Medical Thrillers: Charlatans and The Final Diagnosis

    After having written a medical thriller script myself, i decided to watch a few films in the genre, to see if there was something worth copying. There wasn't. I didn't even like Side Effects. So i decided to read a few books. Started with 'Charlatans' by Robin Cook. Hated it. So i decided not to read his famous 'Coma'. Might watch the film later. 

    However, lending Charlatans, i realised something. My earlier deduction about the number of library goers dwindling over the years was wrong. Between 2019 and 22, 6 readers, including myself had lent the book. So it was only Asimov readers that had dwindled. Crap fiction still had readers in libraries. 

    Cook's craft is horrible. His story highly predictable. 

    I next lent Arthur Hailey's 'The Final Diagnosis'. Interesting statistics there. Nobody but me had lent the book since 2008. I was the first person to lend the book since 2008 and 38 people had lent it between 1989 and 2008. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that old writers have fewer readers today. 

    Hailey's craft was far superior than Cook's. That was a relief. But that was it. Terrible story. Nothing to look forward to. Charlatans at least had something to look forward to, the resolution of a mystery, however predictable the resolution might have been.  

Charlatans - statistics

        There was a reason why i had decided against lending this one the first time i went to the library. It was a sentence in the blurb which read 'At Three Counties Hospital one proud, brilliant physician holds the terrible verdict of life and death each time he makes the final diagnosis in a desperate case while passions, professional obsessions, and rapacious desires create a battleground between young doctors and old, and between two beautiful women fighting for the love of the same powerful man.' [Emphasis mine]

    The blurb also had reviews, one of which said, 'Done with skill and absolute fidelity...The best medical novel since Not as a Stranger'. I made a mental note to watch the film based on the book. I am pretty sure the book is going to be similar and my reading of the summary of the book confirmed it. 'Powerful novel about a young doctor who lives for medicine and sacrifices everything for his career. Describes his years at medical school, his practice in a small town and his devoted self-sacrificing wife who works to make their marriage a success.' [Emphasis mine.]

    I am really so done with this male world where beautiful women are always fighting for the love of the same powerful man. It is either that, or some woman is sacrificing for the ambitious male's career. It's infuriating that the trope still finds place in today's films and literature. 

    The only good thing to have come out of reading these books is that i got a taste of what it was like then, the genre, and what it is like, now. Highly male dominated and concentrating on women's breasts. There were descriptions of female bodies in both the books and both really liked describing breasts. Well, even Asimov liked that, to be fair but Asimov was at least brilliant in his stories and had a vision. So i forgave him, because i am partial to good writers.

    I noticed the use of 'negro' and 'negress' in The Final Diagnosis. Googled to learn that the words went out of use only in the late 60s. I think it might have something to do with the Civil Rights Movement. 

    I have decided to go back to reading Asimov. Want to finish of all of him available in the library. Have put in a request to buy more too. Don't know if they will do it. 

   

This is not a Book Review: The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov

 As chosen by the SF grand master himself

said the book's cover. So it was sort of irresistible for me, after having read The Robots of Dawn. Once again, i set the goal of reading 40 pages a day. Noticed some interesting statistics from the book's record in Deshaposhini Public Library, Kuthiravattam, where i lent it from. Between 1988 and 1999, 30 people lent the book. Between 99 and 2022, only one person (me) lent it. I deduced that the total number of readers of Asimov or science fiction has dwindled and also that the total number of library goers has dwindled. I think the latter would be the more plausible explanation. I myself, was venturing out to a public library after a hiatus of over ten years. 

 

I enjoyed most of the stories, though i think i prefer his long fiction. Novels. I am yet to read his non-fiction. What i loved the most about this collection is the author's brief note before each story explaining why he decided to include it in the collection. They are all witty and notable for its lack of modesty - both characteristics i love in artists. 

Multivac is a recurring entity in a lot of stories. I love multivac and it is amazing how, all those years ago, he thought of this super computer. As far as i know, such a thing doesn't exist even today but it also does, in various forms. There are computers which collect our data and give intelligent predictions. We have Aadhaar now. We have states with biometric information of each and every adult citizen of a nation. If India has it, the US has the most advanced form of it. We have intelligent advertisements flooding us in every single site we use. We have google. Facebook. 

I really liked the story in which multivac is repeatedly sending out commands to kill itself. Some day, i wish to make it into a film. It might have already been made. I don't watch enough films. Anyway, i would like to make one of my own, in Malayalam. 

I also liked the one about Doors. We have the same concept in other literature called portals but i liked Doors better. The process reminded me of Dr. Manhattan. There is a psychiatrist who wonders what might happen if the Door got stuck in between the process of transporting one person to another place. I felt it would end up in entities such as Dr. Manhattan, which came in SF later, anyway. 

I will quote the brief introductions by the author that i really loved and made me laugh and smile. That's what this makes this collection so valuable. We get a glimpse of Asimov's projection as a SF writer. 

He likes teasing the reader in all of his wordplay stories. In A Loint of Paw, he says, in the introduction, 

If, on the other hand, you like wordplay, the way to play the game is to cover the last line or two in the story and when you get there (assuming  you haven't already read the story) see if you c an guess what I am going to say before I say it. I'll be terribly disappointed if you do. 

In The Dead Past, he lets us in to his writing process. I find it very similar to my own and it gave me confidence.

I don't labor over the details of a story in advance. Once I have a vague notion of the idea behind it, and a clear notion of the ending, I just begin and make it up as I go along. Occasionally, I throw something in with no particular idea of having it contribute to the working out of the plot. I may put it in just because it is an interesting sidelight or because it gives an air of verisimilitude to the social background. 

 

The wit in this one really got me. In the introduction to Dreaming Is a Private Thing, he says, 

I suppose that every story someone writes is a bit autobiographical. There has to be a personal tinge in it somewhere. After all you can only think with your own brain, you can only remember your own memories, you can only be influenced deeply and subliminally by the events in your own life. 

    Sherman Hillary, the Dreamer in this story, is reminiscent of me in a way. I was vaguely aware of it but I foolishly thought no one would notice. I was quite wrong. No sooner did the story appear than I got letters quite clear they knew what I was doing. 

    Heinlein said I was coining money out of my neurosis. Well, whose neurosis should I coin money out of?

 

I have the same question to the world. Whose neurosis? Your dad's? Why, so you can sue the shit out of me? 

I found comfort in this fact about the author that he shared in the introduction to It's Such a Beautiful Day. 

 

...    For instance, I'm an indoors person. I'm not afraid of the outdoors and I penetrate it easily and cheerfully. However, I must admit I like Central Park better than the wilderness, and I like the canyons of Manhattan better than Central Park, and I like the interior of my apartment better than the canyons of Manhattan, and I like my two rooms better with the shades down at all times than with the shades up. I'm not an agoraphobe at all, but I am a claustrophile, if you see the distinction. 

There is a comment on Eastern philosophy in The Last Answer to which, i said, in annotations, 'Hey! Not all Eastern Philosophy!'. 

Murray said, "That sounds like a bit of Eastern philosophy - something that sounds profound precisely because it has no meaning."

I don't know anything about Eastern philosophy but i don't like the West always calling us spiritual and crap especially when we have an ancient tradition of rationalism in India. 

I liked the introduction to the last story in the collection, Unto the Fourth Generation the best because i am a hopeless romantic and it is the only one in which Asimov talks about his love life. 

    When I sat at the same table with Janet Jeppson (who is now my dear wife) for the first time-it was at the annual banquet of the Mystery Writers of America in 1959-this story had just been published. Janet had read it and she pointed out a literary flaw in it. (Here i smiled to myself and said, typical!) I saw her point and introduced the necessary correction, and that's another reason it means so much to me. 

Just look at them, the love birds! She was so beautiful! Another author i need to read.  

By Jay Kay Klein - Original publication: 1994Immediate source: From the illustration pages in I. Asimov: A Memoir (Bantam Books, 1995) between pages 292-293 (originally published by Doubleday, 1994)., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60533618

This is not a book review: The Robots of Dawn, Isaac Asimov

    While reading O.V. Vijayan, whom i now adore for his non-fiction more than his fiction, i was intrigued by his mention of Asimov's I, Robot. I wanted to read it immediately. Checked for the e-book, found it was too expensive for me at the moment. But it had been long since i wanted to get my hands on science fiction and thanks to my bi-polar disorder, i was always looking for tasks to add to my to-do list. So it was that i visited Deshaposhini Public Library, Kuthiravattam (yeah), Calicut after more than 12 or so years. 

    Deshaposhini used to be my favourite place at one point of time. The last memory i have of it, however, is that of a book i lent and never gave back. This time, when i went there, the staff had changed. Nobody recognised me. I took a new membership and looked for  Asimov. I didn't find I, Robot so i took a title with 'robot' in it and that was The Robots of Dawn. 

    I did google the book before lending it so i knew it was last of the trilogy. Usually, my OCD kicks in when i go out of order - in anything. Even toothpaste. I have to press it from bottom up and never from in between, like some lesser mortals do. I wrote down a request for I, Robot, and lent the third of the trilogy. 

    I made a plan. I am always making plans. I read 40 pages every day. I did. Finished the book before the assigned two weeks. What a fantabulous read it was! I had tried reading H.G. Wells before this and had failed, even though he was one of Appachan's favourites. Appachan would have loved Asimov. Too many books to read before i die and he died before he read Asimov. 

To the book. The concepts amazing. See here. 

What was troubling the robot was what the roboticists called an equipotential of contradiction on the second level. Obedience was the Second Law and R. Geronimo was now suffering from two roughtly equal and contradictory orders. Robot-block was what the general population called it or, more frequently, roblock for short.

The three laws are an important concept, central to the book, and i suppose it would be, to any book involving robots. I will find out when i read the second in the trilogy. 

I noticed that Asimov too, notices a woman's breasts when he sits down to write.

What gave her away immediately were her breasts, the prominence of which she made no attempt to hide. 

But to be just, Asimov was far more gender sensitive and respected women greatly. Female sexuality is a major concept in this book. 

I particularly liked a legend that is recounted by Fastolfe about the robot that could read minds and gave all the pleasing answers to all the questions by humans. The robots inconsistency in answers resulted in much embarrassment to its creator, a woman roboticist. The narration ends with the line that i found very interesting.

The legend goes on to say that Calvin's last word to the destroyed robot was "Liar!"' 

Old butterflies. I put this flower down on this page while in Kochi, completing my daily forty pages while attending an Amazon meeting. Look at it now. Look at it then

I liked his humour too. 

'Why on Earth - or Aurora, rather - why on Aurora should you undo this work?'

We are dealing with a lot of words here, Asimov constantly reminds us. 

    What i loved the most about Asimov is his logic and reasoning. It is just perfect and that makes it a feast for any rationalist. The best part is that, that is the norm on Earth and all the other worlds, in the time that these stories are happening. Anyone speaking irrationally or without reason, would be considered dysfunctional, there, i suppose. At the same time, feelings are important. Like i said, female sexuality, feelings that robots don't have and humans do - these are vital concepts in the book. What pure bliss!

    But what i remember the most, every day, is that i have, like the title of the sketch above, 'too many books to read before i die'.  I return this book today.