<p>I think that the cheap prices for classics means that they are outside the time limit for royalties for the authors and/or their estates.</p>
<p>looking forward to leaning about Moonstone on my new iPad… (Sorry, I am usually not ahead of the curve in technology but love this thing…)</p>
<p>The classics are free because they are in the public domain, that is, their copyrights have expired. Generally, that includes any book published prior to 1923.</p>
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<p>I have been trying to get someone to go to that movie with me. :P</p>
<p>I haven’t read the book, but I remember following the news story at the time. I watched Cunix dance with the Houston Ballet.</p>
<p>Looking forward to reading and discussing The Moonstone. Sorry I didn’t finish Cutting for Stone in a timely fashion. I read quickly, so don’t worry so much about allowing plenty of time. In this particular case, my reading habits did not serve me well - I knew of the 700 page count. I would have/could have finished if I hadn’t stopped and read three other books at interim points - something out of the norm, also. In my defense, I had to read and return one of the interim books to the library quickly.</p>
<p>^^^^ Aha- I have a twin. I still have 60 pages to go in Cutting For Stone. In the mean time, I have also read about 3 books although none of mine were library books. Truth be told, Cutting for Stone was a library book on my Nook. I am hoping to finish the book this weekend. I promise to do better on Moonstone. I am hoping it doesn’t start out as slow as CFS.</p>
<p>My local bookclub was delighted to hear that Moonstone can be downloaded for free on Kindle. I got a library copy; Kindle on my wish list. They agreed to use that for Feb meeting. After all the perceptive comments on CC, I’ll be prepared.</p>
<p>Just finished the book. I want to say that y’all are very smart. I wish I was in a book club. I miss all but the most obvious symbolism.</p>
<p>Well, missypie, you’re in OUR book club! And there is still plenty of time to join us for Water for Elephants on April 1st!</p>
<p>NY Times Style Magazine includes an article by Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone authorabout his recent trip to his homeland, Kerala, India. </p>
<p>He visits a famous Hindu Temple, called Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple (which by the way has an estimated value in it’s lower faults of 20 Billion dollars, according to this article) [Treasure</a> in India’s Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_halpern]Treasure”>The Secret of the Temple | The New Yorker))</p>
<p>But, that’s not even the most interesting part of this article in today’s magazine. </p>
<p>It’s his description of a massage at a "Kalari"which is not the kind of lovely experience we think of when we imagine a massage. </p>
<p>As a medical doctor, in fact a Professor of Medicine at Stanford Medical School, Dr Verghese is quite impressed. </p>
<p>I have a feeling his new book, set in India will include visits to the temple and an unforgettable massage. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/t-magazine/travel/going-on-faith-in-kerala.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/t-magazine/travel/going-on-faith-in-kerala.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the update, SJCM. I really loved Cutting For Stone and will be reading this next one.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads-up on this article. I had the Style section sitting right next to me, but missed this article yesterday. Cutting for Stone is my favorite book of the last few years. I truly loved it, and will read it again some day. I heard Verghese interviewed on our local NPR station, and he was fascinating. He has the most intriguing Scottish accent!</p>
<p>It’s probably too late for these observations, but I read this on my own. I enjoyed being able to read all your comments.</p>
<p>I liked Cutting for Stone, but I did not adore it as my friend who recommended it did.</p>
<p>I liked the richness of detail, but I also felt that intricacy sometimes obstructed the forward motion of the plot. And yet, the plot often became predictable and melodramatic.</p>
<p>The greatest strength of the book is the author’s love his his profession, and it’s greatest weaknesses are that it tackles too many themes and the strange unfinished character if Genet that others have noted.</p>
<p>The book looks at sexuality, colonization, disease, the baggage of the past, particularly from our parents, and the more mythical trope of twinning. This seems to me to be too much for one book to take on, just as Genet can’t bear the burden of being the intersection of these themes as a person or as a character.</p>
<p>I think the book reveals a tremendous ambivalence about sexuality. As someone noted earlier it is largely represented as an agent of death and disease.</p>
<p>Biological parenting is separated from actual parenting; thus Hema and Ghosh are spared some of the curse of sex, and Ghosh has an unexplained vasectomy. Hema’s mothering gets in the way of her profession in the beginning and constructs her humanity in thinking about Stone. And yet, we must all be born.</p>
<p>Verghese suggests a self-destructiveness on Marion’s part when he has unprotected sex. Genet wanly attempts to remind him but gives up. Perhaps the author was influenced by so much contact with AIDs patients. But as a doctor, Marion should have known better. Or dies he secretly want to impregnate Genet out of her and remaining anger?</p>
<p>Shiva wants to sew up the fistulas in an attempt to heal his mother whose impossible giving birth makes her a candidate for one, and yet his actions create a hike in Genet that is never healed.</p>
<p>This suggests to me that in the view if the novel we are all implicated in tragic acts and we can only cut for stone and then sew up the holes? What else can we blind creatures do?</p>
<p>I do think it a shame that the women have less agency than the men, but they are likewise trapped by their need for women.</p>
<p>I am not Carholic, but the book does seen to approach the concept of original sin, and the mirror twins have very different ways if responding to this, but each is very vulnerable to the other’s decisions and actions. No one is free. The most we can do is to try to ease one another’s sufferings as all these physicians do.</p>
<p>Bookiemom Verghese has a Scottish accent! Wow, didn’t imagine that.
psychmom I’ll be reading his next book, too.</p>
<p>** Mythmom ** Thoroughly enjoyed your comments about Cutting for Stone.
I hope you’ll join us for the next book discussion, June 1st, [The Cat’s Table ** which I just finished. The author writes in such a direct, concise, style, very refreshing, and easy to read.</p>
<p>Thank you for the kind words and the invitation. Right now I have some luxury time to read books. I don’t go back to work until July 5th. I will try to read the book. You are all a wonderful and lively group.</p>
<p>mythmom, it’s never too late to make observations! I’m glad you did. I agree that Verghese took on too much, and sometimes in too melodramatic a fashion, and yet Cutting for Stone remains one of my favorite book club selections. (Since State of Wonder is my other favorite, I guess I have a fondness for exotic locales and a healthy dose of melodrama. Who knew?)</p>
<p>I hope you can join us for The Cat’s Table on June 1st!</p>