Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003)

Tracy Kidder is a genius. MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS is a journalistic portrait of Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health and an extraordinary advocate for the Haitian poor. I admire how Kidder includes just enough of his own sense of intrigue--what makes this guy tick?--and discomfort--how come Farmer makes him feel inadequate?--to hook the reader in what feels like a personal story but in fact is largely biography. This book is a good example of literary journalism.

Farmer is strongly influenced by liberation theology, but he's brought these principles to bear on the field of medicine, especially the treatment of TB. I found many aspects of his work personally challenging. He remains a doctor dedicated to seeing individual patients, even if this entails 10-hour treks through the central plateau of Haiti, as he grows in prominence and eventually comes to influence national health care systems around the globe. Kidder implies that this groundedness in doctoring individuals is the key to his success. The more he advocates for quality care for individuals, the more Farmer gets into political trouble. Once again, radical love even on a small scale rattles those in power. His story has challenged me to keep my feet firmly planted in the dirty particulars of working with ordinary people while at the same time bringing the insights of this work out to influence a larger sphere. We have a mandate to correct economic and social injustices, Farmer says. How can I take up this mantel as a writer? I've a lot to think about. ( )

Richie's Picks: MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS: THE QUEST OF DR. PAUL FARMER, A MAN WHO WOULD CURE THE WORLD by Tracy Kidder, adapted for young people by Michael French, Delacorte, April 2013, 288p., ISBN: 978-0-385-74318-1

"We can change the world,
Rearrange the world
It's dying to get better"
-- Graham Nash, "Chicago"

"To an outsider, building a school before there was a medical clinic, or someone to deal with the problems of hunger and homelessness, was illogical, but Farmer and Lafontant understood that the school meant hope and empowerment, One peasant woman explained, 'A lot of us wondered what would have happened if we had known how to write. If we had known how to write, perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation now.' To build a school was to unite the practical and the moral, Farmer realized. He would say, 'Clean water and health care and school and food and tin roofs and cement floors, all of these things should constitute a set of basics that people must have as birthrights.'"

I read an excellent environmental piece earlier this week in the Huffington Post written by Tom Hayden titled "Earth Night." Later, I mentioned it to someone who was too young to know of Tom Hayden, and this led to my talking about how, when I was in high school, I read Jules Feiffer's PICTURES AT A PROSECUTION: DRAWINGS & TEXT FROM THE CHICAGO CONSPIRACY TRIAL (Grove Press, 1971), a book I discovered on the "New Books" shelf at the public library that literally changed my life and introduced me to characters who became heroes to me.

I mention this in the context of reading MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS, because there is no doubt in my mind that when certain adolescents are introduced to this adaptation of Tracy Kidder's book about Dr. Paul Farmer, many a teen will have his or her life inspired and permanently changed by reading about Farmer's passion, hard work, and guts. In Farmer, they will find a hero as I did when I read about Hoffman, Rubin, Hayden, et al. In a manner that the so-called Chicago Seven spoke about the insanity of the war in Vietnam, Paul Farmer is a guy who speaks up and has done a million important things about the insanity of not providing the basics for billions of humans who live in poverty and disease. He doesn't care who he pisses off as long as he can do something else to improve -- and save -- lives of poor people in places like Haiti and Peru and Russia. And he is someone whose perspective and real power comes not from making speeches and overseeing projects, but from doctoring -- patient by patient -- to the poor. When we talk about someone really showing up, we are talking about what Paul Farmer is all about.

Interestingly, this morning's digital headlines tie right into one of the pivotal battles fought by Farmer and his then-comrade in arms and right-hand man Jim Kim, and chronicled in MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS.

(It is exciting to learn in this edition's postscript that Jim Kim who, with Farmer, founded Partners in Health, eventually went on to become the president of Dartmouth College and, a year ago, was successfully nominated by President Obama to become the current president of the World Bank.)

Anyway, that headline this morning was "Drug Makers are Ripping You Off." Yes, many of you are saying that this is old news. But the fight to get affordable generic substitutes for drugs to fight infectious diseases like tuberculosis is everything to an organization like Farmer's, which is constantly and desperately raising money to buy drugs to save countless lives among the poorest of the poor. If you can buy generics at one-tenth the cost of a name-brand drug, then you can save the lives of ten-times as many gravely ill poor people on the same budget. And, if there is anything that I can start doing today to aid Farmer's mission, it will be my jumping into the fray and speaking out for making it easier for generics to be developed.

"A lot of Farmer had rubbed off on Jim. Over the years their philosophical views had become almost identical, including the notion that unrelenting efforts by individuals, if backed with teamwork by organizations and individuals committed to the same goals, could change the international health system. Paul's and Jim's work to lower the per capita cost of health care for the poor was changing the way the world viewed health care; what had once seemed impossible was now possible. As anthropologists, Jim and Paul knew that culture was constantly changing. Practices such as slavery that once had been considered acceptable were no longer morally defensible. Ignoring the poor, Jim and Paul believed, was also morally indefensible, and the world was beginning to recognize that."

"From the bottoms of the ocean
To the mountains to the moon
Won't you please come to Chicago
No one else can take your place"

MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS is a powerful read about truly inspiring, selfless individuals who are changing our world for the better and have brought new thinking to my mind over my last couple of days of reading about them.

Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/ http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php ( )

Wonderful book. ( )

I wish I had more money to give to PIH. Because, wow. ( )

No plot. This was a bookclub pick - didn't have high hopes. ( )