Why I’m in Love with Vincent Lam

I was recently re-arranging my bookshelf when I found my copy of Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. I immediately started to leaf through it and I once again realized how much some of his stories resonated with me. Lam’s stories revolve around the lives and changing perceptions of a group of medical students as they go through school, residency and eventually become full-fledged doctors. In Eli, a story that I found to be one of the most compelling in the collection, a doctor’s encounter with a prisoner brought in by the police is simmering with moral and ethical dilemmas that develop at a lightening pace. In yet another story featuring the same doctor, this time in a SARS isolation ward during the height of the epidemic, Lam delicately but authoritatively draws out what it means to the characters to be a doctor. In the last story of the collection, Lam describes a typical night shift which I found to be a wonderful ending to the collection as it highlights how confident yet weary he has become.

I’ve heard that every time a book is read, it is read by a different person. When I first read this book, I was stunned and fascinated by how the characters managed to hold dichotomous world views. On the one hand they were doctors – a profession defined by healing – on the other hand, at times they were deeply ambivalent, if not downright hostile towards their patients. I was also frustrated because I felt that the stories did not offer enough exploration or closure. Rather, I felt like I was being given selected glimpses into the characters’ lives. Lam based the stories on his experiences as an ER physician; now that I too work in an ER and only catch glimpses into patients’ lives, who sometimes present with situations that manage to deeply unnerve me, I am much more at ease with what Lam has left unwritten. I am greatly looking forward to his next book and in the meantime, I strongly recommend that Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures be in your reading list.

Disclaimer – I haven’t been paid by the publishers or the author to write this post (although the extra income would be greatly welcome).

Something to Think About…

It seems as if it has been months but I’ve finally had a weekend off from work and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Not only do I have four days off from work, it’s four of the most gorgeous and sunny days to grace my cold ol’ city in quite a while. So imagine my surprise when I woke up and found my siblings watching Life After People, a doomsday-esq documentary on the History Channel (I come from a fairly geeky family) rather than enjoying the beautiful weather. The premise of the documentary was a thought experiment chronicling what would happen to the planet if all humans suddenly vanished (the documentary does not dwell on the reasons behind humanity’s disappearance). What was nice about this documentary is that it bypassed all the doom and gloom of a possible apocalypse and focused on simply on what would happen to the planet if humans were simply taken out of the picture. The CGI effects detailing how the world’s major cities (and most notable landmarks) would eventually crumble were simultaneously creepy and fascinating. While some could argue that the documentary was melodramatic, it does a fine job of examining humanity’s place in the universe. Towards the end, the narrator states, “there was life before humans and there will be life after humans”. Ultimately, our life is too short and too precious to waste trying to destroy each other and/or ourselves. As for myself, I will be getting dressed in a few minutes and taking a very leisurely walk around the city, enjoying everything the day has to offer, being thankful for everything I have and not dwell on the things I do not.

He's Just Not That Into You

After my 4th night shift in a row, I wasn't able to sleep normal hours so I figured that I might as well join my sister to see 'He's Just Not that Into You'. I wish I hadn't. Not only was that movie a waste of my $10 but I could actually feel some neurons dying as I stared dumbfounded at the romantic hijinks of the thoroughly idiotic cast of characters. Those are two hours of my life that I will never get back.

That movie was a mash up of every trite, redundant and annoying cliché about both single and married women. By far the most anger inducing character was Ginnifer Goodwin's. Rejected more than once by blind dates because of her neuroticism bordering on obsessive stalking, she proceeds to make an ass out of herself in every scene with a volley of high pitched inane comments about her desperate search to find Mr. Right. Then there's Jennifer Aniston's and Ben Affleck's characters whose only conflict is not being legally married despite a good solid relationship that has lasted almost a decade. Last but not least is the married couple played by Jennifer Connolley and Bradley Cooper who inevitably divorce because he cheats on his wife. Rather than explore why he cheats and/or how the marriage started to fall apart, the movie offers the one dimensional explanation that he cheats because he's bored and trapped in his marriage. The rest of the characters are so useless that they're not worth discussing. The movie portrayed women as unintelligent neurotic wing nuts while the men were showcased as amoral ass bags. Final verdict – I'm just not that into this movie.