A. > Recent Status Updates

“People Like That are the Only People Here,” Lorrie Moore, 10/10. Really more like 11/10. 100/10. 999/10. Quite possibly the greatest short story this country has produced. Moved me to tears. On cancer, the wrenching anguish of parenting a sick child, the cursed existence of chronic inpatient life. I swear the text here is different from other versions, but then the story is also about storytelling itself.

“I Had to Go Sick”, Julian Maclaren Ross, 7/10. A runaround through WWII military healthcare bureaucracy. Surprisingly relatable 80 years later.

“Lord Mountdrago”, W. Somerset Maugham, 7/10. A speedy, dialogue-heavy fiction involving (yawn) a psychiatrist. Dream-reality parallels are well done. Superstitious elements not fully convincing.

“Airing A Greavance”, Anna Kavan, 6/10. Mostly a Kafkaesque voice story, about an anxious borderline paranoiac visiting an “advisor”. And why is he going on indefinite leave? So much in the shadows. Sometimes I think that some secret court must have tried and condemned me, unheard, to this heavy sentence.

We’ve finally reached the beginning of the genocide, which thanks to the way Gourevitch has laid the table feels inevitable.

“Doctor Crombie”, Graham Greene, 7.5/10. A weird little vignette about a doctor who’s fired over his committed belief that masturbation causes cancer. Definitely get pedophile vibes tbh.

“A Coup d’État,” Guy de Maupassant. 7/10. A politically ambitious doctor fails to seize his monent, then goes back to his practice. The end is wryly ironic, but the story feels slight.

“Back to Back”, WW Jacobs. 6/10 A comic story which is not really that funny tbh.

Belated logging. Listening on my drives from night float. Gourevitch is systematically working up to the genocide. Sometimes a character tracking down perpetrators after the fact.

“Interpreter of Maladies,” Jhumpa Lahiri, 10/10. Brilliant, not a word out of place. On reread it’s fascinating how tightly Lahiri sticks to Mr Kapasi’s perspective, how deftly she conveys the inertia of the Das’s family life, and how skilfully the last page crystallizes the conflicts at the heart of the story—the child born out of wedlock trapped by monkeys, the slip of paper fluttering away.

Poor Oppenheimer, preparing feverishly for a security hearing that's a foregone conclusion. It's interesting, now that I think about it, how his greatest triumph was as an administrator, and yet it's administrative bureaucracy--the hierarchies of power--that are his undoing here.

"Minus One", J.G. Ballard. 4/10 -- The first story involving psychiatrists. Gets into all these over-jargonized epistemological ruminations about the nature of identity and so on, but almost nothing in the way of actual drama or recognizable human situations. Certainly nothing about medicine. Bleh.

"The Body Snatchers", Robert Louis Stevenson. 6/10. Hearkens back to the days when anatomy was a crime and medical students had to rob graves. A horror story framed as a flashback that never quite comes together tbh.

Oppenheimer’s starting to crumble—surrounded by powerful enemies who are laying the case against him. His attempts to direct nuclear policy floundering.

Part 17, 57:26 driving ambition

Oppenheimer at the Institute for Advanced Study. Found my official quote — sitting flesh

The magical tea house of Edith Warner. Oppenheimer’s stunning adoption attempt.

Feynman's Prestige disappearing act. The constant surveillance of Oppenheimer; a menacing chat about Communists which will compel him to come clean about the Chevalier incident.

On the cusp of Oppenheimer forming Los Alamos.

“The Embroidered Towel”, Mikhail Bulgakov, 9/10. A loose episodic story of a new country doctor snapping into place to performhis first amputation. Self-deprecating but wonderfully humane. Definitely interested in the whole notebook after this.

Oppenheimer had ~Communist sympathies~ but no actual membership.

Frank once accidentally sent his Communist card in his shirt pocket to the laundry—it came back neatly in a separate envelope. A fellow sympathizer!

“The Limping Bride,” 9/10. Excellent. A widower marries off his alcoholic son to the limping bride in question. It never quite goes where you think and makes fantastic use of Swayambunath stupa.

Much more focus on Oppenheimer’s political actions now that JeanTatlock is in the picture.

“Deepak Misra’s Secretary”, 7.5/10. A man fends off his ugly secretary while pining for his white ex-wife. I don’t really see what Bandana-ji sees in Deepak tbh.

Listened on a long moyotbike ride to kathmandu. Robert’s perfect Berkeley/SF existence. Lots of publications.

Oppenheimer and Isidor Rabi, much more sophisticated and perceptive than the movie made him appear to be.

“Sweethearts”, Arthur Conan Doyle, 5/10. A doctor runs into an old main waiting for his wife. Conan Doyle wants to illustrate that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but tbh his description of the wife’s ugliness is pretty mean-spirited.

“The Cooking Poet”, 9/10 — an elder statesman poet burns with envy and admiration for a younger genius that he mentors. Beautifully sketched, in particular Acharya’s appraisal of Giri’s poems. He tries and fails to write an epic, making his final set of honors ring hollow.

“The Good Shopkeeper”, 8/10 — a fired accountant drifts intoan affair. Tautly drawn characters, interesting character choices.