Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Cutting for stone

Author: Abraham Varghese

The story starts off in the most morbid and dreary manner you can imagine. So much so that at one point I thought of not pursuing it but something kept propelling me. And for the good! It turned out to be very engrossing!

An Indian nun falls in love with a British doctor in Addis Ababa resulting into two twins. The mother dies during delivery and the father of the twins is distraught and flees. So they’re adopted by a doctor colleague and the story is narrated by one of the them. I think the central theme of the story is “love”. Every turn in the novel is because one character loved another – it could be motherly love, fatherly, brotherly or of young hearts. The twins grow together and apart; but both grow up to be doctors. In different parts of the world. The narrator in US and his brother in Egypt. The twists and turns in the story keep you deeply seated. I think the story is very well written – I could almost feel myself with the characters in the novel. Just bear with the first few pages and you won’t regret!

Bottom line: A wonderful novel!

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