Grace’s Reviews > The Undying: A Meditation on Modern Illness > Status Update

An insightful yet jarring sentence "Enchantment exists when things are themselves & not their uses.", I had to read it twice to understand it. An interesting notion yet so lazily composed... I cannot help thinking of Katherine Rundell's The Golden Mole, where normally staccatoed factoids are enraptured in erudite vocabulary soothingly written into almost prose.

A few illuminating thoughts that helped me relax into thinking it is a worthwhile read, & then... a snarky comment about how her & her friends named her oncologist "Dr. Baby" due to his appearance (this careless remark gives off mean girl vibes).

but I can read it - when she is not making inappropriately inaccurate metaphors of quakery & fantasy to medical science (for modern medicine is neither a god nor performative arts, for chrissake), she shares interesting historical tidbits & at moments writes sincerely of vulnerability, instead of hiding behind & indulging in romantic wordplay. Why this rushed job to print? Perhaps the medical bills were pressing.