1-1banner
 
medpundit
 

 
Commentary on medical news by a practicing physician.
 

 
Google
  • Epocrates MedSearch Drug Lookup




  • MASTER BLOGS





    "When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov




    ''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.''
    -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.




    "Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel



    email: medpundit-at-ameritech.net

    or if that doesn't work try:

    medpundit-at-en.com



    Medpundit RSS


    Quirky Museums and Fun Stuff


    Who is medpundit?


    Tech Central Station Columns



    Book Reviews:
    Read the Review

    Read the Review

    Read the Review

    More Reviews

    Second Hand Book Reviews

    Review


    Medical Blogs

    rangelMD

    DB's Medical Rants

    Family Medicine Notes

    Grunt Doc

    richard[WINTERS]

    code:theWebSocket

    Psychscape

    Code Blog: Tales of a Nurse

    Feet First

    Tales of Hoffman

    The Eyes Have It

    medmusings

    SOAP Notes

    Obels

    Cut-to -Cure

    Black Triangle

    CodeBlueBlog

    Medlogs

    Kevin, M.D

    The Lingual Nerve

    Galen's Log

    EchoJournal

    Shrinkette

    Doctor Mental

    Blogborygmi

    JournalClub

    Finestkind Clinic and Fish Market

    The Examining Room of Dr. Charles

    Chronicles of a Medical Mad House

    .PARALLEL UNIVERSES.

    SoundPractice

    Medgadget
    Health Facts and Fears

    Health Policy Blogs

    The Health Care Blog

    HealthLawProf Blog

    Facts & Fears

    Personal Favorites

    The Glittering Eye

    Day by Day

    BioEdge

    The Business Word Inc.

    Point of Law

    In the Pipeline

    Cronaca

    Tim Blair

    Jane Galt

    The Truth Laid Bear

    Jim Miller

    No Watermelons Allowed

    Winds of Change

    Science Blog

    A Chequer-Board of Night and Days

    Arts & Letters Daily

    Tech Central Station

    Blogcritics

    Overlawyered.com

    Quackwatch

    Junkscience

    The Skeptic's Dictionary



    Recommended Reading

    The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams


    Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth Fenn


    Intoxicated by My Illness by Anatole Broyard


    Raising the Dead by Richard Selzer


    Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy


    The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks


    The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo


    A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich




    MEDICAL LINKS

    familydoctor.org

    American Academy of Pediatrics

    General Health Info

    Travel Advice from the CDC

    NIH Medical Library Info

     



    button

    Thursday, May 13, 2004

    Book Review: We may flatter ourselves that we think therefore we are, but in reality our lives are much more than the sum of our thoughts. Our deeds and others' perceptions of us can be just as important in shaping the totality of who we are.

    Such is the theme, anyways, of Wylene Dunbar's My Life with Corpses. S. Oscar, or Oz (she's from Kansas), is the only non-corpse in her immediate family. Her mother was a corpse when she was conceived (how she does not say) and her father was a corpse in the making. Her older sister was also a corpse, having succumbed to "brain fever." This makes for an odd sort of childhood - one devoid of affection or emotion, except for that to be had from animals. But even corpses are not immune to the ravages of time. One day her family rapidly decomposes, and she is forced into the emotional, messy, world of a living foster family. She's rescued by a kindly neighbor who sends her to college where she studies philosophy and soon learns that academia, and the world in general, is filled with corpses.

    There are corpses of all manner in this book and it's difficult to keep them all straight. There are corpses who died in accidents or from medical illnesses. There are corpses who died when they lost their dreams. There are corpses who died by turning too far inward, disappearing into their minds as it were. There are corpses who died from emotional isolation. And there are corpses who were sucked into death by the corpses around them.

    The really dead and the metaphorically dead walk around with equal aplomb. The parents are a prime example - are they really dead or just emotionally dead? Most often it seems the latter. They both live lives of disappointed expectations and at one point they join a fundamentalist church looking for salvation. But if the dead have no souls, which the narrator goes to great lengths to make clear early in the story, why would they be worried about salvation?

    In the end, this is no zombie story, but a philosophical reflection of the many ways we can die without dying. It could just as easily be titled, My Life with Depressives. But that wouldn't be as catchy.

    UPDATE: A reader notes:

    I think I prefer what Ambrose Bierce said:
    Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -
    I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.


    I think I prefer it, too.
     

    posted by Sydney on 5/13/2004 07:19:00 PM 0 comments

    0 Comments:

    Post a Comment

    This page is powered by Blogger, the easy way to update your web site.

    Main Page

    Ads

    Home   |   Archives

    Copyright 2006