HW 24- End of Book

Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains

Random House, 2004

Precis of ENTIRE BOOK:

Dr. Paul Farmer is a headstrong doctor and philosopher who subscribes to a world that excludes no one. He makes great sacrifice (his absence from his family and friends, his lack of sleep) to love and serve the world. From the cracked roads of Haiti to the slums of Peru, from the gruesome prisons of Russia and beyond he devotes his life to the health and well-being of the world around him. He is not a man without flaws, but a genius who is determined to fight a long, inevitable defeat to the things which makes us all similar: illness and dying. He may lose patients beyond his control and his temper, but he never gives up and never fails to make a triumphant return to his ultimate mission: to revolutionize and transform our morals that have to do with illness and dying. Tracy Kidder tags along to follow the chronicles of Partners in Health, Farmer's flagship organization, and finds that there is much to be learned from him. Paul Farmer knows that one day he will die and TB and AIDS will continue, but at least for a while, he felt like he was winning a fight against death- not just for himself, but for the world around him.

Gems:

"Now his legs and arms were emaciated. You could see all the bones in them, and his knee and elbow joints looked outsize, with the flesh shrunk away." (P. 268) This stopped me dead in my tracks. This was very very hard to read because it did a wonderful job of recreating some twisted images from my own memory I'd rather have forgotten. The connection between John and my father may not be great, but after reading this quote I cursed on anyone who would dare to get in the way of his survival. All the more tragic was his loss of the battle...

"I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I'm not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don't dislike victory." I feel like this almost entirely explains how Farmer identifies himself and his obligations towards others. I really admire his optimism that he helps others believe they are winning the fight against the long defeat, but I also admire his realism in that he knows in the end, it is just a long DEFEAT.

"The woman who said to me years ago, Are you incapable of complexity? That was an epiphany for me. Are you going to punish people for thinking TB comes from sorcery? It's like the guy on our own team, a nice guy, who said he would help with a water project in a town here, but only if the people really showed they wanted it. What if that standard had been applied to me when I was a kid, before I knew that water could carry organisms that made people sick?" This quote really spoke to me. Many people in our culture look to religion and their own belief system to dig deep and do two things: blame sickness on the divine and use the same idols as a motivator to help. Everyone is pretty much on the same team when it comes to illness and dying (unless you're a serial killer!).

In the end the final third of this book was an intense journey. I felt like most of my questions were answered (mainly questions like "what makes this guy tick?" and "doesn't he realize his futility in the grand scheme of things?") and I felt a deep connection between one of the chapters (the one about John) and my own life experiences. I think Dr. Farmer is a rare breed- one who simply does not care about the glory or the money, but whose only mission is to help others believe that they can win the long fight against death, even if it is just for a glimpse of a moment. People just don't want to die, and Farmer takes each and every one of these people in as if they were his own family. He may have been reckless and at some times chaotic, but in the end he is really just an advocate for those who need it most- the dying! I have to wonder how he could possibly outdo himself and/or what will happen when he finally "faces the long defeat".