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A review by ikon_biotin_jungle_lumen
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
5.0
I began reading this book exactly one week before I was made aware that a family member was dying from brain cancer. What began as a semi-abstract exercise become suddenly that much more personal. Even before that revelation, I felt that this would be a life changing read. The Emperor of All Maladies is a deeply uplifting and fascinatingly informative work, one which I am sure I will return to more than once.
Within these pages, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee achieved something truly remarkable. As David Rieff said, it is “that rarest of things—a noble book.” Cancer is a subject which any author should approach with fear and trembling. It spans all of recorded human history and affects every living person, whether directly or indirectly. The Emperor of All Maladies is not a morality tale, but a mortality tale. The subject matter is handled with deep human compassion, searing clarity, artful metaphor, and—most importantly—layman-interpretable data. Every person who lives long enough will be forced to ask himself, “what if it comes for me?” In the grip of that terrifying question, I would commend this book to every living person.
I’m frankly astounded, and not a little moved, by both the perfect tactfulness and cogent scientific accuracy in these pages. How does one go about telling his reader that, by the odds, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be embattled by cancer at some point in their lives? Despite this, there was not a single point in time during my reading that I felt fear at that thought. This is partially due to my worldview which provides both peace and eternal hope, but also largely due to Mukherjee’s skillful hand. This is a man who cares deeply for his patients (as a practicing oncologist) and for all of humanity afflicted by the emperor of all maladies. He artfully weaves a story of human and medical history going hand in hand.
The book’s subtitle, “a biography of cancer,” puts a thought-provoking context on the disease—how does it compare to a human life? Cancer is “a distorted and virulent version of ourselves,” the mania of cells which know neither when to die nor when to stop reproducing. It grows, it adapts, it hides, it multiplies, it fights back. When was it born, and when, so we hope, will it die?
Within these pages, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee achieved something truly remarkable. As David Rieff said, it is “that rarest of things—a noble book.” Cancer is a subject which any author should approach with fear and trembling. It spans all of recorded human history and affects every living person, whether directly or indirectly. The Emperor of All Maladies is not a morality tale, but a mortality tale. The subject matter is handled with deep human compassion, searing clarity, artful metaphor, and—most importantly—layman-interpretable data. Every person who lives long enough will be forced to ask himself, “what if it comes for me?” In the grip of that terrifying question, I would commend this book to every living person.
I’m frankly astounded, and not a little moved, by both the perfect tactfulness and cogent scientific accuracy in these pages. How does one go about telling his reader that, by the odds, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be embattled by cancer at some point in their lives? Despite this, there was not a single point in time during my reading that I felt fear at that thought. This is partially due to my worldview which provides both peace and eternal hope, but also largely due to Mukherjee’s skillful hand. This is a man who cares deeply for his patients (as a practicing oncologist) and for all of humanity afflicted by the emperor of all maladies. He artfully weaves a story of human and medical history going hand in hand.
The book’s subtitle, “a biography of cancer,” puts a thought-provoking context on the disease—how does it compare to a human life? Cancer is “a distorted and virulent version of ourselves,” the mania of cells which know neither when to die nor when to stop reproducing. It grows, it adapts, it hides, it multiplies, it fights back. When was it born, and when, so we hope, will it die?