What Does Cutting For Stone Mean

Question

Just finished Abraham Verghese's novel Cutting for Stone and keep wondering about the title's symbolic meaning in the medical and family saga. Still puzzled.

d_ianekleine · Answer

For one thing, in the literature I have come across lately, “Cutting for Stone” is the title of a novel by a writer called Abraham Verghese. I can only give you a very brief and very general summary of this long and emotional book that blends a good medical story with a good family story. In short, it is about a surgical operation, but also the name of the main characters’ surname, and also their physical separation from their families. I was therefore reminded of this concept of the characters in “Claws of Stone” being turned to stone as part of a curse that affects the entire kingdom and has significant implications for the politics of the land. On the surface, a mystery about a character’s petrified body; but, as with “Cutting for Stone”, lots more going on beneath the surface.

Colin · Answer

‘Cutting for Stone’ is another thought-provoking title, this time from the Hippocratic Oath: ‘I will not cut for stone.’ In ancient times, cutting for stone referred to the unsuccesful procedure of bladder stone removal. In ‘Cutting for Stone’ by Abraham Verghese, a novel about two twin brothers who grow up in 1970s Ethiopia, a complicated and often painful life is evoked by the phrase. Their experiences of both physical and emotional pain as they struggle to come to terms with their cross-breed heritage and the absence of their father, and in finding their way in the world, is mirrored by the title. The title highlights the main themes of the book: medicine and family.

Kimberly · Answer

I was interested to read ‘Cutting for Stone’ by Abys Verghese. When I first picked up the book I was interested to find out what ‘Cutting for Stone’ meant but the title is revealed at the beginning of the novel as an ancient medical warning: ‘I will not cut for stone’ – the Hippocratic Oath. Twins Marion and Shiva experience lives of separation and healing and their bond becomes a wound to be healed. Both a wound and a suture.

The author, a physician in his own right, brings poetry to the world of medicine, and his choice of title for this novel can also serve as a prism through which to view the choices of his two main characters, twins separated at birth. Marion becomes a surgeon, literally ‘cutting for stone’ in his work, while Shiva grapples with the emotional cut and scars of others.

Wyatt · Answer

“Cutting for Stone” is the title of this wonderful literary work. “Cutting for Stone” refers to an ancient surgical practice. The stones in the bladders of patients with this condition were so frequently fatal that they were left to the knives of itinerant healers and barber surgeons. In this novel by Abraham Verghese, however, the practice serves to illuminate the issues of identity, of betrayal, of unhealed wounds in the lives of a number of characters. Here, there are two main characters, twins Marion and Shiva. They are two halves of a wound that has been cut.

Their story unfolds against the backdrop of Ethiopia’s political upheaval as well as that of healing. It is not merely a story of two people having been through surgery, physical as well as emotional. Rather it is a story of two people, having been through an ‘operation’ on each other, and, of love and of duty. That is how Verghese likes to tell his stories.

A wonderful read for anyone who enjoys very complex stories as this one is. This novel is a fantastic study in layered storytelling – and the title of the book is so intriguing that it will give you plenty to consider long after you have finished reading it – just as the characters of this novel consider and dissect their own lives.

redmarquez01 · Answer

A title of such depth it serves to be read twice. First to pose and challenge the reader, the second time to reinforce the depth of the story. Every time I read the title for this book the words click into place and immediately images from certain scenes abound: Marion and Shiva’s child is born; a small suitcase is abandoned; Marion returns to the Missing Hospital where Marion and Shiva’s child has the final operation. This is a title that stands as a powerful summary to the entirety of the book’s emotions. And that is why it’s such a great title – a mystery that is resolved in time, a revelation, a monument. The title so quickly brings to mind Marion and Shiva and the book that lies between them – Missing Hospital. The title ceases to be simply a string of words that convey meaning and instead becomes a vehicle to evoke a host of feelings that run and twist throughout the book. Few titles succeed in this respect.

test · Answer

OK, so that was a really cool and thought-provoking image – and it was interesting enough to initially draw me in to read this novel. Of course, as you read, the image forms and develops in your mind in the same way that layers of nacre develop in a mollusk around a grain of sand – and by the end of the novel, that image has become a symbol of the novel that you can carry with you after you’ve finished reading it. It’s a great image for the novel – and not many authors come up with such great novel titles. This one feels deeply and organically related to the soul of the story, as opposed to being a rather tacked-on and poetic image. It’s a masterclass in novel titling.

Y Tarah SF · Answer

It’s a warning that becomes a prophecy. The oath warns against a certain act, but the entire story unfolds to be that act. And that act begins with the most fundamental of all acts: the cut made in the womb to deliver the twins. And so the story of the twins, of a forbidden incision, of a stone cut in two, begins with a cut. And thus the title of this story is also its premise: a story of transgressions. Of people breaking rules and vows of the deepest kind. And you get to decide whether they were right to do so. The reading experience thus becomes a moral inquiry that asks you to consider whether each character made the right decision in their moments of maximum need. Every time a character makes a huge decision, you will consider that decision in light of that phrase: Should they have cut? Was the stone worth it? That title is not just a name for the story. It is the moral compass by which every action in the story will be measured. The tension thus created is of a very low-slung kind and is mostly intellectual rather than plot-driven. Very clever.

Jovito Escalante · Answer

The novel is about legacy. A stone is something permanent, something enduring. The cuts in a stone are the marks that humans leave on a permanent thing. The twins have a stone of their parents’ legacy. Their father was a genius, absent. Their mother was a saint, sacrificing. The two twins try to cut their own mark into the stone of their parents. Will it be a nice inscription or a harsh scar? The title of the novel signifies that we live our lives by cutting into a hard pre-existing stone. We don’t choose the stone of our family, of our past, but we can choose how to cut into it. This is a powerful way to think about destiny and free will. The novel can explore this in the ways of life of the two twins.

Christina Newlin · Answer

This title is about cost. Cutting for stone, which used to kill patients in droves, was a last resort, a desperate action taken in the greatest turmoil, for the greatest of loves. The exorbitant cost of the actions this novel portraits, loving a sibling, pursuing a life’s work, surviving against incredible odds to become what you want to be, all have to do with amputating limbs of the soul. The title itself is expensive sounding. It conveys a sense of great weight, of irrevocable action, and of extreme danger. As a historical term it conveys the sense of vast risk that this novel is about to explore in depth: transactions in which life, love, and sanity are the currency. Nothing is free in this novel, and every cut, every intervention has a cost which is paid years later.

What Does Cutting For Stone Mean

9 Answers

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