the good times at sigma draconis VI

Brain and brain! What is brain? (Spock's Brain)

After ranting away about the amateur dross that comprised Robin Cook's writing in the 21st century, I decided to try and read the books that had made him famous all those years ago just to see how much nostalgia had clouded my memory. My first pick was Brain, which was also one of the first (or perhaps the first) of Robin Cook's books that I had read. Interestingly, the book still held up well. The exposition was controlled and Cook's writing seemed to be more demanding of the reader's attention than his recent work that requires as much attention as a Top 10 countdown on Zee TV. I also learnt about RNs, LPNs and ASNs; since Cook does not commit expository abuse by explaining what they stood for, I went online. After ASN.1, Autonomous System Numbers and Advance Shipping Notices, I now had Associate of Science in Nursing; After Licence Plate Numbers I got Licensed Practical Nurses. RNs are Registered Nurses, in case you were wondering. Time to go back to Coma.

While I might trust the doctor to remove a splinter or lance a boil, I do not believe he has the knowledge to restore a brain. (Spock's Brain)

a multilayered tragedy for everyone involved

I had evidently not learnt well from my last exposure to the works of Robin Cook in the 21st century. In my defence, Critical was published before Intervention, so I could be excused for hoping that Dr. Cook still had some of the magic that adorned his his early books. It was a relief to find out that Critical was in fact a better book. Unfortunately, it still qualified as a poor effort when one considered books like Coma and Brain.

The novel finds Cook showing off his knowledge of medicine and medical procedures while following the rather familiar path of a thriller. To its credit it manages to toss in several different significant characters, who contribute to the crescendo to a climax of coincidences. The final chapter, unfortunately, takes us from the trappings of a cops-and-robbers series for television to a painful exercise in exposition through conversation (not unlike the scrawl at the end of those biopics telling us what happened to most of the principal characters). The epilogue makes things worse with a segue into a budding romance not unlike what one might expect from daytime soaps.

Despite serving well as a bestselling piece of pulp whose pages you could flip through without having to exercise your brain too much, the novel suffers from a poor editorial job. Anyone who lets a writer -- even a mainstream, bestselling one -- get away with using a word like guesstimation is a lazy slob who needs to find another job. Mercifully, the abuse of literally is limited (as if to make up for this, one finds the abuse blooming in Intervention).

One cannot deny the need for Cook to wax eloquent when it comes to the medical aspects of the story, since that is what defines his brand of fiction. One must, however, take issue to just how intelligent the writer assumes the reader to be. Consider the following extract:

Never once did he think about his knees and the effort expended by their various ligaments, which faithfully maintained the integrity of the joints despite the considerable stresses placed on them, and by the menisci, which cushioned the substantial pressure exerted by the distal ends of the femurs, or thighbones, on the tops of the tibias, or shinbones.

Let us choose to ignore the great disservice this long curvy sentence does to the full-stop. Let us also ignore how clumsily the writer has mixed exposition into an otherwise simple sentence. What is most annoying is how Cook pauses to explain what a femur is, he chooses to offer no such guidance for menisci. I know what a femur is, thank you very much. If you wanted to explain every medical term in that sentence, you should have explained menisci as well. I must also note that the generosity on display with this sentence is short-lived. After having realised, presumably, that several pages had been wasted in exposition instead of moving the plot forward, Cook and his editor(s) decided to let the medical jargon remain jargon, thus alienating the reader and allowing him/her to flip the pages even faster.

The reader is not the only one at the receiving end of condescension. Consider the following extract from a conversation between two doctors. Surely one would expect less exposition between two people when talking about matters germane to their occupation:

My guess is that it was a behind-the-scenes lobby competition, with the lobbyists from the AMA pitted against the lobbyists for the AHA, or American Hospital Association, and the FAH, or Federation of American Hospitals. I guess the doctors spent more money than the hospital admin groups.

Did I mention apostrophe abuse? How about inconsistent apostrophe abuse? Consider the following:

Laurie got along famously with all the PA's but particularly with Janice, who appreciated Laurie's recognition of her work. More than any of the MEs, Laurie was constantly coming to her and asking questions and valuing her opinion.

Physician assistants are, for reasons unknown, more special than medical exainers; based on other plural forms seen in the book, they seem to be more important than HMOs. Unfortunately, in the paperback edition, this superiority is asserted only page 396; until that point, the apostrophe was mercifully spared when PAs were mentioned.

Sloppy. Very sloppy.

comatose and brain-dead

With Intervention, Robin Cook dares to venture into Dan Brown territory. I could have said Umberto Eco territory (purely for Foucault's Pendulum, but it would do Eco's reputation injustice while implying (incorrectly) that Robin Cook was capable of being more than a writer of serviceable medical thrillers.

begin flashback

I was an avid reader of genre fiction years ago and Robin Cook was one of the many whose books I picked off the shelves of the Popular Book House library and turned the pages of. Memories can tend to become more favourable over the years and this might account for my impression that I was entertained. There was a lot of information in the pages -- Cook was, like Crichton (who, interestingly, helmed the first of two cinematic adaptations of Cook's ouevre, Coma) and Grisham, to name a couple, the kind of writer who wove proof that he had done his research into the narrative. I do not recall having trouble finishing any of his books. Not being able to glide from cover to cover should have, in retrospect, told me that I had found a book that demanded more and would be more important than these potboilers. I remember quitting Cook when a book I picked up had a protagonist with the same name as a book I had read a week or so before. That, for me all those years ago, was the last straw. I could tolerate the guy hopping around in the medical milieu and finding places to stuff a thriller's narrative elements. But running out of names (or was it the same protagonist?) was just a sign of laziness.

end flashback

Intervention, now that I have turned over the back cover to look at the author posing with a smile in his house (presumably), seems like harsh punishment for daring to challenge my decision to abandon this guy's ouevre years ago. If Cook was good in his older novels, this novel makes them look like literary masterpieces. Cook stretches beyond his turf (the medical thriller) and tries to pluck clumps of grass from the Brown verdant fields of religious conspiracy and revelation. In doing so, he shows us why Irving Wallace's The Word is a far superior richer work. He also makes Dan Brown look like a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize. The characters are stock, the abuse of literally is appalling and the final portion of the book throws up a twist that comes early enough to make the rest of the limp conclusion even worse than it is -- Cook abandons a mix of narrative and dialogue and churns out hasty pages that look like a poor submission in an essay competition. If anyone's about to make an impulsive selection as I did and is looking for some advice, here it is: this dish stinks.