Subtitled “Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery” these are the professional memoirs of Henry Marsh a recently retired Neurosurgeon.
At first glance not really a “yoga book”, but as I’ve often said, Yoga for me is about Insight, and, to that end, where is Yoga’s boundary? I submit nowhere.
I found this book quite gripping – Mr Marsh balances recollections of surgery with frustration about the management of NHS services, reflections on the frailty of human life, and reflections on the interface of surgery and compassion – something you sense he struggled with at times. Understandably, in most professions it can be hard to remember the people you are dealing with are multi dimensional, and not just the sum of their contact with you, but in a discipline like Neurosurgery it must be doubly hard when your job is the tough life and death decisions around surgery require a sense of detachment and objectivity.
Through the book we learn a little more about the brain and its workings, and the dilemmas faced when trying to repair it. Risks. Rewards. We learn something about the frailty of human life, and catastrophes that can happen and the capacity of the human body to recover.
The writing is accessible, and Mr Marsh avoids sensationalism, gore and complexity. Worth a read if this type of writing interests you – a glimpse into another world, hopefully one most of us won’t have to grace.
