‘The vagaries and acrobatics of Peter Goldsworthy’s mind, his deep curiosity, his magical thinking, his wonder, his regret … it’s all here on the page in rich and compelling detail.’‘The vagaries and acrobatics of Peter Goldsworthy’s mind, his deep curiosity, his magical thinking, his wonder, his regret … it’s all here on the page in rich and compelling detail.
Alongside this literary sensibility, Goldsworthy’s extensive medical career illuminates his story. His prose is suffused with dark humour, which is “as much a part of the language of our tribe as Latin and Greek”. In one passage, he relates taking precautions with his patients by screening for infectious illnesses: “Heart attacks are welcome,” he reassures them. “Chainsaw an arm off, bring it along in an esky. Cancer, of course. How could I say no? Just don’t come with the sniffles, or gastro.
He braids his own journey with the stories of his patients – living and dead – who are presented as part of his consciousness, “coughed up … in vivid present-tense immediacy” as he lies in bed. Earlier in his career, he confesses, he always had “one ear cocked for any useful material” but has come to learn that “proper listening” is a “portal into another world, another perceptual dimension”.
Ultimately, the “lessons” of his illness are commonplace. He is more “open to the world” and has a renewed sense of gratitude: “The pillowed head that I wake beside each morning has never seemed more dear.” For him, cancer has been a “blessing” and a “gift”. Such realisations might be cliched but Goldsworthy is fully cognisant of this fact.
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