…my atheism is far from devout, but a rather lazy halfhearted form of the creed, tinged with what the French call la nostalgie de la croyance. It is that nostalgia for faith that has led me into any number of monasteries and churches to seek out the company of the pious. Nor am I so uncertain of the inefficacy of prayer, but am beginning to suspect that gazing, listening and contemplating may influence the material universe.

…so writes Richard Selzer, retired professor of surgery at Yale Medical School in his autobiography Down From Troy: A Doctor Comes Of Age.

I was especially struck by that last sentence. I know in my own life that “gazing, listening and contemplating” on the mysteries of God in the morning definitely does the material universe, in how I approach the rest of the day, the week. I become centered and my life flows from that center. If like me, you want to believe that center is God, so be it.

I believe just the act of contemplation of something, someone outside yourself brings you more in tune with the universe. It sounds paradoxical. Focus outside yourself and inside yourself you become more focussed than you previously were.

In brief, on my scale of 1 to 5, the 300-page book, published in 1992, was a solid 3 and is definitely worth picking up a copy at the library like I did. I believe he has written better books, most notably Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery and then Taking the World in for Repairs. I have read both of them and believe they were better written and more engaging than this one.

That said, this one had its moments, especially in his brutal retelling of a childhood in the town of Troy, N.Y, which when he was growing up, was a town of brothels. He even recounts his own first visit to a prostitute there at the age of 17 and later a malpractice suit against him (that he won when the case was dropped) as well as almost committing euthanasia on a man suffering from AIDs. Personally, though, I think where the story was strongest was in his relating about his life with his father, a surgeon himself, and his mother. I would have liked to have seen more of that aspect of his life, or perhaps the other incidents cut away from the story.

Many of the chapters were essays in various magazines over the years and felt like they were slap-dashed together, not really making a cohesive whole. In his previous books, the reader knew that coming in, but it wasn’t presented as an autobiography or a science textbook. Instead, it reminded me of vignetttes he told about different cases, akin to Oliver Sacks’ writing.

If one were to start reading Selzer’s work, I wouldn’t recommend one begin with this book, instead try the other two I’ve mentioned.

So what did you read during today’s Sunday Salon for those of you that participated? For those of you that did not, what have you read lately that you would recommend?

I am not sure how I came across Selzer’s writing. Once I did, I fell in love with his clear and analytical language. The first book I read by him was Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery and then Taking the World in for Repairs.

I must admit upfront that while I have been drawn to medical dramas like ER and Chicago Hope in the past, I was not always enamored of reality medical series on Discovery Channel when we had cable or satellite. Even when ER went in for the closeups, at least, I had the feeling that it was fake, but with the reality shows, it was too visceral, knowing that an actual person was on the other side of the camera.

Yet when I read Selzer, his writing is so sparse and clean, I cannot help but be drawn into the real life stories, and in this case, story:

A childhood spent in the 1930s seems much more distant than sixty years, as though it had taken place a century before that, when the streets of Troy were gaslit. Between then and now, between Troy and New Haven, there is a chasm across which swings only the frayed rope bridge of memory. Besides, like any memoir of growing up, this one is an impersonation. The author, seeking to enact his boyhood, cannot entirely shuck his manhood. The past remains beyond total recall, no matter the exactitude of the writer. If the telling seems to have a certain staccato rhythm, it is because the past remembered is made up of small, random bursts of turbulence and long periods of stagnation. More than once, I have tied dried apricots and paper leaves to the branches of a long-dead tree to give it the appearance of life. Oh, had I the muse for it, I would do as Homer did: wear vine leaves in my hair, strike a lyre with the flat of my hand and sing of Troy– tales of heroism, treachery, vengeance, single combat. Instead, I have only these unbaptized scraps to offer in the hope that, taken together, they will provide a glimpse of that time, that place. Perhaps they will also reveal how one boy grew up to become a doctor who writes. To Troy, then. Troy! Where in October even the dogs in the street pause to admire the foliage. Troy! Unfurling down the hillsides like the grayish pink tongue  of a spaniel to lap the waters of the Hudson River.

I wasn’t going to quote the complete first paragraph, but then decided that I couldn’t do it justice without quoting it in its entirety. If that first paragraph seems to end on an incronguous note of a grayish pink tongue of a dog, it is only a foreshadow of the things to come as he doesn’t always paint a pretty picture of Troy or the medical profession (from what I’ve read about the book). Yet how he paints the picture, using the words that he does, is a thing to behold, in my estimation thus far.

Note: I will continue reading this this afternoon in between watching the two NFL Conference Championship games on a large screen TV at a local bar/restaurant. As a Pennsylvanian, I am pulling for the Eagles and the Steelers, but if the two come to blows in the Super Bowl,  as  someone who grew up on the greats of Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, John Stallworth , Rocky Bleier and Lynn Swann, I will be pulling for the Steelers. I have no choice in the matter. The ghosts of my past are too demanding, and I must obey– not to mention, I am a big fan of Willie Parker and Hines Ward.