I can't figure out if I am supposed to like him or not. But, I don't think I do. I think he would be good friends with Aldous Huxley if the two were to meet. They'd be good bowling partners. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want my surgeon to be a cocaine or morphine addict. By the time Mukherjee describes him as "tender, almost paternal" on page 66, it's a bit too late for me as a reader to establish a liking for Halstedt even if he does "challenge cancer to duel with his knife" with a vigor unlike anyone else we've met up until this point.
If "mistaken kindness" was about leaving too much cancerous tissue behind, I think the same term could be applied to Halstedt and the "physical penalty"that his patients paid. That is, depending on his motivation. But I must admit, by the time Mukherjee explains Halstedt's "conceptual error," I feel a bit sorry for him. How could he have known? Shortly after I am thrown back again into the Halstedt Haters Camp because he and his students "clutched to their theories" so "adamantly". I just don't know what to think about that guy.
More later.
I definitely would not want to meet Halstedt. He reminds me a little bit like Sweeney Todd, only not as gross. I understand his whole idea to remove all the cancer tissue to make sure it doesn't relapse, but the fact that most of his patients are coming out of surgery horribly disfigured does not do him justice. I'm not even sure that kind of surgery is even worth the chance to being free of cancer.
ReplyDeleteOkay, what happened to my comment? I left one here.
ReplyDeleteOkay, well, I'll repeat it. Mia, your comparison to Sweeney Todd fits perfectly. AT Mrs. Engelhardt's Wednesday appointment, her oncologist shared the fact that most cancers cannot be cured without some kind of surgery. Chemo alone is good only for Lymphoma and -quite honestly, I can't remember the other one. I want to say that it was some cancers of the blood. So surgery seems inevitable for most. Thankfully, people still get to keep their collarbones and the use of their arms.
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