron

11. The Golden Mean, Annabel Lyon

12. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon

13. The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon

14. The Sound & the Fury, William Faulkner

15. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

16. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick

17. Through the Glass, Shannon Moroney

18. Border Songs, Jim Lynch

19. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack, Rebecca Skloot

20. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga

 

And now for your viewing entertainment .....

 ----
Click here to watch a 2 minute trailer of :
Room

Click here to watch the author talk about her book. It's about 5 min long, and the second half is her reading from the book. But the first part is very interesting, I think:
Donoghue comments on Room

The author discussing her book with an audience:
Donoghue at the Next Chapter
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More discussion questions

I posted the standard Reading Group Guide questions for Room, below, but then I found these, and I like this batch better . . .

1. The narrator of Room is a 5-year-old American who has spent his life imprisoned with his mother in a 121-foot square garden shed. How credible were Jack’s voice and perspective on life? Where did you find Jack’s voice most and least convincing?

2. Jack refers to a woman a “she person” and, in the same paragraph, seems to understand and know how to spell the words “impregnable” and “catatonic.” [Page 165] Did you find this credible? If so, why? If not, what you made keep reading Room, regardless?

3. How would you describe Ma? We see her only through the eyes of Jack and the people he observes interacting with her. This approach limits what the novel can tell us about an important character. Was Donoghue able to overcome any restrictions on point-of-view to portray Ma as well-developed character? Why or why not?

4. Why do you think Old Nick remains a shadowy figure, one we know little about?

5. Ma is still breastfeeding Jack when he is 5 years old. What purpose does this serve in the story?

6. Room has an unusual structure for a novel about captivity: Jack and Ma escape almost exactly halfway through it. [Page 154 of a 321-page book]. Captives or hostages typically win their freedom closer to the end to keep the suspense high. Why did Donoghue have Ma and Jack escape sooner? How well did she maintain suspense afterward?

7. Donoghue says that Room is partly a satire “of modern mores and media.” What people or groups does she tweak? How well does the satire fit into a story rooted in Ma’s tragic abduction?

8. Do you share Donoghue’s view of Room as the story of a “battle between Mary and the Devil for young Jesus”? Why do you think the Christian motifs in the novel don’t bother some readers who aren’t religious?

9. Given all that Jack has endured and how sunny he remains, you could argue that the theme of Room is the therapeutic cliché, “Kids are resilient.” But the novel also develops other ideas. What do you think is the theme or message of the book?

10. Have you read other books with child narrators? How does Room compare to them?

Extras:
1. Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review of Room that Jack and Ma “are not the only people in recent books about women trapped in close, sustained relationships with their captors, even to the point of bearing children”: Chevy Stevens’s Still Missing and Laura Lippman’s I’d Know You Anywhere “offer more mainstream, victim-narrated versions of this story.” Have you read other books about victims and their captors? If so, which worked best? Why?

2. Room was inspired partly by the Austrian case of Josef Fritzl, who locked up and impregnated his daughter, Elisabeth, who had son who escaped at the age of 5. James Wood, the fiction critic for the New Yorker, found this borrowing “exploitative and a little cheap” in a review in the London Review of Books. “Does anyone really imagine that Jack’s inner life, with his cracks about Pizza Houses and horse stables and high-fives, is anything like five-year-old Felix Fritzl’s?” Wood asked. “The real victim’s imaginings and anxieties must have been abysmal, in the original sense (unimaginable, bottomless), and the novel’s sure-footed appropriation of this unknowability seems offensive precisely in its sure-footedness.” He added that Jack’s cheerfulness and charm “lend the book an inappropriate lightness.” What did you think of the borrowing?

Source:   http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/a-totally-unauthorized-reading-group-guide-to-emma-donoghues-room-with-10-discussion-questions/

Discussion questions for Room, by Emma Donoghue

1. Why do you think the entire book is told in Jack’s voice? Do you think it is effective?

2. What are some of the ways in which Jack’s development has been stunted by growing up in Room? How has he benefited?

3. If you were Ma, what would you miss most about the outside world?

4. What would you do differently if you were Jack’s parent? Would you tell Jack about the outside world from the start?

5. If Ma had never given birth to Jack, what would her situation in Room be like?

6. What would you ask for, for Sundaytreat, if you were Jack? If you were Ma?

7. Describe the dynamic between Old Nick and Ma. Why does the author choose not to tell us Old Nick’s story?

8. What does joining the outside world do to Jack? To Ma?

9. What role do you think the media play in the novel?

10. In a similar situation, how would you teach a child the difference between the real world and what they watch on television?

11. Why are we so fascinated by stories of long-term confinement?

12. What were you most affected by in the novel? 

Source:  http://readinggroupguides.com/guides_r/room1.asp

Review of ROOM, by Emma Donoghue

An artist's rendition of Jack & Ma's Room:

. . . and a link to a review of the book. This review is written by Aimee Bender, who is a fine novelist and short story writer herself:

Review of Room from the New York Times

ROOM, by Emma Donoghue: List of Awards and Honours--A very long list!

Awards and honors 

Booker Prize Shortlist (2010)

Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (2010)

 Irish Book Award (Novel, 2010)

Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Best Book, Caribbean and Canada, 2011)

Governor General's Literary Award Shortlist (Fiction, 2010)

Orange Prize Shortlist (2011)

OLA Evergreen Award (2011)

Quill and Quire Book of the Year (Fiction and Poetry, 2010)

Salon Book Award (Fiction, 2010)

Alex Award (2011)

Publisher's Weekly Listen Up Award (Audio Book of the Year, 2010)

The TV Book Club 2011 Winner (Channel 4/Specsavers)

Indies Choice Book Award (Adult Fiction, 2011)

Galaxy National Book Awards (Paperback, 2011)

 New York Times Best Books of the Year (2010)

New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2010)

New York Times Notable Book of the Year (Fiction & Poetry, 2010)

ALA Notable Book (2011)

The Morning News Tournament of Books (Quarterfinalist and Zombie Selection, 2011)

Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Canadian Fiction, 2010)

Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Fiction, 2010)

Indigo Books Heather's Pick (2010)

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Just found this review of The Cat's Table from the Independent, written by one of my very favourite authors, Roma Tearne.

Ondaatje interview and map

A video interview with Michael Ondaatje: click here.

In this interview he discusses the autobiographical aspects of the novel. There is also an animated map that shows the route. Take 5 minutes and view it.

Cat's Table Reader's Guide & Discussion Questions

LitLover's.com reader's guide to The Cat's Table.

Also from that website, discussion questions:

Discussion Questions
1. The epigraph below is taken from the short story “Youth” by Joseph Conrad. How does this set up the major themes of The Cat’s Table?

And this is how I see the East.... I see it always from a small boat—not a light, not a stir, not a sound. We conversed in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land.... It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea.

2. How is the voyage itself a metaphor for childhood?

3. Why do you think the opening passages of the book are told in third person?

4. We are 133 pages into the novel before Ondaatje gives us an idea of what year it is. How does he use time—or the sense of timelessness—to propel the story?

5. The anonymity of ocean travel and the sense that board ship we know only what others want us to know about them come into play at several points in the novel. What is Ondaatje saying about identity?

6. For several characters—the three boys and Emily among them—the journey represents a loss of innocence. For whom does it have the greatest impact?

7. Discuss the importance of some of the seemingly minor characters at the table: Mr. Mazappa, Mr. Fonseka, Mr. Nevil. What do they contribute to the story?

8. “What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power,” the narrator realizes (page 75). “Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves.” How does this prove true over the course of the novel?

9. How do the narrator’s experiences breaking and entering with the Baron change his way of looking at the world?

10. Discuss the three boys’ experience during the typhoon. How does it affect their friendship and their attitude toward authority figures?

11. How does the death of Sir Hector factor into the larger story?

12. On page 155, the narrator refers to Ramadhin as “the saint of our clandestine family.” What does he mean?

13. When describing the collapse of his marriage, the narrator says,

Massi said that sometimes, when things overwhelmed me, there was a trick or a habit I had: I turned myself into something that did not belong anywhere. I trusted nothing I was told, not even what I witnessed (page 203).

What made him behave this way? How did it affect his marriage?

14. On page 208, the narrator tells us about a master class given by the filmmaker Luc Dardenne in which...

he spoke of how viewers of his films should not assume they understood everything about the characters. As members of an audience we should never feel ourselves wiser than they; we do not have more knowledge than the characters have about themselves.

Why did Ondaatje give us this warning, so far into the novel? What is he telling us?

15. What was your reaction to the revelations about Miss Lasqueti?

16. How do you think her letter to Emily might have changed the events on board the Oronsay? Why didn’t she send it?

17. Miss Laqueti signs off her letter,  “‘Despair young and never look back,’ an Irishman said. And this is what I did” (page 231). What does she mean?

18. Discuss Emily’s relationship with Asuntha. Did she, as the narrator suggests on page 251, see herself in the deaf girl?

19. When Emily says to the narrator, “I don’t think you can love me into safety,” (page 250), to what is she referring? What is the danger, decades after the voyage?

20. The narrator wishes to protect Emily, Cassius has Asuntha, and Ramadhin has Heather Cave. “What happened that the three of us had a desire to protect others seemingly less secure than ourselves?” he asks on page 262. How would you answer that question?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

Ways to liven up a book club

Oprah's Book Club-Fight Club:  see video here

More on Still Alice

Here's a good review:

Globe and Mail  "The Memory Thief"

February book: Still Alice, by Lisa Genova

Here are the discussion questions provided by the publisher (these are probably at the back of your book too). 

1. When Alice becomes disoriented in Harvard Square, a place she's visited daily for twenty-five years, why doesn't she tell John? Is she too afraid to face a possible illness, worried about his possible reaction, or some other reason? 

2. After first learning she has Alzheimer's disease, "the sound of her name penetrated her every cell and seemed to scatter her molecules beyond the boundaries of her own skin. She watched herself from the far corner of the room" (pg. 70). What do you think of Alice's reaction to the diagnosis? Why does she disassociate herself to the extent that she feels she's having an out-of-body experience? 

3. Do you find irony in the fact that Alice, a Harvard professor and researcher, suffers from a disease that causes her brain to atrophy? Why do you think the author, Lisa Genova, chose this profession? How does her past academic success affect Alice's ability, and her family's, to cope with Alzheimer's? 

4. "He refused to watch her take her medication. He could be mid-sentence, mid-conversation, but if she got out her plastic, days-of-the-week pill container, he left the room" (pg. 89). Is John's reaction understandable? What might be the significance of him frequently fiddling with his wedding ring when Alice's health is discussed? 

5. When Alice's three children, Anna, Tom and Lydia, find out they can be tested for the genetic mutation that causes Alzheimer's, only Lydia decides she doesn't want to know. Why does she decline? Would you want to know if you had the gene? 

6. Why is her mother's butterfly necklace so important to Alice? Is it only because she misses her mother? Does Alice feel a connection to butterflies beyond the necklace? 

7. Alice decides she wants to spend her remaining time with her family and her books. Considering her devotion and passion for her work, why doesn't her research make the list of priorities? Does Alice most identify herself as a mother, wife, or scholar? 

8. Were you surprised at Alice's plan to overdose on sleeping pills once her disease progressed to an advanced stage? Is this decision in character? Why does she make this difficult choice? If they found out, would her family approve? 

9. As the symptoms worsen, Alice begins to feel like she's living in one of Lydia's plays: "(Interior of Doctor's Office. The neurologist left the room. The husband spun his ring. The woman hoped for a cure.)" (pg. 141). Is this thought process a sign of the disease, or does pretending it's not happening to her make it easier for Alice to deal with reality? 

10. Do Alice's relationships with her children differ? Why does she read Lydia's diary? And does Lydia decide to attend college only to honor her mother? 

11. Alice's mother and sister died when she was only a freshman in college, and yet Alice has to keep reminding herself they're not about to walk through the door. As the symptoms worsen, why does Alice think more about her mother and sister? Is it because her older memories are more accessible, is she thinking of happier times, or is she worried about her own mortality? 

12. Alice and the members of her support group, Mary, Cathy, and Dan, all discuss how their reputations suffered prior to their diagnoses because people thought they were being difficult or possibly had substance abuse problems. Is preserving their legacies one of the biggest obstacles to people suffering from Alzheimer's disease? What examples are there of people still respecting Alice's wishes, and at what times is she ignored? 

13. "One last sabbatical year together. She wouldn't trade that in for anything. Apparently, he would" (pg. 223). Why does John decide to keep working? Is it fair for him to seek the job in New York considering Alice probably won't know her whereabouts by the time they move? Is he correct when he tells the children she would not want him to sacrifice his work? 

14. Why does Lisa Genova choose to end the novel with John reading that Amylix, the medicine that Alice was taking, failed to stabilize Alzheimer's patients? Why does this news cause John to cry? 

15. Alice's doctor tells her, "You may not be the most reliable source of what's been going on" (pg. 54). Yet, Lisa Genova chose to tell the story from Alice's point of view. As Alice's disease worsens, her perceptions indeed get less reliable. Why would the author choose to stay in Alice's perspective? What do we gain, and what do we lose? 

source: Publisher's reading guide

Cutting for Stone Reviews

New York Times: here

The Guardian: here

USA Today: here

Cutting for Stone Discussion Questions

 from: www.readinggroupguides.com


1. Abraham Verghese has said that his ambition in writing Cutting for Stone was to “tell a great story, an old-fashioned, truth-telling story.” In what ways is Cutting for Stone an old-fashioned story --- and what does it share with the great novels of the nineteenth century? What essential human truths does it convey?

2. What does Cutting for Stone reveal about the emotional lives of doctors? Contrast the attitudes of Hema, Ghosh, Marion, Shiva, and Thomas Stone toward their work. What draws each of them to the practice of medicine? How are they affected, emotionally and otherwise, by the work they do?

3. Marion observes that in Ethiopia, patients assume that all illnesses are fatal and that death is expected, but in America, news of having a fatal illness “always seemed to come as a surprise, as if we took it for granted that we were immortal” (p. 396). What other important differences does Cutting for Stone reveal about the way illness is viewed and treated in Ethiopia and in the United States? To what extent are these differences reflected in the split between poor hospitals, like the one in the Bronx where Marion works, and rich hospitals like the one in Boston where his father works?

4. In the novel, Thomas Stone asks, “What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?” The correct answer is “Words of comfort.” How does this moment encapsulate the book’s surprising take on medicine? Have your experiences with doctors and hospitals held this to be true? Why or why not? What does Cutting for Stone tell us about the roles of compassion, faith, and hope in medicine?

5. There are a number of dramatic scenes on operating tables in Cutting for Stone: the twins’ births, Thomas Stone amputating his own finger, Ghosh untwisting Colonel Mebratu’s volvulus, the liver transplant, etc. How does Verghese use medical detail to create tension and surprise? What do his depictions of dramatic surgeries share with film and television hospital dramas --- and yet how are they different?

6. Marion suffers a series of painful betrayals --- by his father, by Shiva, and by Genet. To what degree is he able, by the end of the novel, to forgive them?

7. To what extent does the story of Thomas Stone’s childhood soften Marion’s judgment of him? How does Thomas’s suffering as a child, the illness of his parents, and his own illness help to explain why he abandons Shiva and Marion at their birth? How should Thomas finally be judged?

8. In what important ways does Marion come to resemble his father, although he grows up without him? How does Marion grow and change over the course of the novel?

9. A passionate, unique love affair sets Cutting for Stone in motion, and yet this romance remains a mystery --- even to the key players --- until the very conclusion of the novel. How does the relationship between Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Thomas Stone affect the lives of Shiva and Marion, Hema and Ghosh, Matron and everyone else at Missing? What do you think Verghese is trying to say about the nature of love and loss?

10. What do Hema, Matron, Rosina, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, Genet, and Tsige --- as well as the many women who come to Missing seeking medical treatment --- reveal about what life is like for women in Ethiopia?

11. Addis Ababa is at once a cosmopolitan city thrumming with life and the center of a dictatorship rife with conflict. How do the influences of Ethiopia’s various rulers --- England, Italy, Emperor Selassie --- reveal themselves in day-to-day life? How does growing up there affect Marion’s and Shiva’s worldviews?

12. As Ghosh nears death, Marion comments that the man who raised him had no worries or regrets, that “there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize” (p. 346). What is the key to Ghosh’s contentment? What makes him such a good father, doctor, and teacher? What wisdom does he impart to Marion?

13. Although it’s also a play on the surname of the characters, the title Cutting for Stone comes from a line in the Hippocratic Oath: “I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.” Verghese has said that this line comes from ancient times, when bladder stones were epidemic and painful: “There were itinerant stone cutters --- lithologists --- who could cut into either the bladder or the perineum and get the stone out, but because they cleaned the knife by wiping their blood-stiffened surgical aprons, patients usually died of infection the next day.” How does this line resonate for the doctors in the novel?

14. Almost all of the characters in Cutting for Stone are living in some sort of exile, self-imposed or forced, from their home country --- Hema and Ghosh from India, Marion from Ethiopia, Thomas from India and then Ethiopia. Verghese is of Indian descent but was born and raised in Ethiopia, went to medical school in India, and has lived and worked in the United States for many years. What do you think this novel says about exile and the immigrant experience? How does exile change these characters, and what do they find themselves missing the most about home?