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what i'm reading wednesday 26/3/2025
What I finished:
Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green. Okay, I'll be honest: I was a tiiiny bit disappointed by this book but only because it was so short! It's barely over 200 pages and, I'm sorry, that was simply not enough for me! I do think it was probably a strategic decision--Green clearly has an agenda with this book, and it's to get people to care about global health in general and tuberculosis in particular, and he probably thinks more people will read it if it's short. Which is probably true! And I respect that! It might well have been the right choice! But there should have been a director's cut for those of us who wanted more of what we got.
What we got: three interweaving strands: (short forms of) the cultural history of tuberculosis, the medical history of it, and the history of one particular TB patient Green met in Sierra Leone and formed a close relationship with.
Green provides a number of examples of the ways in which TB has affected human history, from getting New Mexico its statehood to the start of World War I (kinda). He talks about the different ways Westerners, in particular, have thought about it depending on who is affected by it--how it was romanticized in the 19th century when anyone could get it, but then, once it became mostly eradicated among the rich and white, how it became a shameful disease when it was associated with the poor and non-white.
He also talks about the many different ways people have attempted to cure it throughout history, including the treatments we finally developed that should have eradicated it from the planet. He's very clear that we absolutely have the means to rid ourselves of it almost entirely but we have chosen not to because of the way our global economy works. He repeats the words of a doctor he respects over and over: "The disease is where the cure is not, and the cure is where the disease is not." This is very effective because I honestly didn't know it was still killing so many people.
Nor was I aware that some estimates say that it's killed a full one fourth of all the people who ever lived. This is, of course, difficult to wrap the mind around, and Green knows and acknowledges that while one death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic. That's why he tells the story of Henry, his friend who he met in a clinic in Lakka. Henry is a wonderful choice for a main character--lovable, funny, talented, but also very honest about the darkness of his experiences--and I suspect Green picked him both because he knew he would be such a good way into the story and also because he clearly loves him very much. Henry has a particular kind of TB that's resistant to the most common treatments, and the question of whether he will survive propels you forward as a reader.
So yeah, what's here is good! But it left me wanting so much more! I will definitely seek out other books about TB, but I enjoy Green's non-fiction writing enough that I'm surprised that there isn't more from him here. Still, well worth reading as an introduction to TB for a general reader, though if you know more about it than I did (my knowledge being mostly related to Victorian and Edwardian Britain and yes, I have chosen this icon for this post for a reason), you might not find a lot that's new to you.
What I'm currently reading:
Still meandering through The Historian and reading The Jesus Machine in spurts.
Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green. Okay, I'll be honest: I was a tiiiny bit disappointed by this book but only because it was so short! It's barely over 200 pages and, I'm sorry, that was simply not enough for me! I do think it was probably a strategic decision--Green clearly has an agenda with this book, and it's to get people to care about global health in general and tuberculosis in particular, and he probably thinks more people will read it if it's short. Which is probably true! And I respect that! It might well have been the right choice! But there should have been a director's cut for those of us who wanted more of what we got.
What we got: three interweaving strands: (short forms of) the cultural history of tuberculosis, the medical history of it, and the history of one particular TB patient Green met in Sierra Leone and formed a close relationship with.
Green provides a number of examples of the ways in which TB has affected human history, from getting New Mexico its statehood to the start of World War I (kinda). He talks about the different ways Westerners, in particular, have thought about it depending on who is affected by it--how it was romanticized in the 19th century when anyone could get it, but then, once it became mostly eradicated among the rich and white, how it became a shameful disease when it was associated with the poor and non-white.
He also talks about the many different ways people have attempted to cure it throughout history, including the treatments we finally developed that should have eradicated it from the planet. He's very clear that we absolutely have the means to rid ourselves of it almost entirely but we have chosen not to because of the way our global economy works. He repeats the words of a doctor he respects over and over: "The disease is where the cure is not, and the cure is where the disease is not." This is very effective because I honestly didn't know it was still killing so many people.
Nor was I aware that some estimates say that it's killed a full one fourth of all the people who ever lived. This is, of course, difficult to wrap the mind around, and Green knows and acknowledges that while one death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic. That's why he tells the story of Henry, his friend who he met in a clinic in Lakka. Henry is a wonderful choice for a main character--lovable, funny, talented, but also very honest about the darkness of his experiences--and I suspect Green picked him both because he knew he would be such a good way into the story and also because he clearly loves him very much. Henry has a particular kind of TB that's resistant to the most common treatments, and the question of whether he will survive propels you forward as a reader.
So yeah, what's here is good! But it left me wanting so much more! I will definitely seek out other books about TB, but I enjoy Green's non-fiction writing enough that I'm surprised that there isn't more from him here. Still, well worth reading as an introduction to TB for a general reader, though if you know more about it than I did (my knowledge being mostly related to Victorian and Edwardian Britain and yes, I have chosen this icon for this post for a reason), you might not find a lot that's new to you.
What I'm currently reading:
Still meandering through The Historian and reading The Jesus Machine in spurts.
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However what I *have* read is The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald (apologies for Amazon link), and it is wonderful - funny, insightful and entertaining. I could probably recite entire segments by half. It also manages to impress the harrowing reality of the illness. Very much a personal story rather than an overview, but you might like it if you want an idea of what things were like before antibiotics.
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WAIT WAIT WAIT. She also wrote The Egg and I!!! I grew up on the Ma and Pa Kettle movies, of which the adaptation of that book was the first. I never made the connection before. What a delightful thing to discover!
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... !!! I knew that there was a 'Egg and I' movie, but wasn't aware of follow-ups. Maw and Paw Kettle are. *hands* Iconic. (And fascinating, sociologically. They'd 100% be Trump supporters today.) (Disclaimer: I have no idea how close the movies are to the books.)
Have you read The Egg and I?
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No, I haven't read the book though I always sort of meant to. Just guessing, but I would bet the first film with Claudette Colbert might be decently close to the book, but the rest are just made up whole-cloth so that Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride could be silly.
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Heads up: It is very unapologetically racist towards native Americans. (I presume the movies toned this down.) It probably has a lot to do with marrying at 18 and being thrown into a place that was isolated and unsafe. However she is very much NOT racist towards anyone else (her best friend in the Sanatorium is Japanese and she doesn't understand the racism towards Blacks), so... people are complicated.
(You should read The Plague and I. It's truly delightful, and easily her best book.)
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The films are not not racist towards Native Americans. In that there are a couple of Native American side characters (played, no doubt, by white people) who are there for laughs. It doesn't seem hateful, but it has not aged well. It's interesting to hear that that's got its roots in the book.
I will certainly add it to my list. Thank you for the recommendation!
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Yet all the other parts of the book are lovely. *hands* For sure one of those to file under 'problematic'.
ANYWAY. Enjoy The Plague and I! (And you might also like The Egg and I - the not-racist parts are wonderful, she is a very entertaining writer.)
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But thank you for the warning!
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Anyway, you should read The Plague and I and then talk to me - no one else I know has read it (well, except my mother), and I need to flail about it with someone. 😘
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Exactly! Why do all writers not cater to me specifically??? Lol, but I really kept going, "No, John, talk to me more about how you relate everything in history back to TB and annoy the people in your life! Talk to me more about how this intersects with your OCD! Talk to me more about the totally random historical facts you discovered!" But of course your average reader would not in fact want more about those things, though I'm sure I don't know why!
I think as long as your expectations are at the right level, you will appreciate it. But it was not what I had built it up to be in my mind (which isn't fair to him).
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My plan is to listen to this on audio, so I wonder if it will feel more stretched-out and comprehensive to me!
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I think listening to him read it is a great idea!