Monday, July 29, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
pp.139-172
Sharing my thoughts on 42 pages today. Whew.
Summertime sure does get in the way, don't she? (intentional grammatical error to create an effect there; also known as a "rhetorical choice." Writers make tons of them, consciously and subconsciously--or maybe instinctively is a better word choice there.)
Actually, I want to back track a bit because I noticed that an important thing happens on p. 130, and that is the creation of the protocols and the community, "the cooperative group model [that] galvanized medicine." Kind of a big deal, that. And evidence that no matter how much some of us (myself included) like to "fly solo", the meeting of minds is a powerful thing. I know what you are thinking right now. "Group work sucks." And that very well may be....but it is reality.
Does it seem really terrible to anyone else that poor Min Chiu Li lost his job?
I love this sentence: (aka "Golden Line") "The academic stodginess of the leukemia consortium--its insistence on progressively and systematically testing one drug combination after another--was now driving Freireich progressively and systematically mad"(139).
And it is interesting to think about the medical community's reluctance to use a four drug treatment back in the '60's when we learn that Carla will be treated with NINE of them.
On p. 146, Mukherjee spends a paragraph defining "Failure". Definition is one of the modes of discourse along with Narration, Argumentation (which always feels redundant to me as everything is an argument), Comparison and Contrast (which we get later with the two narratives that begin the "Anatomical Tumor" chapter), Classification, Cause and Effect, Description (for which you must admit that--for a scientist-Mukherjee has a strong command. Case in point: the patient. Beatrice Sorenson, p. 153-154), Process Analysis (shall we just say the whole book?).
I appreciate the way that Mukherjee throws a line in every once in awhile that forces me to review who certain people are. For example, on p. 149, he brings us into his reminiscence of "the Chiribaya mummy, to Atossa, to Halsted's young woman awaiting her mastectomy," or on p. 158 during his description of Hodgkin's disease, he reminds us of "Halstedt's vision of cancer on its way to becoming Galen's." Makes one pause, doesn't it. Start flipping back frantically through pages to figure out who the heck Galen is, keeps all of us honest and accountable. We even hear about ol' Virchow again on p. 146. (You might notice the ways in which I've blended in the quotations here. Being able to effectively blend quoted material in a variety of ways is an important skill to master in a composition class.)
Other golden lines: "In 1898, some thirty years after Hodgkin's death, an Austrian pathologist, Carl Sternberg, was looking through a microscope at a patient's glands when he found a peculiar series of cells staring back at him: giant, disorganized cells with cleaved, bilobed nuclei--"owl's eyes," as he described them, glaring sullenly out from the forests of lymph" (157).
"She was almost preternaturally minuscule: about eighty-five pounds and four and a half feet tall, with birdlike features and delicate bones that seemed to hang together like twigs in winter" (154).
"Every three weeks, just as his counts recovered, the whole cycle would begin all over agian--Sisyphus on chemotherapy" (152).
"But the story of leukemia--the story of cancer-- isn't the story of doctors who struggle and survive, moving from one institution to another. It is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another" (148). Actually, that whole paragraph is eloquently written.
And then we get the example of (Exemplification is another mode of discourse that belongs in the list) Mukherjee's primary research with the VAMP survivor. A challenge: can you include some primary research in this Monster project we are going to spend our time on in the first quarter or so? I mean, anybody can look up articles on the internet, right? Ahhhhhh, but to find a source to interview. Really interview. Someone you haven't talked to before. I'm not talking about interviewing your grandma here, who I'm sure is a very fine person and more than willing to help you out. Thanks, Grandma. No, I'm talking about investigative work here. Not investigative work that puts you in danger, of course. But, work that stretches you out of your comfort zone a bit, requires you to make a phone call or write a letter of inquiry.
This post is long enough. I'll write another for the next 20 pages so as not to overwhelm anyone. (Too late?)
Summertime sure does get in the way, don't she? (intentional grammatical error to create an effect there; also known as a "rhetorical choice." Writers make tons of them, consciously and subconsciously--or maybe instinctively is a better word choice there.)
Actually, I want to back track a bit because I noticed that an important thing happens on p. 130, and that is the creation of the protocols and the community, "the cooperative group model [that] galvanized medicine." Kind of a big deal, that. And evidence that no matter how much some of us (myself included) like to "fly solo", the meeting of minds is a powerful thing. I know what you are thinking right now. "Group work sucks." And that very well may be....but it is reality.
Does it seem really terrible to anyone else that poor Min Chiu Li lost his job?
I love this sentence: (aka "Golden Line") "The academic stodginess of the leukemia consortium--its insistence on progressively and systematically testing one drug combination after another--was now driving Freireich progressively and systematically mad"(139).
And it is interesting to think about the medical community's reluctance to use a four drug treatment back in the '60's when we learn that Carla will be treated with NINE of them.
On p. 146, Mukherjee spends a paragraph defining "Failure". Definition is one of the modes of discourse along with Narration, Argumentation (which always feels redundant to me as everything is an argument), Comparison and Contrast (which we get later with the two narratives that begin the "Anatomical Tumor" chapter), Classification, Cause and Effect, Description (for which you must admit that--for a scientist-Mukherjee has a strong command. Case in point: the patient. Beatrice Sorenson, p. 153-154), Process Analysis (shall we just say the whole book?).
I appreciate the way that Mukherjee throws a line in every once in awhile that forces me to review who certain people are. For example, on p. 149, he brings us into his reminiscence of "the Chiribaya mummy, to Atossa, to Halsted's young woman awaiting her mastectomy," or on p. 158 during his description of Hodgkin's disease, he reminds us of "Halstedt's vision of cancer on its way to becoming Galen's." Makes one pause, doesn't it. Start flipping back frantically through pages to figure out who the heck Galen is, keeps all of us honest and accountable. We even hear about ol' Virchow again on p. 146. (You might notice the ways in which I've blended in the quotations here. Being able to effectively blend quoted material in a variety of ways is an important skill to master in a composition class.)
Other golden lines: "In 1898, some thirty years after Hodgkin's death, an Austrian pathologist, Carl Sternberg, was looking through a microscope at a patient's glands when he found a peculiar series of cells staring back at him: giant, disorganized cells with cleaved, bilobed nuclei--"owl's eyes," as he described them, glaring sullenly out from the forests of lymph" (157).
"She was almost preternaturally minuscule: about eighty-five pounds and four and a half feet tall, with birdlike features and delicate bones that seemed to hang together like twigs in winter" (154).
"Every three weeks, just as his counts recovered, the whole cycle would begin all over agian--Sisyphus on chemotherapy" (152).
"But the story of leukemia--the story of cancer-- isn't the story of doctors who struggle and survive, moving from one institution to another. It is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another" (148). Actually, that whole paragraph is eloquently written.
And then we get the example of (Exemplification is another mode of discourse that belongs in the list) Mukherjee's primary research with the VAMP survivor. A challenge: can you include some primary research in this Monster project we are going to spend our time on in the first quarter or so? I mean, anybody can look up articles on the internet, right? Ahhhhhh, but to find a source to interview. Really interview. Someone you haven't talked to before. I'm not talking about interviewing your grandma here, who I'm sure is a very fine person and more than willing to help you out. Thanks, Grandma. No, I'm talking about investigative work here. Not investigative work that puts you in danger, of course. But, work that stretches you out of your comfort zone a bit, requires you to make a phone call or write a letter of inquiry.
This post is long enough. I'll write another for the next 20 pages so as not to overwhelm anyone. (Too late?)
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Calling all John Green fans.....
That's where I have been for the last few days, completely absorbed in John Green's, The Fault In Our Stars. You might know his other books, Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines.
So you might guess at my complete happiness after reading the following in the Acknowledgements section at the end of the book:
Anyone seeking an actual history of cancer ought to read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
And in one of the chapters Green actually uses the phrase omnis cellula e cellula which is what we in AP Lang are completely immersed in at the moment. I know it is kind of English teacher geeky, but I stop just short of jumping up and down when I find this kind of cross reference.
Why am I talking about John Green? Well, first I wanted to explain my absence. Second, I highly recommend it as a fictional companion to our required text. Not mandatory, mind you. But, it deepened my understanding. I am also thinking about using a few sections from it for class this fall. So, if you hate having endings spoiled for you, and you think you might want to read it, do it now.
Emperor catch up tomorrow.
So you might guess at my complete happiness after reading the following in the Acknowledgements section at the end of the book:
Anyone seeking an actual history of cancer ought to read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
And in one of the chapters Green actually uses the phrase omnis cellula e cellula which is what we in AP Lang are completely immersed in at the moment. I know it is kind of English teacher geeky, but I stop just short of jumping up and down when I find this kind of cross reference.
Why am I talking about John Green? Well, first I wanted to explain my absence. Second, I highly recommend it as a fictional companion to our required text. Not mandatory, mind you. But, it deepened my understanding. I am also thinking about using a few sections from it for class this fall. So, if you hate having endings spoiled for you, and you think you might want to read it, do it now.
Emperor catch up tomorrow.
Monday, July 15, 2013
pp.109-137
"the fairy godmother of medical research." Hmmmm.
For me, as a teacher of Language Arts, I can't help but think about how important it was for the Laskers to have a facility with language in order to do all of the following: "They were extraordinary networkers, lobbyists, minglers, conversers, persuaders, letter writers, cocktail party--throwers, negotiators, name-droppers, deal makers. Fund-raising-- and, most important, friend-raising---was instilled in their blood, and the depth and breadth of their social connections allowed them to reach deeply into the minds--and pockets--of private donors and of the government" (111)
If either of them could not clearly articulate ideas in speech and writing, they would not have had the kind of success that they experienced. LANGUAGE IS POWER!
Diction=word choice. "Moribund" is an ironic term to describe the American Society for the Control of Cancer.
The thing I really appreciate about Mary Lasker is her ability to strategize her campaign against cancer. She makes choices about audience, etc.
All this reading and writing, all this language: "regularly corresponding with Farber", "Farber wrote back long, detailed meandering letters", "She spoke and wrote passionately and confidently about her cause, emphasizing her point with quotes and questions", "a retinue of assistants to scour newspapers and magazines and clip out articles containing even a passing reference to cancer--all of which she read, annotated on the margins with questions in small precise scrip, and distributed to other Laskerites" (114-115).
Poor Albert.
Word: annealed
Is anyone else out there?
For me, as a teacher of Language Arts, I can't help but think about how important it was for the Laskers to have a facility with language in order to do all of the following: "They were extraordinary networkers, lobbyists, minglers, conversers, persuaders, letter writers, cocktail party--throwers, negotiators, name-droppers, deal makers. Fund-raising-- and, most important, friend-raising---was instilled in their blood, and the depth and breadth of their social connections allowed them to reach deeply into the minds--and pockets--of private donors and of the government" (111)
If either of them could not clearly articulate ideas in speech and writing, they would not have had the kind of success that they experienced. LANGUAGE IS POWER!
Diction=word choice. "Moribund" is an ironic term to describe the American Society for the Control of Cancer.
The thing I really appreciate about Mary Lasker is her ability to strategize her campaign against cancer. She makes choices about audience, etc.
All this reading and writing, all this language: "regularly corresponding with Farber", "Farber wrote back long, detailed meandering letters", "She spoke and wrote passionately and confidently about her cause, emphasizing her point with quotes and questions", "a retinue of assistants to scour newspapers and magazines and clip out articles containing even a passing reference to cancer--all of which she read, annotated on the margins with questions in small precise scrip, and distributed to other Laskerites" (114-115).
Poor Albert.
Word: annealed
Is anyone else out there?
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Bad, bad teacher.
Bought a kayak. Abandoned you and all of my other responsibilities completely. And my absence and neglect is unforgivable, I am posting a sample test question so you have an idea of what to expect on the first day of class. Hopefully, in this way, I can redeem myself. Here it is:
Sorry about the formatting! Blogger is working against me.
Here's another in the form of short answer:
Relay the narrative that Mukherjee shares concerning the discovery of X-Rays.
Hopefully, that will make up for things.
The next post will cover enough pages to be back on the official seven page per day schedule. I will try not to let this happen again.....ahhhhh, summer.
Mukherjee argues that the reasons for what seems to be the rarity of incidents of cancer in the distant past compared to today are all of the following except:
Mukherj
a. Cancer is an age
related disease--more people are living long enough to get cancer.
b. The capacity to
detect cancer earlier and to attribute deaths to it has increased.
c. Technological
progress and changes in social habits have radically shifted the spectrum of
cancers.
d. Cancer was
submerged under a host of other illnesses that claimed lives before cancer
could surface.
e. The presence of
more environmental influences provides more opportunity for cancer to develop.
Here's another in the form of short answer:
Relay the narrative that Mukherjee shares concerning the discovery of X-Rays.
Hopefully, that will make up for things.
The next post will cover enough pages to be back on the official seven page per day schedule. I will try not to let this happen again.....ahhhhh, summer.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
pp.101-109
"A successful advertisement, Lasker contended, was not merely a conglomeration of jingles and images designed to seduce consumers in buying an object; rather it was a masterwork of copywriting that tell a consumer why to buy a product. Advertising was merely a carrier for information and reason, and for the public to grasp its impact, information had to be distilled into its essential elemental form" (109).
The above is especially relevant for us in AP Lang as we learn that Everything is An Argument.
AP Argument Recognition, Construction, Expression, Analysis.....
The above is especially relevant for us in AP Lang as we learn that Everything is An Argument.
AP Argument Recognition, Construction, Expression, Analysis.....
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
pp. 89-100
I know--again--more than 7 pages. Again, it makes sense to me to stop at the end of a section when it is only a few additional pages.
Golden: "Clinicians described the phenomenon as an eerie 'softening' of the cancer, as if the hard carapace of cancer that Galen had so vividly described nearly two thousand years ago had melted away" (90).
I love this kind of transition:
"When Hitchings found Trudy Elion, who would soon become one of the most innovative synthetic chemists of her generation (and a future Nobel laureate), she was working for a food lab in New York, testing the acidity of pickles and the color of egg yolk going into mayonnaise.
Rescued from a life of pickles and mayonnaise, Gertrude Elion leapt into synthetic chemistry" (91).
An interesting concept, the mustard gas thing and a cure coming from poison.
It occurs to me, as we come back to Farber, what a monumental undertaking writing this "biography" is. I mean, that's obvious right, but think about where we have been so far.
In 92 pages, we've been introduced to Mukherjee, acquainted with Carla Reed and we've now read about much of the early history--not just of the disease--but also of the history of medicine in general as it relates to cancer, the history of surgical treatment, radiation treatment, and the development of chemotherapy. That is much to accomplish in 92 pages.
Alliteration: "Flickering and feeble, the leukemia remissions in Boston and New York nevertheless mesmerized Farber"( 93). Let's suppose Farber's name was....wait, let me pick one out of the phone book (yes, I still have a phone book)....I lied, no phone book....
wait, online name generator....http://www.namegenerator.biz/last-name-generator.php....
Hackman...suppose he was Stanley Hackman instead of Stanley Farber, which two words might Mukherjee then choose to begin the sentence quoted above? Instead of "flickering" and "feeble", we might have ___________________ and ____________________.
Golden: "Scientists often study the past as obsessively as historians because few other professions depend so acutely on it. Every experiment is a conversation with a prior experiment, every new theory a refutation of the old" (93).
Also golden: "The suspension of patients inside these iron lungs sybolized the limbolike, paralytic state of polio research" (94).
This is Eddie Cantor who started the March of Dimes. In some of his online photos, he looks like Mr. Bean. A comedian, definitely :) Almost all of his online photos look like this one. I wasn't just choosing this one to be funny :)
His creation of the March of Dimes lead to the provision of fuding that allowed Enders and Sabin and Salk to accomplish their goals.
Again, this work of the campaign will be relevant to us as you determine how to create your own this fall.
Photo:
Golden: "Clinicians described the phenomenon as an eerie 'softening' of the cancer, as if the hard carapace of cancer that Galen had so vividly described nearly two thousand years ago had melted away" (90).
I love this kind of transition:
"When Hitchings found Trudy Elion, who would soon become one of the most innovative synthetic chemists of her generation (and a future Nobel laureate), she was working for a food lab in New York, testing the acidity of pickles and the color of egg yolk going into mayonnaise.
Rescued from a life of pickles and mayonnaise, Gertrude Elion leapt into synthetic chemistry" (91).
An interesting concept, the mustard gas thing and a cure coming from poison.
It occurs to me, as we come back to Farber, what a monumental undertaking writing this "biography" is. I mean, that's obvious right, but think about where we have been so far.
In 92 pages, we've been introduced to Mukherjee, acquainted with Carla Reed and we've now read about much of the early history--not just of the disease--but also of the history of medicine in general as it relates to cancer, the history of surgical treatment, radiation treatment, and the development of chemotherapy. That is much to accomplish in 92 pages.
Alliteration: "Flickering and feeble, the leukemia remissions in Boston and New York nevertheless mesmerized Farber"( 93). Let's suppose Farber's name was....wait, let me pick one out of the phone book (yes, I still have a phone book)....I lied, no phone book....
wait, online name generator....http://www.namegenerator.biz/last-name-generator.php....
Hackman...suppose he was Stanley Hackman instead of Stanley Farber, which two words might Mukherjee then choose to begin the sentence quoted above? Instead of "flickering" and "feeble", we might have ___________________ and ____________________.
Golden: "Scientists often study the past as obsessively as historians because few other professions depend so acutely on it. Every experiment is a conversation with a prior experiment, every new theory a refutation of the old" (93).
Also golden: "The suspension of patients inside these iron lungs sybolized the limbolike, paralytic state of polio research" (94).
This is Eddie Cantor who started the March of Dimes. In some of his online photos, he looks like Mr. Bean. A comedian, definitely :) Almost all of his online photos look like this one. I wasn't just choosing this one to be funny :)
His creation of the March of Dimes lead to the provision of fuding that allowed Enders and Sabin and Salk to accomplish their goals.
Again, this work of the campaign will be relevant to us as you determine how to create your own this fall.
Photo:
"Lucy & Eddie Cantor." Lucy & the Stars: Eddie Cantor. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 July 2013.
Mukherjee's characterization on p. 96 makes me like Farber even more: "In contrast, when Koster stopped by Farber's office, he found an excitable, articulate scientist with a larger-than-life vision--a messiah in a box. Farber didn't want a microscope; he had an audacious telescopic plan that captivated Koster."
What are your thoughts about the Jimmy narrative?
Sunday, July 7, 2013
pp.80-88
Interesting connection in this section between the textile industry and medicine.
Golden: "Biology was chemisty: perhaps even a human body was no different from a bag of busily reacting chemicals--a beaker with arms, legs, eyes, brain, and soul" (83).
So, has anyone picked up the "Spark Notes" version of this book? It probably isn't Sparknotes, actually, but some other brand. What is the comparison between those and the regular text? I don't own those and so I am curious.
What are you noticing?
Golden: "Biology was chemisty: perhaps even a human body was no different from a bag of busily reacting chemicals--a beaker with arms, legs, eyes, brain, and soul" (83).
So, has anyone picked up the "Spark Notes" version of this book? It probably isn't Sparknotes, actually, but some other brand. What is the comparison between those and the regular text? I don't own those and so I am curious.
What are you noticing?
Saturday, July 6, 2013
pp. 69-79
Golden Line: "Pierre and Marie (then Slodowska, a penniless Polish immigrant living in a garrett in Paris) had met at the Sorbonne and been drawn to each other because of a common interest in magnetism" (74).
I think I found an error. It's grammatical, or mechanical, or syntactical, or, maybe, just the result of poor editing. The wrong word. Depends on what the author's intentions were. I could be wrong here, but I don't think so. It's on p. 75. See if you see what I see. Maybe I'm reading it incorrectly? But, I don't think so. Put on your editor cap. First one to respond will receive a resounding, "HIP HIP HOORAY!"
I'd love to hear from someone. All I've got are crickets right now.
I think I found an error. It's grammatical, or mechanical, or syntactical, or, maybe, just the result of poor editing. The wrong word. Depends on what the author's intentions were. I could be wrong here, but I don't think so. It's on p. 75. See if you see what I see. Maybe I'm reading it incorrectly? But, I don't think so. Put on your editor cap. First one to respond will receive a resounding, "HIP HIP HOORAY!"
I'd love to hear from someone. All I've got are crickets right now.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
46-54
I know. This is more than seven pages. But, it made sense to cover these two sections in their entirety.
The humors thing on p. 48 will really come in handy when we read The Canterbury Tales this fall. I usually have to spend a bit of time covering that before we can fully appreciate Chaucer's work. Not anymore. If you find that theory interesting, you might look up "physiognomy".
There has been--up to this point--much discussion of metaphor and illness. Sontag, tuberculosis, the Romantic poets. What do you make of this: "The black-bile theory of cancer was so metaphorically seductive that it clung on tenaciously in the minds of doctors" ( 49).
Here's a golden line: "In the seventeenth century, a paste of crab's eyes, at five shillings a pound was popular--using fire to treat fire." (50).
"Anatomy came alive for him in this grisly world of the dead" (51). Ah, Dr. Mukherjee, such a wit.
Hey, what did you all think of those awesome book marks I put in your books? Did you notice that they are about several different topics? It is getting kind of lonely here talking to myself. About a book.
The humors thing on p. 48 will really come in handy when we read The Canterbury Tales this fall. I usually have to spend a bit of time covering that before we can fully appreciate Chaucer's work. Not anymore. If you find that theory interesting, you might look up "physiognomy".
There has been--up to this point--much discussion of metaphor and illness. Sontag, tuberculosis, the Romantic poets. What do you make of this: "The black-bile theory of cancer was so metaphorically seductive that it clung on tenaciously in the minds of doctors" ( 49).
Here's a golden line: "In the seventeenth century, a paste of crab's eyes, at five shillings a pound was popular--using fire to treat fire." (50).
"Anatomy came alive for him in this grisly world of the dead" (51). Ah, Dr. Mukherjee, such a wit.
Hey, what did you all think of those awesome book marks I put in your books? Did you notice that they are about several different topics? It is getting kind of lonely here talking to myself. About a book.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
A Recommendation
It is my sincere wish that all of you do well on this first test. So, I want to tell you--maybe you are already doing this--that as an "expert" reader in my field, what I find myself doing as I approach each new section is flipping through all of the previous sections from the beginning of the book and reacquainting myself prior to each new section with all of the details from those previous. Names, dates, events, structure, golden lines. For example, I flip to page p. 25 and the name Matthew Neely leaps out at me, and I have to think to myself, "Who is that again? Oh, yeah, he's the senator who proposed the 5 million dollar reward for the arrest of cancer further personifying cancer and playing into Mukherfee's idea of the 'biography'." Or , I flip to p.11 and remember that Farber began this journey as a pathologist with all his jars and specimens. Or I flip to p. 26 and I remember the detrimental effect that WWII had on the newly established National Cancer Institute. I am always reviewing what I read. That is what good readers do. The more times a reader revisits an idea, the more likely it is to be integrated into the reader's schema.
Just sayin'.
It's up to you.
Peace.
Just sayin'.
It's up to you.
Peace.
pp. 37-45
"A Private Plague" is one of my favorite sections. I think this is because it begins in a way that is more literary than scientific with its references to Sontag's essay (which I think we will read this year) and to the great Romantic disease of "Consumption". In Victorian and Romantic literature, tuberculosis is always referred to as "consumption". Probably because-I'm guessing here- that it consumes the individual.
I especially like the comparison and contrast between tuberculosis and cancer and the ways in which the author applies the lens of literary criticism.
Golden Line: "It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily and defensively--at times as if teaching us how to survive."
For me the most attractive part of all of this literary discussion is that it is written by a scientist, a doctor, which gives further credence to the value of the humanities in their ability to help us understand and think about the non-literary, such as disease.
"So to begin again..."(39). I think it is here that the structure of the text becomes more apparent.
Questions, questions everywhere.
And then every once in awhile, Mukherjee shows us that he is also a comedian of sorts, that he enjoys word play. For example, on p. 43. when he is discussing Arthur Aufderheide, a paleopathologist at the University of Minnesota, he quips, "There are nearly five thousand pieces of tissue, sores of biopsies, and hundreds of broken skeletons in his closet." BAHHAHahahahah!
I especially like the comparison and contrast between tuberculosis and cancer and the ways in which the author applies the lens of literary criticism.
Golden Line: "It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily and defensively--at times as if teaching us how to survive."
For me the most attractive part of all of this literary discussion is that it is written by a scientist, a doctor, which gives further credence to the value of the humanities in their ability to help us understand and think about the non-literary, such as disease.
"So to begin again..."(39). I think it is here that the structure of the text becomes more apparent.
Questions, questions everywhere.
And then every once in awhile, Mukherjee shows us that he is also a comedian of sorts, that he enjoys word play. For example, on p. 43. when he is discussing Arthur Aufderheide, a paleopathologist at the University of Minnesota, he quips, "There are nearly five thousand pieces of tissue, sores of biopsies, and hundreds of broken skeletons in his closet." BAHHAHahahahah!
Monday, July 1, 2013
pp.32-38
My absolute favorite part of this section is the beginning of Mukherjee's rhetorical analysis and critique of Farber's report after he has experienced some "success" with the anti-folates. And his summation of Farber's dream. The tone is so hopeful that I feel we must be close and then I realize we have 440 pages to go.
I am also inclined to favor the personification and character analysis of cancer in the beginning of the section titled, "A Private Plague".
Your thoughts? Golden Lines?
I am also inclined to favor the personification and character analysis of cancer in the beginning of the section titled, "A Private Plague".
Your thoughts? Golden Lines?
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