WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR PAULKALANITHI

Description

Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air” is that rare memoir: a moving account of how the author, who was once a neurosurgeon, ended up becoming a patient with terminal lung cancer. A reflection on life, death, and what is the point of living, it is at once written by a doctor who takes care of the dying as well as a man facing his mortality.

Paul Kalanithi was an unusually talented neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who spent many years studying the human brain and mind, examining in minute detail the boundary between life, consciousness, and death. He had just been able to complete his residency at Stanford when, to his utter surprise, he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, age 36. His diagnostic result forces him to confront his own mortality, changing his life and reshaping his sense of purpose.

The book is divided into two parts: Life Before Diagnosis and Kalanithi talks about his journey through becoming a neurosurgeon, under the whim of his fascination in philosophy, literature, and medicine. In his early years, he expresses his love for literature and how philosophical questions even pushed him forward to study medicine, as a means of trying to understand meaning versus death.

Life After Diagnosis Kalanithi’s perspective of healer turns to that of patient after diagnosis: He tells the reader the emotional and physical challenges, immense love in relation with his wife Lucy, and finally, despite a grim prognosis about his life, he decides to have a child. The question now becomes what constitutes a good life in the shadow of death and how one finds meaning in life becomes a quest in him.

The book ends with an epilogue written by Paul’s wife, Lucy Kalanithi, after his death. She writes about the final days of his life and the legacy he left, whether it was as a doctor or in being a man who was searching for the meaning of life, even in its final hours.

“When Breath Becomes Air” is a personal story for Kalanithi, but, much more so, about a universal human experience: living with and confronting a life of fragility, a search for meaning, and inevitable death. As poetic as it is profound, a writing that offers deep insights into the human condition, the book is a powerful and emotional journey through life, love, and dying.

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