“…a beautiful book…” – The Huffington Post

I read part of a long excerpt from his blog (sections of which are spaced throughout the book) that helps us understand his sense-making process, and have to put the book down to cry.

“it doesn’t matter if you are from the north, or the south, or a christian, or a muslim, or a civilian, or dinka, or misseriya, or soldier, or civilian. we deliberately don’t care. our intention is to make a place that is safe and solid for everyone in abyei. and it is not just about medicine; that it only our tool. the hospital is not just a place to treat the dinka infant with meningitis or the little misseriya girl with malaria, but a place where their fathers can reach for the water barrel at the same time and say to the other, after you, no after you. and maybe, two weeks later, when they pass in the market, they will nod. and perhaps, two years from now, they might stop and talk.”

I keep reading, and wonder why it is that some doctors make such great writers (thinking that maybe I’ll take up surgery when I tire of writing)? Perhaps because they are so close to human beings? Or perhaps because they are often well read? James writes about and quotes from some fine writers, and opens his beautiful book with a section from a commencement address American essayist Joan Didion gave at the University of California in 1975 (it’s especially poignant if you know what has happened in Didion’s life in recent years – do read The Year of Magical Thinking, if you haven’t already).

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

Full review by Julia Molden found here.