Overall – some of the best character portrayal’s I’ve ever read, to the point that much of the book reads like an autobiography. The characters aren’t standing for ideals, they’re very human. Their feelings and relatable, their actions, desires, resentments all. The setting is very unique, and the peripheral subject matter sounds authentic (I don’t know any better). Rhetorically frustrating end to an otherwise great novel

Part I: 7.25/10

Right away the play on words present in the title becomes obvious – the first ten chapters of the novel discuss everything leading up to the birth of the twins Marion and Shiva. The book is narrated from the omniscient voice of Marion as he describes the relationship between his mother Sister Mary Josephine, and his maybe (?) father Dr. Stone precipitating he and Shiva’s birth in 1954 Ethiopia (right around the time Haile Selassie federated Eritrea).

Very much a medical book about medical things (surgery in a 2nd world country [is Ethiopia second world? It’s post WWII, and they’re vehemently anti-Imperial Italy, not really a big playa in the scheme of the Cold War, and also a founding member of the U.N.] call it “war torn, poor country”).

We learn of Dr. Thomas Stone’s practice in Ethiopia, his aversion to obstetrics, and the revelation of his love for sister Mary Joseph who births his(?) son(s) - a gritty near-caesarean at Stone’s hands, during which he considers mutilating what he views to be the cancerous stillborn who survives the violent outburst and is born Shiva at the hands Hema. Stone’s paralysis is relieved by the resident OBGYN Hema, who reprimands Stone for his cowardice, impregnation of Mary Josephine, and myriad other things.

Observations:

• visceral pain - poorly localized, internally sourced from the organs, lost with advanced syphilis

• “getting blessed” by a digital rectal exam is funny

Part II: 7/10

This part sees Gosh and Hema (the former who teases the latter, like a schoolboy, about her beauty and his love for her) struggling to raise sister Mary Joseph’s two sons (Shiva can’t breathe on his own). Stone has fled the country. Eventually, Stone makes a real move on Hema and they make love. He proposes to marry her in the throws of post coital bliss, she agrees – but only for one year, since she recognizes that their lives have been thrown together by the two children.

“Each physician thought ignorance the special providence of his forefathers”

Part III: 7.75/10

After a few years, Shiva takes a vow of silence which he only breaks after witnessing his caretakers complicity in the extermination of a bunch of puppies (stray dog population control).

They have a younger “sister,” (Genet, daughter of one of their family’s servants) and the three of them grow and play together. Shiva and Marion develop increased senses when they lose sight which they learn by their ability find one another when playing blindfolded hide and seek.

Genet’s mother Rosina is married to Zemui who is General Mebratu’s driver. Mebratu’s who stages a failed coup on Sailasse. This causes mass havoc in Ethiopia, and the Stone’s and their family are endangered by their proximity to the revolutionary. Gosh is taken away, and Hema.

A loyalist comes for Zemui’s bicycle. Marion and Shiva trick him into riding off a ledge where he’s wounded. Marion inadvertently shoots him with the gun the man wielded at him just minutes before and feels guilty.

In discussing the effectiveness of a homemade enema, Gosh describes it as if the patient is drinking a whiskey and soda: “It will suck the glass right out of his hand.”

Later, when discussing vasectomies with a man who already has many children, and claims to practice the “interruptus” method, Gosh reprimands him saying “interruptus?! good heavens man, no wonder you have 5 children. You know what we call the population who practices coitus interruptus? ‘dada,’ ‘father,’ ‘papa.’”

Shiva hooks up with Genet which further drives a wedge between he and Marion. Rosina finds evidence of their copulation, but accuses Marion of deflowering her daughter. Shiva doesn’t clear his name, even after Rosina genitally mutilates her. Years pass as Shiva’s tism grows and Marion feels as though he lives in his brother shadow.

Gosh dies of Leukemia which he had been keeping secret – and with his dying breath, he implores Marion to tell Stone that Gosh forgives him.

Genet ceases to perform well in school and eventually disappears to join the Eritrean revolution. She hijacks a plane and is captured. All those connected to her (namely Marion who ostensibly still loves her) are endangered by her actions, despite no longer being close. He must flee the country – he makes his way to America

Part IV: 4/10

Wow this book had and still has so much promise, but this final chapter became a sitcom.

Marion works in a slum hospital, enthralled by abundance of America – even in the poorest corners of NYC. He eventually bumps into none other than his real father Dr. Stone who has become one of the most successful surgeons in the north east. Marion is troubled at first, but eventually learns some things from him about his traumatic past. They have a very stilted father son relationship and the dialog between them is scathing.

Marion continues to grow resentful towards Shiva’s success as a fistula expert/genius safe back home in Missing. He mocks the Times profile on Shiva which quotes him as saying “I just repair holes,” – Marion remarks that he makes them too.

Seeking out the only place nearby to get authentic Ethiopian food, Marion bumps into a woman who’s baby he cared for back in Missing. She asks him about Genet who’s been MIA for years – he says as much, and she says no, she’s been here recently, even.

In an incredibly weird and questionable turn of servile events, Genet appears at Marion’s doorstep feverish from tuberculosis. He lets her in and cares for her in a paternal way, then sleeps with her? and kind of rapes her a second time, forcing hero piss on him like she did when they were kids (to bully him). It’s a confusingly motivated sort of revenge viz a viz “look at what you could have had with me, but instead you are a leprous refugee.” She bleeds all over from the vestigial wounds inflicted by Rosina. She disappears a few days later.

Weeks later, Marion contracts Hepatitis B (from Genet) and enters a feverish coma with impossible odds to survive. None other than Shiva shows up and concocts a plan to donate his own liver which Marion’s body will accept. Telegraphed from the outset, the never-before-done operation goes off without a hitch at the hands of Dr. Stone in the presence of Hema (awwww family reunion). Then a few days later after Marion begins to recover, Shiva becomes brain dead from blood clotting and an existing wound from Dr. Stone’s failed abortion attempt on him. It’s like a hallmark rug pull which is so frustrating. Verghese couldn’t decide between a happy ending and a sad ending – Shiva saves the day, but must die still.

Something which doesn’t add up throughout this chapter is the simultaneous reverence for Sister Mary Joseph, the missionary hospitals and culture the boys were raised in, but zero inhibitions about premarital unprotected ex from Christian, missionary, medically-savvy doctors. It’s not even ironic or poetic justice that this is Marion’s downfall, it’s an outright plothole. The nonchalance and lack of morality (moreso w.r.t. the rape than the premarital). If that wasn’t bad enough, even afterwards in the final chapters wrapping up loose ends describing the “morosely ever after,” Marion finds comfort knowing that Genet died (he didn’t hate-fuck her, it was like his narcissistic climax, finally getting his Madonna). He’s like,,, glad about it – his love was never pure, and he was never the white knight who finished last that Verghese wants us to think he is – it’s like Marion regresses in character development. FURTHERMORE, after learning from SMJB’s letter that Stone was not in fact his/Shiva’s father, but rather that she was raped – there’s no discussion about the obvious parallels between her and Genet. The narrative becomes deaf to its own thematic undertones. Really frustrating that he managed to portray such realistic characters, and then blew up the whole story with medicamentum ex machina followed immediately by morbus ex machina.

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