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Consumption
Born on the tundra in the 1950s, Victoria knows nothing but the nomadic life of the Inuit until, at the age of ten, she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and evacuated to a southern sanitarium. When she returns home six years later, she finds a radically different world, where the traditionally rootless tribes have uneasily congregated in small communities. And Victoria has become a stranger to her family and her culture.
In Rankin Inlet, a small town bordering the Arctic Ocean, the lives of the Inuit are gradually changing. The caribou and seals are no longer plentiful, and Western commerce has come to the community through a proposed diamond mine. Victoria Robertson wakes to a violent storm, her three children stirring in the dark. Her father, Emo, a legendary hunter who has come in off the land to work in a mine, checks to see if the family is all right. So does her Inuit lover, as Victoria’s British husband is away on business.
Thus the reader enters into the modern contradictions of the Arctic—walrus meat and convenience food, midnight sun and 24-hour satellite TV, dog teams and diamond mines—and into the heart of Victoria's internal exile. Born on the tundra in the 1950s, Victoria knows nothing but the nomadic life of the Inuit until, at the age of ten, she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and evacuated to a southern sanitarium. When she returns home six years later, she finds a radically different world, where the traditionally rootless tribes have uneasily congregated in small communities. And Victoria has become a stranger to her family and her culture.
In Rankin Inlet, a small town bordering the Arctic Ocean, the lives of the Inuit are gradually changing. The caribou and seals are no longer plentiful, and Western commerce has come to the community through a proposed diamond mine. Victoria Robertson wakes to a violent storm, her three children stirring in the dark. Her father, Emo, a legendary hunter who has come in off the land to work in a mine, checks to see if the family is all right. So does her Inuit lover, as Victoria’s British husband is away on business.
Thus the reader enters into the modern contradictions of the Arctic—walrus meat and convenience food, midnight sun and 24-hour satellite TV, dog teams and diamond mines—and into the heart of Victoria's internal exile. Born on the tundra in the 1950s, Victoria knows nothing but the nomadic life of the Inuit until, at the age of ten, she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and evacuated to a southern sanitarium. When she returns home six years later, she finds a radically different world, where the traditionally rootless tribes have uneasily congregated in small communities. And Victoria has become a stranger to her family and her culture.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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841 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews
July 25, 2016
I find it difficult to write about Consumption. To write about the book easily requires that the book left an impression - whether good or bad - and this one just fell a bit flat.
Of course, there are interesting aspects of life in the Canadian Arctic that come to light in the book.
Of course, there are stylistic elements that Patterson uses - like the symbolism of consumption in its various meanings - throughout the novel to create the feeling of loss that permeates the novel, in which ideas, history, tradition and people are consumed by the spread of "civilisation".
The trouble is, that the book tried to focus on the lives of too many characters to really portray the specific community that is erased by the advance of modern life. The murder mystery that is added in the second half only adds to distract from the point of the novel.
Of course, there are interesting aspects of life in the Canadian Arctic that come to light in the book.
Of course, there are stylistic elements that Patterson uses - like the symbolism of consumption in its various meanings - throughout the novel to create the feeling of loss that permeates the novel, in which ideas, history, tradition and people are consumed by the spread of "civilisation".
The trouble is, that the book tried to focus on the lives of too many characters to really portray the specific community that is erased by the advance of modern life. The murder mystery that is added in the second half only adds to distract from the point of the novel.
November 28, 2015
According to Dictionary.com, consumption is variously defined as
1. the act of consuming or state of being consumed,
especially by eating, burning, etc.
2. (economics) expenditure on goods and services for
final personal use
3. the quantity consumed
4. (pathol) a condition characterized by a wasting
away of the tissue of the body especially as seen
in tuberculosis of the lungs
In his book Consumption, Kevin Patterson, himself a physician with years of experience in the Arctic and other parts of Canada, uses the word thoughtfully and, ultimately, with all of it's varied meanings.
The point of view of the novel is split in many ways but perhaps the chief observers are Victoria, taken from home as a young girl for treatment of her TB during the 1950s. At that time her Inuit family was largely nomadic, only occasionally landing in the sparsely populated towns. She was not to return for many years. And then she would always be just that bit different. She returned to a family living in a house in Rankin Inlet. Secondly, there is Balthazar, the doctor who comes up from way south, actually from the US. He is single, searching or escaping--it's never quite certain--but he stays, off and on for years, seeing the changes in people, families, community, the Inuit, the land, even the wild animals.
Around these two characters we see the story of consumption work, the tale of the old wasting disease; the gradual changing of life ways from nomadic to settled and what becomes of families and community, what happens to ancient skills, what occurs when global economics meets small village dreams. It's all here. Along side history of the place, a place most of us will never experience.
The people exist along this coast against a backdrop
of a half million square miles of tundra, gently rolling
treeless plains. In the summer, this land is boggy and
moss-bound; in the winter, frozen and blasted lowlands,
eskers of rock protruding through shallow snow. The Inuit
lived here for ten thousand years, pulling their living
from this meager forage until the 1960s, when they accreted
in the little government towns built along the coast and
left the tundra empty of human inhabitants for the first
time since the glacial ice had melted. (pp 6-7)
The cost of consumption is large, and not only physical. There are the obvious medical problems but there are also the less obvious emotional and spiritual problems that accompany the other forms of consumption. We also see them around us every day but they are masked by our so aptly named and politically glorified "consumer" society. In Ranklin Inlet we see it begin and grow and fester.
But through Patterson's eyes we also see the beauty of the land the resolve of people and attempts to make things better if not fully right. This section written by Balthazar is a beautiful way to summarize the past.
What the Inuit were was a miracle. They lived in a
land without trees, in houses made of snow. When there
was no driftwood to be had, they made sled runners out
of frozen fish wrapped together. Their technologies--the
qayak and the toggle-headed harpoon and the seal-fat
lamps--were the most elegant solutions to the problems of
living in this land, and the finest expression of their
wit and sense of beauty. What the Inuit are is us. And
what they achieved in the Arctic was the clearest
expression of human ingenuity and tenacity. They--we--
prospered in the hardest place there is, and achieved
magnificence. ( p 254)
For those who have read this far, I do want to say that there is also a novel of human beings here; love, jealousy, rivalries, children coping with parents and vice versa. But everyone is dealing with change, change of a huge order, and it impacts all of their lives and actions.
Definitely recommended. 4 to 4.5*
1. the act of consuming or state of being consumed,
especially by eating, burning, etc.
2. (economics) expenditure on goods and services for
final personal use
3. the quantity consumed
4. (pathol) a condition characterized by a wasting
away of the tissue of the body especially as seen
in tuberculosis of the lungs
In his book Consumption, Kevin Patterson, himself a physician with years of experience in the Arctic and other parts of Canada, uses the word thoughtfully and, ultimately, with all of it's varied meanings.
The point of view of the novel is split in many ways but perhaps the chief observers are Victoria, taken from home as a young girl for treatment of her TB during the 1950s. At that time her Inuit family was largely nomadic, only occasionally landing in the sparsely populated towns. She was not to return for many years. And then she would always be just that bit different. She returned to a family living in a house in Rankin Inlet. Secondly, there is Balthazar, the doctor who comes up from way south, actually from the US. He is single, searching or escaping--it's never quite certain--but he stays, off and on for years, seeing the changes in people, families, community, the Inuit, the land, even the wild animals.
Around these two characters we see the story of consumption work, the tale of the old wasting disease; the gradual changing of life ways from nomadic to settled and what becomes of families and community, what happens to ancient skills, what occurs when global economics meets small village dreams. It's all here. Along side history of the place, a place most of us will never experience.
The people exist along this coast against a backdrop
of a half million square miles of tundra, gently rolling
treeless plains. In the summer, this land is boggy and
moss-bound; in the winter, frozen and blasted lowlands,
eskers of rock protruding through shallow snow. The Inuit
lived here for ten thousand years, pulling their living
from this meager forage until the 1960s, when they accreted
in the little government towns built along the coast and
left the tundra empty of human inhabitants for the first
time since the glacial ice had melted. (pp 6-7)
The cost of consumption is large, and not only physical. There are the obvious medical problems but there are also the less obvious emotional and spiritual problems that accompany the other forms of consumption. We also see them around us every day but they are masked by our so aptly named and politically glorified "consumer" society. In Ranklin Inlet we see it begin and grow and fester.
But through Patterson's eyes we also see the beauty of the land the resolve of people and attempts to make things better if not fully right. This section written by Balthazar is a beautiful way to summarize the past.
What the Inuit were was a miracle. They lived in a
land without trees, in houses made of snow. When there
was no driftwood to be had, they made sled runners out
of frozen fish wrapped together. Their technologies--the
qayak and the toggle-headed harpoon and the seal-fat
lamps--were the most elegant solutions to the problems of
living in this land, and the finest expression of their
wit and sense of beauty. What the Inuit are is us. And
what they achieved in the Arctic was the clearest
expression of human ingenuity and tenacity. They--we--
prospered in the hardest place there is, and achieved
magnificence. ( p 254)
For those who have read this far, I do want to say that there is also a novel of human beings here; love, jealousy, rivalries, children coping with parents and vice versa. But everyone is dealing with change, change of a huge order, and it impacts all of their lives and actions.
Definitely recommended. 4 to 4.5*
November 19, 2015
Really 4.5
Consumption begins as a story about a young girl, Victoria, from the Canadian tundra is removed for hospitalization and treatment of consumption in southern Canada. She spends years in the south before returning. The language and way of life of the Inuit are now nearly foreign to her. Her father is a dog-sledding hunter, but it is becoming more difficult for him to find prey and he must travel farther for his family’s food. Victoria marries a Kablunauk, a non-Inuit and for several years their marriage is sound.
Patterson draws a broad picture of Victoria’s community, the environment in which they live and the changes that take place over Victoria’s lifetime. He informs the reader on many subjects along the way enabling the reader to fully grasp the realities of living in such a harsh environment, the easy acquiescence to the consumptive culture introduced by non-Natives, and the disease and social issues that begin to plague the Inuit population.
There are pratfalls in this book that could, and often do, annoy me. Passages following many characters can sometimes tumble into confusion, writings by the town’s doctor on subjects seemingly not relevant and other informative inclusions that could have dragged out and bored me. But none of that happened, at least to the degree that I became frustrated or disappointed in the book.
Eventually, all of this information and narrative adds up to one thing: consumption and disintegration of the people, the environment, the community, their way of life, of the foreigners who work there. And yet, a few survive. Scarred, but intact.
Beautifully and intelligently written. Highly recommended to readers who like stories that take them to places they’ve never been and will likely never go and provide thorough information that enhances the knowledge and appreciation of who and where and what they are reading about
Consumption begins as a story about a young girl, Victoria, from the Canadian tundra is removed for hospitalization and treatment of consumption in southern Canada. She spends years in the south before returning. The language and way of life of the Inuit are now nearly foreign to her. Her father is a dog-sledding hunter, but it is becoming more difficult for him to find prey and he must travel farther for his family’s food. Victoria marries a Kablunauk, a non-Inuit and for several years their marriage is sound.
Patterson draws a broad picture of Victoria’s community, the environment in which they live and the changes that take place over Victoria’s lifetime. He informs the reader on many subjects along the way enabling the reader to fully grasp the realities of living in such a harsh environment, the easy acquiescence to the consumptive culture introduced by non-Natives, and the disease and social issues that begin to plague the Inuit population.
There are pratfalls in this book that could, and often do, annoy me. Passages following many characters can sometimes tumble into confusion, writings by the town’s doctor on subjects seemingly not relevant and other informative inclusions that could have dragged out and bored me. But none of that happened, at least to the degree that I became frustrated or disappointed in the book.
Eventually, all of this information and narrative adds up to one thing: consumption and disintegration of the people, the environment, the community, their way of life, of the foreigners who work there. And yet, a few survive. Scarred, but intact.
Beautifully and intelligently written. Highly recommended to readers who like stories that take them to places they’ve never been and will likely never go and provide thorough information that enhances the knowledge and appreciation of who and where and what they are reading about
August 19, 2015
I just remembered to add Consumption to My Books. It is one of my favourite books of all time, but reading the personal reviews on Goodread shows that the novel has an either love or hate relationship.
My biggest puzzle has been that this book did not take off as a best seller anywhere. It is a blockbuster, a huge fill your heart story, a novel of moral and cultural contradictions, of best intentions gone wrong, of a clash between eras and the lure of modernization over tradition.
Consumption is tuberculosis, the white man's scourge and devastation to the native population many hundreds of years ago but it is the modern medicine which can treat the disease now, in the same people who are living in shambles of the mixed up world of neither tradition nor the present. Consumption is the manner with which the world chooses to achieve its new heights of splendour, of ease and recognition - leaving torn earth and environmental hazards in its wake. Yet, who wants to go back to the hard life of the Inuit before snowmobile and helicopters? Which part of it is good - what part will the young keep and not lose the best in their traditional lives?
This is a "big picture" novel, the stories of the characters threaded throughout the narrative with all of their heart, angst, conflict and hopes bringing the themes largely to life. Against a vivid portrait of the harsh and beautiful Arctic, we can think of our ancestors and the loss of our traditions to the industrialization of the modernizing world, as the elder Inuit fight this battle against powerful forces, hundreds of years in the making. How do we find balance? There are no answers to these questions - just more questions, and this powerful novel brings these home in an incredible format.
My biggest puzzle has been that this book did not take off as a best seller anywhere. It is a blockbuster, a huge fill your heart story, a novel of moral and cultural contradictions, of best intentions gone wrong, of a clash between eras and the lure of modernization over tradition.
Consumption is tuberculosis, the white man's scourge and devastation to the native population many hundreds of years ago but it is the modern medicine which can treat the disease now, in the same people who are living in shambles of the mixed up world of neither tradition nor the present. Consumption is the manner with which the world chooses to achieve its new heights of splendour, of ease and recognition - leaving torn earth and environmental hazards in its wake. Yet, who wants to go back to the hard life of the Inuit before snowmobile and helicopters? Which part of it is good - what part will the young keep and not lose the best in their traditional lives?
This is a "big picture" novel, the stories of the characters threaded throughout the narrative with all of their heart, angst, conflict and hopes bringing the themes largely to life. Against a vivid portrait of the harsh and beautiful Arctic, we can think of our ancestors and the loss of our traditions to the industrialization of the modernizing world, as the elder Inuit fight this battle against powerful forces, hundreds of years in the making. How do we find balance? There are no answers to these questions - just more questions, and this powerful novel brings these home in an incredible format.
July 31, 2014
"Consumption" shows the native Inuit of the Canadian Arctic as new people, culture, industry, and diseases invade them from the South. The book centers around the three generations in Victoria's family in Rankin Inlet. Victoria is diagnosed with consumption (tuberculosis) when she is ten years old, and is sent away to a sanitarium in Manitoba. When she returns six years later, she finds she does not fit well into either the traditional Inuit or the southern Caucasian Kablunauk cultures.
The descriptions of Victoria's father Emo, who hunts with his dogs, are fascinating. But the local doctor, Keith Balthazar, notes in his journal, "Hunters who were merely affectionate fathers, imaginative storytellers, and tender husbands--and not adept trackers and good shots--could not feed their families. It was not a romantic life. It rewarded only a narrow set of attributes: focus, endurance, and distance vision." Emo's son is much happier when he gets a job as a bookkeeper at the new diamond mine, a job which uses an entirely different skill set and which is financially rewarding. Emo's grandson, in contrast, embraces the old ways, and loves the challenge of the hunt and of survival in the harsh environment.
The story is told from the points of view of both the young and the old, the Inuit and the Kablunauk. The priest, the teachers, and the doctor also let us see the community through the eyes of an outsider. The doctor's journals are especially interesting as he muses about cultural and epidemiological changes in the Arctic. (I was especially impressed with how Dr Balthazar's journal read like it was written by an actual medical doctor. Then, I got to the last page of the book to find out that the author is a physician as well as being a talented writer.)
"Consumption" is a fitting title for this book in many ways. As the Europeans came into the Arctic region, they brought tuberculosis and other diseases that consumed the native people. Then modern life consumed the Inuit culture, language, and way of life. After the mine opened, the newly affluent Arctic residents developed a taste for modern consumer goods and for unhealthy foods. (The Inuit are especially susceptible to developing diabetes when they eat a Western diet.)
The book is much more than a look at the medical and cultural changes in the Arctic. There is plenty of action to propel the story forward--marital problems, teenagers coming of age, protests against the mine, a murder, and sled dogs returning to Rankin Inlet without their owner. The book had a winning combination--the opportunity to learn about a different culture while reading an engaging story.
The descriptions of Victoria's father Emo, who hunts with his dogs, are fascinating. But the local doctor, Keith Balthazar, notes in his journal, "Hunters who were merely affectionate fathers, imaginative storytellers, and tender husbands--and not adept trackers and good shots--could not feed their families. It was not a romantic life. It rewarded only a narrow set of attributes: focus, endurance, and distance vision." Emo's son is much happier when he gets a job as a bookkeeper at the new diamond mine, a job which uses an entirely different skill set and which is financially rewarding. Emo's grandson, in contrast, embraces the old ways, and loves the challenge of the hunt and of survival in the harsh environment.
The story is told from the points of view of both the young and the old, the Inuit and the Kablunauk. The priest, the teachers, and the doctor also let us see the community through the eyes of an outsider. The doctor's journals are especially interesting as he muses about cultural and epidemiological changes in the Arctic. (I was especially impressed with how Dr Balthazar's journal read like it was written by an actual medical doctor. Then, I got to the last page of the book to find out that the author is a physician as well as being a talented writer.)
"Consumption" is a fitting title for this book in many ways. As the Europeans came into the Arctic region, they brought tuberculosis and other diseases that consumed the native people. Then modern life consumed the Inuit culture, language, and way of life. After the mine opened, the newly affluent Arctic residents developed a taste for modern consumer goods and for unhealthy foods. (The Inuit are especially susceptible to developing diabetes when they eat a Western diet.)
The book is much more than a look at the medical and cultural changes in the Arctic. There is plenty of action to propel the story forward--marital problems, teenagers coming of age, protests against the mine, a murder, and sled dogs returning to Rankin Inlet without their owner. The book had a winning combination--the opportunity to learn about a different culture while reading an engaging story.
August 5, 2016
For all the shelves I put this book on, you'd think I'd give it a higher rating than 2 stars. Okay, 2-1/2 stars. Twist my arm.
This was an unsatisfying read. At about page 50 I was thinking about people who have a 50 page rule before they abandon a book. I debated. But, then I'd have to pick another book for my cross-Canada tour, (aka left over stew challenge). It's a challenge, I tell you.
It started getting better, so I kept reading. It was like a crescendo building in volume and intensity. But the denouement dropped me on my derriere wondering what happened. Maybe I just didn't get it.
The title was an interesting play on the word, Consumption. The book wasn't just about the disease, but about the other things that consume people. It was about the Inuit people, and how their culture was consumed by western civilization. The book contains a lot of information. Some of it was told as part of the story. A lot of it was imparted in the form of the doctor's medical journal.
The story had its good points, but I am.... mystified. I was left wondering about various characters, the author's POV, and if I missed something significant. I felt like I didn't get closure.
This was an unsatisfying read. At about page 50 I was thinking about people who have a 50 page rule before they abandon a book. I debated. But, then I'd have to pick another book for my cross-Canada tour, (aka left over stew challenge). It's a challenge, I tell you.
It started getting better, so I kept reading. It was like a crescendo building in volume and intensity. But the denouement dropped me on my derriere wondering what happened. Maybe I just didn't get it.
The title was an interesting play on the word, Consumption. The book wasn't just about the disease, but about the other things that consume people. It was about the Inuit people, and how their culture was consumed by western civilization. The book contains a lot of information. Some of it was told as part of the story. A lot of it was imparted in the form of the doctor's medical journal.
The story had its good points, but I am.... mystified. I was left wondering about various characters, the author's POV, and if I missed something significant. I felt like I didn't get closure.
May 26, 2008
I began this book because of interest in the Inuit people and their way of life. I not only learned about life in the Arctic, but about worldwide trends in diseases and medicine, as the author is a medical doctor who practices in northern Canada. He states emphatically that "...we are fatter than our drugs can compensate for." A major theme is the societal changes to a society such as the Inuits when they leave the land and move into softer, communal living. "Something about the way we have constructed ourselves now leads us...to immobility and engorgement."
He goes on to say that in the past people were sad about things: crop failures, death of children, etc. "But they were less likely to be sad about nothing, in the way we are."
In addition to medical observations, philosophizing, and Inuit poetry, there was an interesting array of characters, and an unusual change of voices in telling the stories, which become the novel.
I was thoroughly absorbed by this book.
He goes on to say that in the past people were sad about things: crop failures, death of children, etc. "But they were less likely to be sad about nothing, in the way we are."
In addition to medical observations, philosophizing, and Inuit poetry, there was an interesting array of characters, and an unusual change of voices in telling the stories, which become the novel.
I was thoroughly absorbed by this book.
November 11, 2017
This was the book I read to complete my Canadian Reading Challenge. I was having a difficult time finding a book to represent Nunavut that wasn't about history, geography, or politics, and my sister suggested this one. I'm so glad she did!
I knew next to nothing about Canada's Far North, but having read Patterson's novel, I've learned so much! I fell in love with the interesting cast of characters who struggled with the challenges of life on the tundra and how that life evolved with the encroachment of modern advances, and I was sad to reach the final page. (So yes, I learned a lot about history, geography, and politics too!)
In my book group, we take turns choosing the titles, and I always pick something I want to read rather than one I've already read, but I might make an exception this time.
I knew next to nothing about Canada's Far North, but having read Patterson's novel, I've learned so much! I fell in love with the interesting cast of characters who struggled with the challenges of life on the tundra and how that life evolved with the encroachment of modern advances, and I was sad to reach the final page. (So yes, I learned a lot about history, geography, and politics too!)
In my book group, we take turns choosing the titles, and I always pick something I want to read rather than one I've already read, but I might make an exception this time.
March 20, 2015
Báječná kniha. Padlo na mě jakési nutkání si přečíst něco o tom, jak se Inuitům žije v současnosti a měla jsem to veliké štěstí, že jsem natrefila na “Consumption” Kevina Pattersona. Autor je lékař, který na kanadském severu strávil řadu let a velmi dobře ví, o čem píše. Ve své románové prvotině zachycuje nesmírně zajímavé období, kdy Inuité přecházeli od kočovného loveckého života k životu usedlému, a všechny změny, které tento přechod provázely. Nutno přiznat, že v konečném důsledku celá situace vyznívá jako z deště pod okap. Život v arktických oblastech není vůbec jednoduchý a nese s sebou řadu nebezpečí, dřiny a bolesti. Moderní Inuité jsou nicméně vystaveni zase jiné sadě strastí, které autor ve své knize mistrně zachycuje. Hlavní postavy tu máme v podstatě dvě – Inuitku Victorii, která, jako i mnoho dalších Eskymáků, v dětství onemocněla tuberkulózou a byla nucena opustit svou rodinu a jet se léčit “na jih”. Po letech se vrací do své domoviny a snaží se sžít s prostředím, které již jí není úplně vlastní. Prostřednictvím příhod její rodiny sledujeme změny, které tato společnost prodělává. Druhou hlavní postavou je autorovo alter ego – lékař Keith Balthazar, který v Rankin Inlet žije převážnou část roku a pečuje o zraví jeho obyvatel. První polovina románu nás provází tímto klíčovým přechodovým obdobím, ale zároveň se čte i jako klasický román o životě jedné rodiny se všemi jejími problémy a nešvary, až na to, že se vše odehrává v Rankin Inlet a ne třeba nějakém maloměstě v mírnějším podnebném pásmu. Zhruba někde v polovině dojde k (první) tragédii, která životy všech zúčastněných řádně zamíchá. Samotný příběh končí vlastně již někde za stranou 300 a poslední pětina románu je sumou Balthazarových zápisků, v nichž hovoří o svém životě na severu, o nemocech, které Inuity trápí, o rozvoji a omylech lékařské vědy a o svých názorech na civilizaci jako takovou. Kdybych chtěla, aby mi román o moderních Inuitech někdo napsal na objednávku, nemohlo by to dopadnout lépe. Děkuji!
April 19, 2008
This book started slow--slow to the point where I was considering giving up on it--and then began to build, and build, and build until I could barely put it down. I ended up loving it. Fantastic multi-generational story of the clash between the white and Inuit cultures around Hudson Bay in the '80s and '90s. I especially appreciated the shades of gray type of story telling--no absolute good guys or bad guys, no lessons or morals at the end--just people living their lives in an unusual place at a pivotal time.
May 24, 2008
Here i go again, trudging through more arctic tundra cold...what can i say? It's a bit of an addiction. I'm not sure what it is about these books that draws me in so thoroughly, other than an evocation of my childhood, and a connection with my lost eskimo foster sister. There is also something about the epic nature of cold, and for that matter many kinds of endurance books (but cold especially~and have i ever told you with my obsessive reading of mountain climbing account books?) This time it's Consumption by Kevin Patterson (his first novel, or so i'm told.) This is really not cheery stuff, but i still found it a good read. The action itself covers about a generation of life in the Canadian Yukon starting when industrial western world truly began its encroachment on that land and its peoples in the early sixties and ending a little after the turn of the century.
The focus constantly shifts between a number of main characters, mainly centering around Native American Victoria and her family: her white husband Robertson; their children, Emo, Marie, and Justine; her parents; the village doctor Keith Balthazar; two village teachers; as well as the rest of the eskimo village in Rankin Inlet. Amanda, Balthazar's niece in New Jersey is included, although i often had to wonder why~maybe to show his connection (or lost connections to the white world). Maybe to show the disconnectedness in families? She did allow a shoutout for one of my favorite bands (and one that is quite nostalgic for me) The Monks and their album Bad Habits so that's always a plus. I did like her story i just sometimes wondered what it was doing there.
Victoria is sent away as a child to a Montreal sanatorium for because she is consumptive. When the pills don’t work she must have surgery then she is sent to a foster family. When she finally returns to her village she is almost a stranger to her family and has nearly lost her language. She feels more comfortable with the white men than with her own people.
This book is interspersed throughout with Dr. Balthazar’s medical notes which provide a fascinating picture of epidemiology among other medical topics if you’re into that sort of thing, with i am (by the by, consumption~so called because of the way it seems to consume its victims from the inside, is what we now call tuberculosis~just in case you didn't know.)
Although Robertson is at first somewhat tolerated for his attempt at learning the people’s ways when he is part of the South African conglomerate wishing to (and eventually succeeding in) bring a diamond mine to town things come to a head. Most of the characters in this book are quite tragic and most come to a tragic end (not to give it away or anything) The reading can get a little dense at times (and i wish some of the Inuit terms had received a little more gloss than they did~though a bit of contextual intuition can go a long way) but i found it well worth the time i put into it.
The focus constantly shifts between a number of main characters, mainly centering around Native American Victoria and her family: her white husband Robertson; their children, Emo, Marie, and Justine; her parents; the village doctor Keith Balthazar; two village teachers; as well as the rest of the eskimo village in Rankin Inlet. Amanda, Balthazar's niece in New Jersey is included, although i often had to wonder why~maybe to show his connection (or lost connections to the white world). Maybe to show the disconnectedness in families? She did allow a shoutout for one of my favorite bands (and one that is quite nostalgic for me) The Monks and their album Bad Habits so that's always a plus. I did like her story i just sometimes wondered what it was doing there.
Victoria is sent away as a child to a Montreal sanatorium for because she is consumptive. When the pills don’t work she must have surgery then she is sent to a foster family. When she finally returns to her village she is almost a stranger to her family and has nearly lost her language. She feels more comfortable with the white men than with her own people.
This book is interspersed throughout with Dr. Balthazar’s medical notes which provide a fascinating picture of epidemiology among other medical topics if you’re into that sort of thing, with i am (by the by, consumption~so called because of the way it seems to consume its victims from the inside, is what we now call tuberculosis~just in case you didn't know.)
Although Robertson is at first somewhat tolerated for his attempt at learning the people’s ways when he is part of the South African conglomerate wishing to (and eventually succeeding in) bring a diamond mine to town things come to a head. Most of the characters in this book are quite tragic and most come to a tragic end (not to give it away or anything) The reading can get a little dense at times (and i wish some of the Inuit terms had received a little more gloss than they did~though a bit of contextual intuition can go a long way) but i found it well worth the time i put into it.
December 29, 2015
I am going with 3-stars for now, but I am still thinking on this book. It was a bit of a slow build... then a whole whack of crazy activity (almost too much, really)... then.... a bit of a fizzle. In the acknowledgments, Patterson notes that this book was actually, originally, a collection of essays he had been working on. His editor wrangled the essays into novel form. This helped me a bit - at times I did feel that things were pieced together, or not flowing too well. The strongest aspect of the novel was how Patterson conveyed such a sense of place, and wonderful depictions of Canada's North. Patterson works as a doctor, and his training and experience certainly came through, adding interesting layers to the story in his depiction of Dr. Balthazar. Unfortunately some plots holes were left and the way some story lines played out left me a bit disappointed and wondering how else things good have gone. Overall, though, I am glad I read this book, and I am enjoying hearing comments and opinions from others who are also reading it as part of a group read here on GR.
August 23, 2012
Complicated and emotional read about the Inuit and life in the Arctic. And that title! There is consumption at SO many levels in this layered story: long standing traditions are consumed by western commerce, the land is consumed for its diamonds, characters are consumed by greed, addiction, and even unrequited love. No Hollywood endings here- more of an exploration of when two different cultures find themselves entwined with one another.
December 11, 2012
As a friend and colleague of Kevin Patterson, who worked with him in the Arctic, I think he did a fine job of depicting the lives of the Inuit and the feeling of the landscape. I read this book long after I had left those frozen lands and was transported back to one of the most magical places on earth. Well done Kevin, and thanks.
April 7, 2008
Very well written by a physician. "Medical people" will enjoy the clinical aspects of the book. An interesting look at life in the Canadian Arctic and how it changes with industrialization. I definitely recommend this book to people who like to learn while reading an engaging story.
November 20, 2015
Doing a re-read of Consumption for the CBC Goodreads Monthly Group Read.
Just as wonderful as the first read - perhaps maybe more so because of reading it slowly and in a group setting. A fantastic story that has been a bright spot in otherwise fairly dull reading for much of this month.
Just as wonderful as the first read - perhaps maybe more so because of reading it slowly and in a group setting. A fantastic story that has been a bright spot in otherwise fairly dull reading for much of this month.
October 9, 2017
https://ayearofbooksblog.com/2017/10/...
My final book for the summer Cross-Canada challenge was Consumption which was set in Nunavut. It told the story of Victoria, a young girl ripped away from the traditional ways of her family and sent to a sanitarium in the South. After her tuberculosis was cured, she remained with another family for many years before the culture shock of returning to her family in the North.
The book, set in Rankin Inlet was eye opening as it described the harm to the Inuit way of life, the people and the land which were destroyed to make way for the valuable diamond mines. Victoria struggled up on her return. She married, had a family and continued to be plagued by loss. Part of her story was told through the eyes of a physician who had cared for her extended family. He had his own demons and avoided his own family by staying up North. The novel is full of a unique cast of characters who all deal with the challenges of Northern living in their own ways.
Both these novels are books that may not have made their way into my TBR piles but reading across Canada helped me read books that improved my knowledge of our great country, warts and all. It is hard to imagine the impact of mining on the North and the lack of consideration for both the people and the land that has taken place in Canadian history. Take a cross-country tour through books and enjoy and learn more about Canada!
My final book for the summer Cross-Canada challenge was Consumption which was set in Nunavut. It told the story of Victoria, a young girl ripped away from the traditional ways of her family and sent to a sanitarium in the South. After her tuberculosis was cured, she remained with another family for many years before the culture shock of returning to her family in the North.
The book, set in Rankin Inlet was eye opening as it described the harm to the Inuit way of life, the people and the land which were destroyed to make way for the valuable diamond mines. Victoria struggled up on her return. She married, had a family and continued to be plagued by loss. Part of her story was told through the eyes of a physician who had cared for her extended family. He had his own demons and avoided his own family by staying up North. The novel is full of a unique cast of characters who all deal with the challenges of Northern living in their own ways.
Both these novels are books that may not have made their way into my TBR piles but reading across Canada helped me read books that improved my knowledge of our great country, warts and all. It is hard to imagine the impact of mining on the North and the lack of consideration for both the people and the land that has taken place in Canadian history. Take a cross-country tour through books and enjoy and learn more about Canada!
May 1, 2009
The novel opens with Victoria's journey from Rankin Inlet in the eastern Canadian Arctic to a sanitorium in Manitoba, back to Rankin Inlet and marriage to an imported business mogul, to Polynesia and back to Rankin Inlet. Although most of the narrative features Victoria's relationships with family including her traditional Inuit parents and her children with her English-Caucasian husband, the book is mostly about Rankin Inlet's American doctor.
Patterson brings forward some Inuit points of view which are not commonly known outside the north. One POV comes from Victoria's father - that coming off the land was in many ways a relief. Also,Victoria's "no good" brother's revelation that in the "Kablunauk" culture there are many different meaningful things a man can be good at (instead of just being a good hunter).
Although there is a sensational murder in the story, Patterson reveals the murderer in a very low key way. So low key, in fact, I think a previous reviewer missed it!
From my years of working in the Arctic, I found this book to be, for the most part, extremely truthfully written and a rare unromanticized view of "simple living". Topics such as extremely high rates of teen suicide, "working dogs", whale hunting and the reality of obstetrics in isolation were integrated into the story.
The strongest aspects of the book are character development (Roberston in particular was spot on), obvious true knowledge of the subject matter and a good braided plot. The author and the publisher deserve credit for letting the reader draw some of their own conclusions. This book would probably be great for a book club as readers could discuss what their conclusions were.
I found three faults with the novel which probably won't bother anyone else
1 - occasional use of eastern Arctic Inuit words without obvious English translations (tuktu=caribou, amauk=wolf, nanuq=polar bear)
2- eskers are remains of river beds that flowed beneath glaciers and are sand, not rock.
2- No one could have gotten a diamond permitted in a sensitive Arctic environment in under two years, especially prior to the historical creation of the Inuit-owned Lands act.
So, yeah no real faults.
Patterson brings forward some Inuit points of view which are not commonly known outside the north. One POV comes from Victoria's father - that coming off the land was in many ways a relief. Also,Victoria's "no good" brother's revelation that in the "Kablunauk" culture there are many different meaningful things a man can be good at (instead of just being a good hunter).
Although there is a sensational murder in the story, Patterson reveals the murderer in a very low key way. So low key, in fact, I think a previous reviewer missed it!
From my years of working in the Arctic, I found this book to be, for the most part, extremely truthfully written and a rare unromanticized view of "simple living". Topics such as extremely high rates of teen suicide, "working dogs", whale hunting and the reality of obstetrics in isolation were integrated into the story.
The strongest aspects of the book are character development (Roberston in particular was spot on), obvious true knowledge of the subject matter and a good braided plot. The author and the publisher deserve credit for letting the reader draw some of their own conclusions. This book would probably be great for a book club as readers could discuss what their conclusions were.
I found three faults with the novel which probably won't bother anyone else
1 - occasional use of eastern Arctic Inuit words without obvious English translations (tuktu=caribou, amauk=wolf, nanuq=polar bear)
2- eskers are remains of river beds that flowed beneath glaciers and are sand, not rock.
2- No one could have gotten a diamond permitted in a sensitive Arctic environment in under two years, especially prior to the historical creation of the Inuit-owned Lands act.
So, yeah no real faults.
March 17, 2015
Consumption by Kevin Patterson is a book that is hard to categorize, and that is part of what I liked about it. It does not fit cleanly into any genre, and it is not a cleanly written book. Parts of it are confusing, and some characters and plot lines (there are many, many plot lines) seem superfluous. While everything I've read about the book says that the focus is on the main character Victoria, I would argue that the majority of the book is really little vignettes about all of the people that make up the curious community of Rankin Inlet. Interspersed between these chapters are the journal entries of Dr. Keith Balthazar, which are very interesting but, to me, their purpose is never fully realized. I also cannot figure out why Dr. Balthazar's family, specifically his niece Amanda, is at all relevant to the story. It is almost as if two books were written and put together when they truly deserved to be separate, fully realized novels on their own. After reading the author's note, this seems particularly true.
I enjoyed reading the book, especially after 50 or 60 pages, but I'm not sure that I fully "get it". I will say that the ending was completely unexpected and did bring a smile to my face, especially after so much tragedy struck Victoria's family throughout the rest of the novel.
December 2, 2011
I liked reading this book partly for its unusual setting: the Arctic. Set in modern-day (50's - 80's), the Inuits and the "Southerners," the old and the new ways, coexist and clash. From natives married to southern Hudson Bay men, to southern doctors and teachers, the characters struggle and suffer through the collision, including an Inuit daughter who spends so many years away from her family at a sanatorium for consumptives that when she returns she has become a unique young woman with a foot in both worlds. It is her family around which the book centers, but the book is enhanced by the branching stories of other important and interesting characters. (Patterson does an excellent job with characterization.) The ending is believable (though it takes place on a tropical island) and satisfying. The hard scrabble life of those who continue to embrace the old ways produces some pretty grim images, but that is part of the fascination of the story.
January 2, 2015
I really enjoyed this book. I feel that I have gained insight into living and working in Canada's far North. Author worked as MD in Rankin Inlet.
The characters are very well developed. The tragedies are felt.
Essays at the end of the book are very enlightening. Tuberculosis, the author claims, was simply the worst thing that ever happened to the traditional Inuit and to indigenous people more generally. He describes the disease in detail.
Author then describes "the idea that the way we live is revealed fundamentally by how we sicken and die. When changes occur in the way we eat and fight and raise our children that are truly important, then they always show up in the way we die". The diseases now in the Arctic are the diseases of affluence - Type II diabetes, obesity, vascular disease, cancer,
The characters are very well developed. The tragedies are felt.
Essays at the end of the book are very enlightening. Tuberculosis, the author claims, was simply the worst thing that ever happened to the traditional Inuit and to indigenous people more generally. He describes the disease in detail.
Author then describes "the idea that the way we live is revealed fundamentally by how we sicken and die. When changes occur in the way we eat and fight and raise our children that are truly important, then they always show up in the way we die". The diseases now in the Arctic are the diseases of affluence - Type II diabetes, obesity, vascular disease, cancer,
March 6, 2013
There were many different stories weaving together throughout this novel. And perhaps that was its weakness for me. I would have preferred to focus on fewer characters, and thereby get to know them better, get to really hear their voice. At times it felt like Patterson let his belief in the cause of the people he was writing about to overshadow the story, it felt like he was trying to pack too much in. A sense of pace and close connection was lost.
For me the section at the end - the doctors unpublished manuscript was the most engaging. It had immediacy and intensity - fact and fiction inter-weaved in a believable way. I would rather Patterson had stuck with those bones and fleshed them out.
For me the section at the end - the doctors unpublished manuscript was the most engaging. It had immediacy and intensity - fact and fiction inter-weaved in a believable way. I would rather Patterson had stuck with those bones and fleshed them out.
September 8, 2015
I read Consumption because Kevin Patterson is an MD who became a writer, as I did. He's a very fine author. I liked the unusual narrative techniques he employed to convert his book of medical essays about his time caring for the Inuit into a true novel. Three of the four passages I liked best were actually from the essay sections, but the fiction writing was very strong, too. I wish Patterson would write more long-form fiction.
February 19, 2009
First time novelist Keven Petersen hits a home run right out of the ball park with this one. So much to hang on to: compelling characters, unique setting, societal strictures and medical essays. My only criticism would be that Mr. Petersen doesn't really give us a protagonist, rather a series of inter-related characters held together with the binding of the doctor's observations and essay--but one hardly feels the lack. A definite must read.
November 18, 2015
Best book I've read in ages. Not to everyone's taste I'm sure but the kind of book where you want to meet the author and thank them personally for such a great read. Very thought provoking. Beautifully written.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : Consumption - Nevisande : Kevin Patterson - ISBN : 385520743 - ISBN13 : 9780385520744 - Dar 384 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2006
September 19, 2018
After having lived in Nunavut for 6 years, this is the most accurate articulation of how the north is evolving after colonization. Chilling but beautifully written.
March 16, 2019
ALL of the thumbs up for this one. So powerful, and the characters leap off the page.
March 2, 2019
WOW! LOVED IT!
Quotes from the book:
Anomie. Ennui. The French have the best names for it; but it was the Americans who invented teenagers and adolescence and it is among the Americans that the phenomenon is the most impressive. People say that change is hardest for the old, but this is unlikely, because the old have the simple expedient available to them of just refusing to. New forms of music—swing, rock, hip-hop—are not embraced by anyone over forty, except poseurs. New languages are all but unavailable to anyone over thirty. Revolutions in thought are launched by mathematicians before thirty, and physicists before they are thirty-five. Poets: twenty-five. Change is not so difficult for adults because, for the most part, they just don’t.
Deep fundamental change breaks like surf upon children. And it is change that injures us when we become wealthy, not some Calvinist idea that riches corrupt the flesh and soul. Poverty remains the most potent toxin for humans, but the next most potent poison is confusion. When we are confused about what and how much we should eat, about how much assistance to receive from our machines, about how much attention to pay to our parents and our aunts and uncles, and, God help us, our children, we become ill, we sicken ourselves. We stop moving and we stop attending to the necessary rituals. We become fat and hubristic, and we lose confidence in our own capacity.
As we deracinate ourselves, sadness settles over us. We lose nourishment that roots provide us. We replace that nourishment with other satisfactions: mobility and movement; anonymity and freedom. These are all very satisfying things, which is why people pay a steep price to obtain them. But roots remain necessary no matter how thin and chemically enriched the substrate of one’s growth.
…
What I thought about was whether anyone knows with any certainty whether people in other times were sadder or happier than they are now. I think that this much is true: when they were sad, they were sad about things—the relentless death of their children, the failure of the crops and the hunt, the appearance of blood in the sputum of their wife. These were the daily facts of their lives. My experience is that all parents, no matter how inured, are eviscerated by the passing of a child, so the people of earlier times were likely very sad—and often. But I think they were less likely to be sad about nothing, in the way we are. Which is the state that words like anomie try to describe; which psychiatrists endeavor to treat with their serotonin-receptor antagonists. It is the state that poisons us and our ambitions, leading us to immobility.
…
I thought how odd it was, that the process that leads us to static motionlessness begins as a response to too rapid change.
...
The most stressful thing in the world is boredom. Trauma surgeons are not the ones who become morphine addicts. What they do is dangerous and fast and dramatic; they do not get worn down the way the rest of us do, forgotten family doctors in small towns and anesthetists facing a lifetime of hernia repairs. We are designed to be confronted by difficulties that often surprise and sometimes defeat us. In the absence of that, humans wither. Or rather, they swell. When I came here I was twenty-seven years old and skinny. Everyone I knew here was as skinny as I was. There was food then too, available at the Northern Store. Canned bacon and white bread and all the things that make men fat. But no one was. I was not yet so lonely, and the families were only freshly off the land, and still spent months at a time out there. Bear maulings and drownings were common.
Now the people I treat, especially the ones that need me the most often, have withdrawn from the land, and live like my brother and his family do, in Newark. They work under fluorescent lights and eat prepared food, recoiling from imagined dangers with a zealousness that looks each year a little more like simple cowardice. Everyone in town wears a helmet when riding a quad and the dogs are kept well away, out on the ice. One is not allowed to use a rifle, or even buy ammunition, without a firearms safety course. All of which is reasonable. I do not see the head injuries and the dog maulings that I used to. Many of the young men I know who have good jobs in town don’t even own a rifle. They marry Kablunauk women who worry, rightly, about their children shooting themselves. Together they all waddle in to see me, and together we all talk about how we might control our diabetes better.
My niece is insanely allergic to peanuts; even a glancing contact with a peanut shell will raise red welts on her skin. Her parents live in terror of the ill-considered spring roll. She has asthma too; both these diseases are increasing in prevalence and severity in American cities in a time when other serious medical problems are in decline, as we all grow richer and better doctored.
The problem is that our bodies are meant to struggle as much as our brains are; children’s immune systems expect to have to beat off infections. When the immune system is never called upon, it behaves the way underworked soldiers do and makes trouble. If it’s not finding infections, then it must not be looking hard enough. So it looks harder, and starts to detect infections that aren’t there: thus the terrible toll of autoimmune disease rises steadily in our era of antiseptic floors and single-child families.
But the real trouble is what people’s minds become when they are never called upon to fight off a predator. Gelatinous gray goo. Middle-aged fat man looking out his window at people walking in the snow, dressed in his underwear at two on a Sunday afternoon, teeth unbrushed since Friday morning, a litter of alcohol swabs on the floor and empty pudding cups stretching to the walls.
I made a deal with myself that I would never do it on weekdays or more often than once a month. And although stealing the morphine was itself a transgression, I was able to limit that transgression to these bounds. I wondered about that often, even at the time: if I was able to control it all, why didn’t I just stop? And if I couldn’t stop, why didn’t I become a daily user, with the attendant ongoing catastrophes for my patients and my eventual firing?
The answer, I think is twofold. First, either would have been too decisive a course of action for a man of my nature. All my life I have equivocated, puzzled most of all about what it was I wanted, what I should be striving for. I came to the Arctic for a summer to pass the time and make a small bit of money after my exams. But this is where I ended up spending my professional life, out of habit and out of what became an increasingly narrow range of options. I didn’t actually choose the place until I had spent half my life there.
And too, there was my overfondness of secrets. I was pleased that there was something unapparent about me, something not evident at a cursory glance. The people who divined my secrets and chose not to reveal them, they were bound even closer to me as a result. So my loneliness was assuaged in two ways: by the drug sliding up my arm and by the complicity of my friends. Potent thing, loneliness.
...
Quotes from the book:
Anomie. Ennui. The French have the best names for it; but it was the Americans who invented teenagers and adolescence and it is among the Americans that the phenomenon is the most impressive. People say that change is hardest for the old, but this is unlikely, because the old have the simple expedient available to them of just refusing to. New forms of music—swing, rock, hip-hop—are not embraced by anyone over forty, except poseurs. New languages are all but unavailable to anyone over thirty. Revolutions in thought are launched by mathematicians before thirty, and physicists before they are thirty-five. Poets: twenty-five. Change is not so difficult for adults because, for the most part, they just don’t.
Deep fundamental change breaks like surf upon children. And it is change that injures us when we become wealthy, not some Calvinist idea that riches corrupt the flesh and soul. Poverty remains the most potent toxin for humans, but the next most potent poison is confusion. When we are confused about what and how much we should eat, about how much assistance to receive from our machines, about how much attention to pay to our parents and our aunts and uncles, and, God help us, our children, we become ill, we sicken ourselves. We stop moving and we stop attending to the necessary rituals. We become fat and hubristic, and we lose confidence in our own capacity.
As we deracinate ourselves, sadness settles over us. We lose nourishment that roots provide us. We replace that nourishment with other satisfactions: mobility and movement; anonymity and freedom. These are all very satisfying things, which is why people pay a steep price to obtain them. But roots remain necessary no matter how thin and chemically enriched the substrate of one’s growth.
…
What I thought about was whether anyone knows with any certainty whether people in other times were sadder or happier than they are now. I think that this much is true: when they were sad, they were sad about things—the relentless death of their children, the failure of the crops and the hunt, the appearance of blood in the sputum of their wife. These were the daily facts of their lives. My experience is that all parents, no matter how inured, are eviscerated by the passing of a child, so the people of earlier times were likely very sad—and often. But I think they were less likely to be sad about nothing, in the way we are. Which is the state that words like anomie try to describe; which psychiatrists endeavor to treat with their serotonin-receptor antagonists. It is the state that poisons us and our ambitions, leading us to immobility.
…
I thought how odd it was, that the process that leads us to static motionlessness begins as a response to too rapid change.
...
The most stressful thing in the world is boredom. Trauma surgeons are not the ones who become morphine addicts. What they do is dangerous and fast and dramatic; they do not get worn down the way the rest of us do, forgotten family doctors in small towns and anesthetists facing a lifetime of hernia repairs. We are designed to be confronted by difficulties that often surprise and sometimes defeat us. In the absence of that, humans wither. Or rather, they swell. When I came here I was twenty-seven years old and skinny. Everyone I knew here was as skinny as I was. There was food then too, available at the Northern Store. Canned bacon and white bread and all the things that make men fat. But no one was. I was not yet so lonely, and the families were only freshly off the land, and still spent months at a time out there. Bear maulings and drownings were common.
Now the people I treat, especially the ones that need me the most often, have withdrawn from the land, and live like my brother and his family do, in Newark. They work under fluorescent lights and eat prepared food, recoiling from imagined dangers with a zealousness that looks each year a little more like simple cowardice. Everyone in town wears a helmet when riding a quad and the dogs are kept well away, out on the ice. One is not allowed to use a rifle, or even buy ammunition, without a firearms safety course. All of which is reasonable. I do not see the head injuries and the dog maulings that I used to. Many of the young men I know who have good jobs in town don’t even own a rifle. They marry Kablunauk women who worry, rightly, about their children shooting themselves. Together they all waddle in to see me, and together we all talk about how we might control our diabetes better.
My niece is insanely allergic to peanuts; even a glancing contact with a peanut shell will raise red welts on her skin. Her parents live in terror of the ill-considered spring roll. She has asthma too; both these diseases are increasing in prevalence and severity in American cities in a time when other serious medical problems are in decline, as we all grow richer and better doctored.
The problem is that our bodies are meant to struggle as much as our brains are; children’s immune systems expect to have to beat off infections. When the immune system is never called upon, it behaves the way underworked soldiers do and makes trouble. If it’s not finding infections, then it must not be looking hard enough. So it looks harder, and starts to detect infections that aren’t there: thus the terrible toll of autoimmune disease rises steadily in our era of antiseptic floors and single-child families.
But the real trouble is what people’s minds become when they are never called upon to fight off a predator. Gelatinous gray goo. Middle-aged fat man looking out his window at people walking in the snow, dressed in his underwear at two on a Sunday afternoon, teeth unbrushed since Friday morning, a litter of alcohol swabs on the floor and empty pudding cups stretching to the walls.
I made a deal with myself that I would never do it on weekdays or more often than once a month. And although stealing the morphine was itself a transgression, I was able to limit that transgression to these bounds. I wondered about that often, even at the time: if I was able to control it all, why didn’t I just stop? And if I couldn’t stop, why didn’t I become a daily user, with the attendant ongoing catastrophes for my patients and my eventual firing?
The answer, I think is twofold. First, either would have been too decisive a course of action for a man of my nature. All my life I have equivocated, puzzled most of all about what it was I wanted, what I should be striving for. I came to the Arctic for a summer to pass the time and make a small bit of money after my exams. But this is where I ended up spending my professional life, out of habit and out of what became an increasingly narrow range of options. I didn’t actually choose the place until I had spent half my life there.
And too, there was my overfondness of secrets. I was pleased that there was something unapparent about me, something not evident at a cursory glance. The people who divined my secrets and chose not to reveal them, they were bound even closer to me as a result. So my loneliness was assuaged in two ways: by the drug sliding up my arm and by the complicity of my friends. Potent thing, loneliness.
...
September 21, 2018
There is much food for thought in this novel that explores the rapid changes that occur in an Inuit community as the people leave their traditional lifestyle and adopt modern Western culture. Victoria is born in the 1950's to a family living a traditional nomadic lifestyle on the land. At the age of ten she is sent south for treatment of her tuberculosis. When she returns to her family six years later, they have settled in Rankin Inlet, as most of the Inuit have given up the traditional lifestyle and settled in coastal communities rather than face starvation due to poor hunting. Victoria no longer fits in, and this is not helped when she marries a white man. The story is told from many points of view, including Victoria, her husband, their three children, her father, her brother, a couple of the white school teachers in the town, and the white doctor who serves the community in months long stints while maintaining a home base in New York. We see a lot of troubling things as the people adapt to a new way of life, outside influences, and the arrival of a mining company who wants to exploit them.
When I first picked this book up, I assumed that the title referred to the old name for tuberculosis, but it soon became apparent that Victoria's tuberculosis is just a tiny part of the story. Rather, the book is about the way the Inuit culture has been consumed by the outside influences that have entered the community. New foods, a sedentary lifestyle, drugs, television, and a host of other things have left the people unhealthy, confused, and torn between two cultures. This was particularly poignant for me as it brought to mind stories that I heard from my sister-in-law's mother, who was an Inuit woman from Tuktoyaktuk who married a white man and moved south. Her family had similar experiences.
This story did seem disjointed at times. The end of the book consists of a manuscript that the doctor was working on about the health issues of the Inuit and his experiences in the north. It didn't really fit with the rest of the book, although it was still interesting. The author's note at the end tells us that this book started as a series of essays, that were then cobbled together to make a novel. If this is the case, he did a pretty good job.
When I first picked this book up, I assumed that the title referred to the old name for tuberculosis, but it soon became apparent that Victoria's tuberculosis is just a tiny part of the story. Rather, the book is about the way the Inuit culture has been consumed by the outside influences that have entered the community. New foods, a sedentary lifestyle, drugs, television, and a host of other things have left the people unhealthy, confused, and torn between two cultures. This was particularly poignant for me as it brought to mind stories that I heard from my sister-in-law's mother, who was an Inuit woman from Tuktoyaktuk who married a white man and moved south. Her family had similar experiences.
This story did seem disjointed at times. The end of the book consists of a manuscript that the doctor was working on about the health issues of the Inuit and his experiences in the north. It didn't really fit with the rest of the book, although it was still interesting. The author's note at the end tells us that this book started as a series of essays, that were then cobbled together to make a novel. If this is the case, he did a pretty good job.
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