Tag Archives: Abraham Verghese

Bunyan on Fiction vs. Lying

By Robin Bates | Published: September 17, 2024

Camus wrote that “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” J.D. Vance has tried the same defense for his Haitian lies.

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Dramatic Irony & a Medical Emergency

By Robin Bates | Published: September 30, 2019

As I followed the ambulance taking my mother to the emergency room, I saw myself playing a scene from Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone.”

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Our National Health Requires Immigrants

By Robin Bates | Published: June 23, 2019

Monday As we watch the Trump administration trample all over American values with its treatment of asylum seekers at our southern border, it’s worth reminding ourselves how much we rely on immigrants. I’ve been reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, an Ethiopian immigrant of Indian parentage, who at one point has a character expound […]

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The Seductive Lure of Power

By Robin Bates | Published: June 16, 2019

Monday Pundits are puzzled why respectable people yield to the lure of Donald Trump and join his administration, even though they invariably emerge tainted. I don’t have in mind those grifters like campaign chair Paul Manafort, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price, or EPA’s Scott Pruitt, who were corrupt […]

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High Strung, Ready to Explode

By Robin Bates | Published: August 27, 2011

Abraham Verghese uses the tightly strung rackets of Swedish tennis great Bjorn Borg as a metaphor for the state of his marriage, pushed to the breaking point by his workaholism.

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The President Is Reading Novels? Good!

By Robin Bates | Published: August 25, 2011

Rightwing attacks on Obama for including novels in his summer reading are all wrong. We want our presidents to be balanced and grounded, and good fiction helps one remember what is really important in life.

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Reading Literature, A Spiritual Practice

By Robin Bates | Published: April 3, 2011

McEntyre notes that, in the ancient practice of lectio divina, one sought to maintain “spiritual focus and equanimity” by “reading Scripture slowly, listening for the word or phrase that speaks to you, pausing to consider prayerfully the gift being offered in those words for this moment.” Ditto, the author says, for reading literature.

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