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suvata 's review for:
Being Mortal
by Atul Gawande
I received this book with the Quarterly Co. Book Riot (BKR06) shipment.
From the Introduction:
"THIS IS A book about the modern experience of mortality—about what it’s like to be creatures who age and die, how medicine has changed the experience and how it hasn’t, where our ideas about how to deal with our finitude have got the reality wrong."
That is a perfect description of what Being Mortal is about. Since I'm unable to describe this book any better than the author did above, I will share with you some of my favorite quotes from this book. That should give you a sense of the writing style, the tone, etc.
"...supported by family at all times, and he was revered—not in spite of his age but because of it. He was consulted on all important matters—marriages, land disputes, business decisions—and occupied a place of high honor in the family. When we ate, we served him first. When young people came into his home, they bowed and touched his feet in supplication. In America, he would almost certainly have been placed in a nursing home."
"Over the years, with medical progress, the bottom has tended to drop out later and later. The advent of sanitation and other public health measures sharply reduced the likelihood of death from infectious disease, especially in early childhood, and clinical advances dramatically reduced the mortality of childbirth and traumatic injuries."
"As medical progress has extended our lives, the result has been what’s called the “rectangularization” of survival. Throughout most of human history, a society’s population formed a sort of pyramid: young children represented the largest portion—the base—and each successively older cohort represented a smaller and smaller group. In 1950, children under the age of five were 11 percent of the US population, adults aged forty-five to forty-nine were 6 percent, and those over eighty were 1 percent. Today, we have as many fifty-year-olds as five-year-olds. In thirty years, there will be as many people over eighty as there are under five. The same pattern is emerging throughout the industrialized world."
"DECLINE REMAINS OUR fate; death will someday come. But until that last backup system inside each of us fails, medical care can influence whether the path is steep and precipitate or more gradual, allowing longer preservation of the abilities that matter most in your life."
“Old age is a continuous series of losses.” Philip Roth put it more bitterly in his novel Everyman: “Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.”
"Three Plagues of nursing home existence: boredom, loneliness, and helplessness."
"Culture is the sum total of shared habits and expectations,"
"I believe that the difference in death rates can be traced to the fundamental human need for a reason to live."
"Whatever the limits and travails we face, we want to retain the autonomy—the freedom—to be the authors of our lives. This is the very marrow of being human."
From the Introduction:
"THIS IS A book about the modern experience of mortality—about what it’s like to be creatures who age and die, how medicine has changed the experience and how it hasn’t, where our ideas about how to deal with our finitude have got the reality wrong."
That is a perfect description of what Being Mortal is about. Since I'm unable to describe this book any better than the author did above, I will share with you some of my favorite quotes from this book. That should give you a sense of the writing style, the tone, etc.
"...supported by family at all times, and he was revered—not in spite of his age but because of it. He was consulted on all important matters—marriages, land disputes, business decisions—and occupied a place of high honor in the family. When we ate, we served him first. When young people came into his home, they bowed and touched his feet in supplication. In America, he would almost certainly have been placed in a nursing home."
"Over the years, with medical progress, the bottom has tended to drop out later and later. The advent of sanitation and other public health measures sharply reduced the likelihood of death from infectious disease, especially in early childhood, and clinical advances dramatically reduced the mortality of childbirth and traumatic injuries."
"As medical progress has extended our lives, the result has been what’s called the “rectangularization” of survival. Throughout most of human history, a society’s population formed a sort of pyramid: young children represented the largest portion—the base—and each successively older cohort represented a smaller and smaller group. In 1950, children under the age of five were 11 percent of the US population, adults aged forty-five to forty-nine were 6 percent, and those over eighty were 1 percent. Today, we have as many fifty-year-olds as five-year-olds. In thirty years, there will be as many people over eighty as there are under five. The same pattern is emerging throughout the industrialized world."
"DECLINE REMAINS OUR fate; death will someday come. But until that last backup system inside each of us fails, medical care can influence whether the path is steep and precipitate or more gradual, allowing longer preservation of the abilities that matter most in your life."
“Old age is a continuous series of losses.” Philip Roth put it more bitterly in his novel Everyman: “Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.”
"Three Plagues of nursing home existence: boredom, loneliness, and helplessness."
"Culture is the sum total of shared habits and expectations,"
"I believe that the difference in death rates can be traced to the fundamental human need for a reason to live."
"Whatever the limits and travails we face, we want to retain the autonomy—the freedom—to be the authors of our lives. This is the very marrow of being human."