The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur W. Frank

This book was difficult to follow. I think Frank had some interesting viewpoints, but it was very hard to see the actual application of these in real life instances. Frank is good about incorporating quotes and attempting to ties people’s experiences into his theories, but nothing hit close to home where I could see his point and definitely agree. Also to make it more difficult, he uses fancy words and makes his points a lot more wordy and spruced up than necessary.

Another thing that I don’t agree with is that this book is precisely what would happen in a perfect world. In a perfect world everyone would tell their experience through their own bodies, effectively communicating with others around us and all understanding one other. Frank emphasizes too much on how people should act, rather than realistically how people have acted and will continue to act. I don’t believe readers of this book are going to have an epiphany and act in different ways than they have been their entire lives. I do not want to be too critical, but I do not see the point of writing a book that does not have any practical purpose, except for entertainment purposes. This book goes on with too many assumptions about human behavior and ignores how humans really act (in dealing with their own illnesses and others). Which is different depending on the individual. Every other book we have read this semester has realistic views that are easily relatable, but this book is a stretch.

I agree with the fact that the medical world needs to take into account people’s personal stories in order to help them, but I thought that Frank was very critical of modern medicine. He seems to undermine its importance in society. One section that caught my attention was when he compared chemotherapy to torture. I understand how going through chemotherapy can seem like torture, but then Frank makes the argument about how useful it really is. He uses an example of a woman that thinks chemotherapy didn’t help her at all. I want to believe that medical treatments such as chemotherapy are necessary with serious illness and that they are somewhat helping to fight the cancer. My grandmother has gone through multiple chemotherapy treatments and has killed all the cancer in her body. She continued to work during her treatments, not that she had to (she is very well off), but out of choice (she said it kept her busy). She never complained and told me that sometimes she was only a little sore. She was extraordinary, her doctors raved about what a miracle patient she was and how she barely had any side effects. This being said, I would hope that the medical treatment and her positive attitude both had to deal with her impressive healing. It just bothered me how Frank seems to denounce modern medicine. As much as I would love to say that people are responsible for healing themselves, I do not think that is entirely true without the help of physicians and medical help.

Also, Frank constantly refers back to stories and terms that he has presented in previous chapters. I found this difficult because sometimes I needed to go back and refresh my memory as to what he was discussing. This became aggravating because it interrupted what I was reading in order to back track. If this was done seldom it wouldn’t be an issue, but I found myself constantly looking back to previous chapters, I don’t think a book should ever make the reader constantly flip back pages.

I might have been a little critical of this book; it’s not a bad book. I just think that it is a book that the reader needs to be highly engaged in to fully understand. Between constantly back tracking and the difficult vocabulary, it is a book that can easily lose the reader. Also, his ideas are very idealistic which conflict with mine that are more realistic.