robotic
11-03-2005, 01:58 PM
Transplanted Man
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060512156.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Sonny Seth is a resident at a hospital in New York's Little India. One night a truly unique patient arrives: Transplanted Man, an Indian politician whose body "harbored seven organs--a heart, a pancreas, a liver, two lungs, and a pair of corneas--that had once belonged to people of differing faiths." Transplanted Man has turned his seeming disability to his advantage and has become an important minister in the Indian cabinet: "In an India coping with ethnic and religious fragmentation, no other politician could so credibly claim to represent everyone." Sanjay Nigam's Transplanted Man is like the title character's body: it contains multitudes. There's the brilliant Sonny Seth himself, unsure of where he belongs, uncomfortable in New York but doomed to find India is "too Indian" for him. Seth and his hospital coworkers are plenty eccentric, but their patients outstrip them in weirdness altogether. One engineer, for instance, changes the course of his life by sinking his teeth into his wife's buttock. Nigam (a doctor and the author of The Snake Charmer) crams his second novel with medical lore, Indian scents, and lots of comic angst. The result is a book as teeming with life as the corridors of a great metropolitan hospital. --Claire Dederer (Amazon.com)
this is a marvellous, marvellous read ^_^
its subtle discernment of what it means to be american yet generally thought of as foreign, explore the concept of identity and the dimensions that surround the feeling to belong. within the context of this powerful subject, there's a story of the happenings in a hospital, housing expatriates and wielding interesting characters each with a tale to tell.
a biography on
author sanjay nigam
Sanjay Nigam was born in India, but left as an infant when his father came to North America for postdoctoral studies. Although he spent most of his young life in Arizona, he regularly returned to India to visit his grandparents in Delhi, where The Snake Charmer, his first novel, is set. Nigam's colorful depictions of Old Delhi are derived from those childhood memories. While pursuing his medical training, Nigam found respite from his grueling medical residency in the world of literature. Eventually, his passion for reading led to his own fiction, which he began to work on while doing scientific research in New York City. There he became involved in writing workshops, and published his first short story—an excerpt from The Snake Charmer—in Grand Street, the prestigious literary magazine. He has published other works in The Kenyon Review, Story, and Natural History. Sanjay Nigam has lived on both coasts and been associated with a number of prestigious medical schools, including Harvard.
while reading this novel, this scenerio began to unwind in my head:
the transplanted organ is an immigrant, waiting to be sewn into the body, which is the society. the cells make up by the entirity of the society, and will often try to reject it; unless there's a parallel (if the immigrant speaks english, looks, talks, etc. a certain way) than the transplanted organ (or immigrant) can assimilate. the doctor is the immigrant's community, which could decide its fate for the better - or for the worse. a false step or twist of fate, meaning that the patient can no longer remain alive.
but in the real world, the doctor's circumstances can be chosen. he can choose to support and bring hope.
transplanted roots, sleepless souls review (http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov09/at5.asp)
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060512156.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Sonny Seth is a resident at a hospital in New York's Little India. One night a truly unique patient arrives: Transplanted Man, an Indian politician whose body "harbored seven organs--a heart, a pancreas, a liver, two lungs, and a pair of corneas--that had once belonged to people of differing faiths." Transplanted Man has turned his seeming disability to his advantage and has become an important minister in the Indian cabinet: "In an India coping with ethnic and religious fragmentation, no other politician could so credibly claim to represent everyone." Sanjay Nigam's Transplanted Man is like the title character's body: it contains multitudes. There's the brilliant Sonny Seth himself, unsure of where he belongs, uncomfortable in New York but doomed to find India is "too Indian" for him. Seth and his hospital coworkers are plenty eccentric, but their patients outstrip them in weirdness altogether. One engineer, for instance, changes the course of his life by sinking his teeth into his wife's buttock. Nigam (a doctor and the author of The Snake Charmer) crams his second novel with medical lore, Indian scents, and lots of comic angst. The result is a book as teeming with life as the corridors of a great metropolitan hospital. --Claire Dederer (Amazon.com)
this is a marvellous, marvellous read ^_^
its subtle discernment of what it means to be american yet generally thought of as foreign, explore the concept of identity and the dimensions that surround the feeling to belong. within the context of this powerful subject, there's a story of the happenings in a hospital, housing expatriates and wielding interesting characters each with a tale to tell.
a biography on
author sanjay nigam
Sanjay Nigam was born in India, but left as an infant when his father came to North America for postdoctoral studies. Although he spent most of his young life in Arizona, he regularly returned to India to visit his grandparents in Delhi, where The Snake Charmer, his first novel, is set. Nigam's colorful depictions of Old Delhi are derived from those childhood memories. While pursuing his medical training, Nigam found respite from his grueling medical residency in the world of literature. Eventually, his passion for reading led to his own fiction, which he began to work on while doing scientific research in New York City. There he became involved in writing workshops, and published his first short story—an excerpt from The Snake Charmer—in Grand Street, the prestigious literary magazine. He has published other works in The Kenyon Review, Story, and Natural History. Sanjay Nigam has lived on both coasts and been associated with a number of prestigious medical schools, including Harvard.
while reading this novel, this scenerio began to unwind in my head:
the transplanted organ is an immigrant, waiting to be sewn into the body, which is the society. the cells make up by the entirity of the society, and will often try to reject it; unless there's a parallel (if the immigrant speaks english, looks, talks, etc. a certain way) than the transplanted organ (or immigrant) can assimilate. the doctor is the immigrant's community, which could decide its fate for the better - or for the worse. a false step or twist of fate, meaning that the patient can no longer remain alive.
but in the real world, the doctor's circumstances can be chosen. he can choose to support and bring hope.
transplanted roots, sleepless souls review (http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov09/at5.asp)