'When Breath Becomes Air' by Paul Kalanithi - Book review

There are books that break your heart. And then there are books that create a hole in your chest so deep that it may take a long time to get repaired. These are the books that touch the nerves inside you that hurt the most, strip you of all the faux coping mechanisms under which you have covered yourself and then leave you out in the cold letting those nerves hurt, and hurt hard.

Paul Kalanithi's 'When Breath Becomes Air' is one such book for me. The book though started on a bleak note with a long foreword and a lot of details about Paul's education, his words started touching those raw nerves when he talks about his journey, first as a medical student, then as a doctor and later as a patient.

'When Breath Becomes Air' talks about mortality and life in the rawest words possible. Paul's confessions as a doctor, sympathy towards his patients, the urge to understand the patient-doctor relationship that is laced with limitations and exhilaration both, his responsibility as a neurosurgeon and his quest to understand life and death make you adore him for the person and the doctor that he was. The only thought crosses your mind at this point is 'If only. If only all the doctors in today's times were like him.    

And then starts the narrative of his own journey as a cancer patient at the age of thirty six when life was looking more promising than ever. But as they say, life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. During his suffering as a patient, he keeps going back to thinking about the times when the roles were reverse. 

All through the book, you can feel the urgency. The urgency to tell so many things, the urgency to pour everything out, the urgency of time - the most limited resource he had. The book tears you up with a epilogue written by his wife. The details she captured about his death, about her climbing into the bed with him one last time when he was about to let go is heart wrenching. 

I don't know if this book tore me apart because I have a history of losing someone too close to this disease seventeen years ago. And it still hurts the same. But then it is said that when something comes straight from the heart, it hits hard. And a dying man's words couldn't have come from anywhere else. 

This book goes undoubtedly to my list of most loved books. Go read. And get your heart broken a little bit. 

Quoting a few lines that I loved from the book. 

“All of medicine, not just cadaver dissection, trespasses into sacred spheres. Doctors invade the body in every way imaginable. They see people at their most vulnerable, their most scared, their most private. They escort them into the worlds and then back out. Seeing the body as a matter and mechanism is the flip side to easing the most profound human suffering”.

“Learning to judge whose lives could be saved, whose couldn’t be, and whose shouldn’t be requires an unattainable prognostic ability.”  

“When there’s no space for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool.”

"If the weight of mortality doesn't grow lighter, does it at least grow familiar?”

“Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day”

“Death may be a onetime event, but living with terminal illness is a process”

The Palace of Illusions - Review

Now, before you go ahead with this review, let me warn you this is the first time I am putting up a book review and had it not been for the Write Tribe’s prompt, I would mostly not have attempted reviewing a book in near future.

But now that we are here, let’s begin. The book I am reviewing today is ‘The Palace of Illusions’ by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Let me tell you that I am not at all a mythology person. In fact, mythology to me is literally kaala akshar bhains barabar :P  And hence this is the first book that I read on mythology after some serious recommendation by a friend. I was pretty sure that I would give up after reading first few pages. But this book kept me hooked. And hooked like anything.

The Book:

The Palace of Illusions is the epic tale of The Mahabharat narrated from Panchaali’s eyes. The book is written in first person and throughout the book, Panchaali narrates incidence after incidence beginning right from her abnormal birth, her lonely childhood, her mysterious friendship and relationship with Krishna, her feminist thoughts, her married life with Five Pandavas, relationship with her mother-in-law Kunti, her distinct role in keeping Pandavas together, her insecurities as a woman, her secret and strange attraction to Karna, motherhood and her journey all through the while fulfilling every word of the phrase of ‘the woman who shall change the course of history’ spoken at the time of her birth.

Some amazing lines and their significance in today’s times:

There are so many instances and beautifully woven lines that you would find relevant even today. Putting together just a few of them here.

Relationship with her Mother-in-law:

“I wasn’t going to give my mother-in-law the satisfaction of thinking that she’d reduced me to tears, though in fact I was on the verge of weeping with frustration."

"Had we remained in Hastinapur, in her husband’s palace, I am sure she would have fought me fiercely for control. But the Palace of Illusions was my domain, and she accepted this, spending her days in the cool, fragrant garden listening to the bulbuls sing. Or was she a better actress than I gave her credit for, bidding her time, waiting for the mistakes she knew I’d make?”

Now, who says the ‘coveted’ saas-bahu fights were made famous by Ekta Kapoor. Reading the above lines made me grin thinking that this bitter-sweet relationship existed from the days of the yore.   

Her Feminist Ideas:

“Nor was I particularly delighted with the virginity boon, which seemed designed more for my husbands’ benefit than mine. That seemed to be the nature of boon given to women – they were handed to us like presents we hadn’t quite wanted.

If the sage had cared to inquire, I’d have requested the gift of forgetting, so that when I went to each brother I’d be free of the memory of the previous one.”

These and many such lines bring out her frustration of being born into a man’s world. This yet again proves that we, women have been fighting this battle of feminism since ages. Sigh !!

The Practical and Sharp Women in Her:

The photograph on the right speaks volumes about the way Panchaali thought about herself and her importance in the life of Pandavas. Ofcourse, she was a woman and just like today’s women she took the fact about her husbands’ marrying other women with a pinch of salt, however, at the same time knowing her true value in their lives.

The Verdict:

Now, who hasn’t heard about Mahabharata? We all have. But unfolding incident after incident from Panchaali’s point of view was such a refresher. So many small incidents woven together in bringing this epic tale alive seen from Panchaali’s eyes. The Palace of Illusions depicts Panchaali as a powerful, courageous and a practical woman who knew her way in the world of men. The book is written in impeccable English with carefully chosen words.

Summing up, I enjoyed reading this book thoroughly for its fast paced narrative, amazing writing style and beautiful words. This one has actually inspired me to dive more into mythological books.

I don't know if the above can be called a proper review or not. But I hope I have done enough justice while putting up the above. And as I said, this review is a first timer. Suggestions are welcome. Ciao J

This post is written for the Write Tribe Festival of Words – Day 4 where we had to put up a Book Review.