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See the latest Book Club posts below:
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Passing, Conclusion and Thanks!
Carmen: “It was the smile that maddened Irene” – Did it make her mad or did it drive her to madness – All along we’ve seen Irene disquieted by Clare and her cavalier ways, always getting under Irene’s skin, making her mad, making her nervous, making her afraid for a moment just like this one. We’ve seen…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Passing, Following up on Week 4
Derek: This description of Clare makes me appreciate even more her power of presence and sense of agency. Even though passing for white was her survival tactic, it hinges on her social capital as well. The paradox of her being among them yet “someone apart” captures her duality perfectly. Carmen: This passage captured me as…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Passing, Week 3
Derek: A quandry, a dilemma, a Catch-22 — Irene seems to be caught in a swirl where standing up for her race could lead to the downfall of Clare and their mysterious bond. Carmen: And yet she does protect Clare – She demonstrates a fierce loyalty to a principle to protect or ‘side’ with one’s…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Passing, Following up on Week 2
Carmen: I was moved/disturbed by the pathologizing of blackness in Chapter 3 as Clare, Irene, and Gertrude talked about pregnancy – “It’s awful the way it skips a generation and then pops out…nobody wants a black child.” A little later on in the chapter “Clare began to talk, steering carefully away from anything that might lead…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Passing, Week 1
Derek: Irene seems sure of herself, but what does “through with” mean, really? So many chapters to go, and already we feel a burden of knowledge and experience that Irene carries, one that she seems unwilling to share with her father. Carmen: So far the vacillating curiosity and disdain that Irene has for Clare doesn’t…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Passing by Nella Larsen, Welcome and Our Reading Schedule
Welcome to the first week of Narrative Medicine Book Club and our reading of Passing by Nella Larsen. We’re excited to begin reading with you! This week, we are starting off by announcing our anticipated reading schedule, and will officially commence next week. We’ll be reading at a pace of two chapters a week, as follows: Week…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Magic Mountain, Week 19
Week 19: Whew, what an ending! A bloody duel between Settembrini and Naphta, followed by the onset of World War I and the quick disassembly of the community we have been in for the duration. Then, in the final pages, a tour-de-force last scene depicting Castorp, our “simple fellow,” just one of thousands running through…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Magic Mountain, Week 18
Week 18: What a fascinating sequence in our next-to-last week! In this week’s chapter, “Highly Questionable,” we witness a séance, with the medium of a young Berghof patient named Ellen Brand. Her “spirit,” a “deceased, ethereal creature” named Holger who “speaks” through her, conjures for Castorp and a small group of others, after nearly two…
Narrative Medicine Book Club: Magic Mountain, Week 17
Week 17: The conclusion of the Peeperkorn story surprised me quite a bit. And Chauchat’s departure doesn’t even get its own paragraph?! In the wake of these losses Castorp descends into a full solitude, a “stupor,” where meaning and engagement is harder to find. Yet we end these pages with the introduction of a gramophone to…
narrative medicine book club: Magic Mountain, Week 16
Week 16: In the conclusion of this week’s pages we see Castorp seal a new bond with Peeperkorn, a kind of brotherhood forged in the mutual love for Chauchat. In the scene prior, of course, we see Castorp forge a similar bond with Chauchat, agreeing to “a friendship…for [Peeperkorn’s] sake,” and then sealing it with a…
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Connections in Narrative Medicine 