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Lorange

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The Color Purple (The Color Purple Collection, #1)

by Alice Walker

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Dec 17, 2025 06:33PM

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A History of America in Ten Strikes

by Erik Loomis

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May 15, 2025 03:57PM

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The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor

by Arthur Kleinman

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read in December 2023

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Lorange said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

"
again, i liked the themes but less so the style
While reading this book, i found myself constantly wondering how Arthur would define care simply. I've gathered that he talks about two deep examples of care: the care he learns to extend to his patients
again, i liked the themes but less so the style
While reading this book, i found myself constantly wondering how Arthur would define care simply. I've gathered that he talks about two deep examples of care: the care he learns to extend to his patients in his career as a psychotherapist and the care he gives his wife joan in her development of early onsent alzheimer's. For the first, this refers to care that i think of in the context of teaching, or peer counseling, a care that comes in the form of seeking to see others. I recognize this type of care. but i also think it is in some ways distinct from the second type of care, the grueling everyday labor of caring for a persons every need even in the midst of their extreme lack of appreciation or even agitation and distrust they develop towards you. I find this type of care more similar to the grueling labor or experience akin to climbing a mountain, where every day is so painful and mundane yet you do ti simply "because it is there", but also out of passion love, and because you would do nothing else.
i liked arthur's end sentiment in the epilogue where he says that care is the reason why life is worth living.
this reminded me a lot of when the soul catches you and you fall down and arthur even references this book for using his medical anthropological techniques. i dont know how i've found myself reading many memoirs related to medicine, ad psychotherapy, and social work, but i could potentially see myself doing that in the future i suppose. it seems like hard work, and i dont know if i have the capacity to care and talk to people this much, but i know it'd be a career worth having.

this book also touched my heart in many places. i often teared up at the sheer defeat arthur describes in caring for joan towards the end of her life. his description of defeat and sadness especially when she could no longer recognize her and she experienced more agitation than she did blissful peace, it reminded me of my own mother's reaction to her mother not recognizing her. i think about the nursing home variations my grandma went through and what that must have felt like to my mother, who was a working professional and couldn't often care for her. i think about how i dont know my grandma outside of her dementia, and when i go home i want to ask mom some stories about her. i also wonder to what extent my memories of her agitation are a product of the cultural differences she experienced immigrating here.

i think arthur's call to revolutionize the health care system to prioritize care adn center family care in it's practice is an incredibly important one for sure. i wonder how often these suggestions are heeded by physicians because it seems that arthur acknolwedges that although some doctors want to change, they find these efforts futile, but there are small movements. going forward, when i talk to my pre-med friends i woul like to ask them what their thoughts on care are and how they if at all have thought about incorporating care into their practice, and the fact that medical training likely forces you to be efficient rather than caring. i wonder too the ways in which my mom uses care in her own practice as a doctor, because i hear her calling her patients and i dont really often hear her listening to them. i think that arthur's story of lack of self care also really resonates as an important message for me and people i am close to.

some things i did not like though about this book was the writing style. honestly the style reminded me of my own. the paragraphs are long, formal, not funny, and thoroughly incorporate reflective thoughts on the past. it just felt a little too belabored to me and i always looked forward to annecdotes that woudl spice it up. i felt like he showed to much adn didnt' tell. i wanted him to sit with some moments instead of just saying wisely and talking in retropect about his expansive career and relationship with joan. perhaps this is why in my own writing i try to focus on details in key scenes, instead of recapping in retrospect with reflection, i just enjoy reading it more.

i didn't like how he describe his love for his wife and how she expressed her love to him by doing all the housework and caring for him when he had poor health. honestly i think arthur writes with a lot of hubris and doesn't ever at all recognize where he had been a poor husband, particularly in the growing parts of his career. it seems that he is somewhat neglectful to joan and to their children and is absent for his intellectual pursuits and his lack of recognition of this bothers me. i wanted arthur to admit that he could've been a better husbnad, i want to see some humility and guilt, otherwise it seems he is aware of this but doesn't feel bad. and i don't think his later dedication as a care taker excuse him of the need to acknowledge this.

i also was bothered slightly by the description of their research escapades in china. he says several times they were the first researchers in china, but i feel uncomfortable with the imperialist nature of this all. his description of treating cholera in rural china feels very western medicine >> eastern medicine and white savior type vibe and the lack of recognition for his positionality as a highly western educated white man going to china to bring peace to them is a little bit uncomfortable. ...more "

Dec 30, 2023 10:56PM · see review