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Friday, April 28, 2006
Roperos: Cebuano doctor’s novel
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
Consider this piece as both a cursory book review and a literary news feature. But this is really more of a tale about a young Cebuano cardiologist who comes from a family of medical people and who now resides in New Jersey and practices his profession there.
The son of Dr. Jovito Lee, a close friend since way back in high school, Dr. Marciano Perry Lee surprised his father and close kin recently. He wrote and published a book of fiction in the United States.
The thin book—less than two hundred pages—tackles a subject close to medical people’s hearts. The book’s title “When the Sparrows Stop Singing,” somehow offers a clue to what it’s all about: bird flu.
The book has no literary pretensions. Its straight, unadorned prose and book structure makes one feel like he is reading a newsmagazine report, but with deep insights and observations. Yet, despite the book’s expository essay style, it nourishes a sense of drama.
It is about the bird flu scare that is reminiscent of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 50 to 60 million people worldwide. “No effective vaccine exists as yet. But there is a medication that has proven to be of benefit. It has saved a lot of people who took it…called oseltamivir.”
The book is presented in eight parts broken up into chapters of varying meager lengths. Some of the chapters are as short as half a page, but most are a page or two long, and a few are more than two or three pages. Each part is subtitled, and is introduced by a quotation from the Revelations.
Part I is titled “The Beast” and has the following quotation from the Revelations: “’Then I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads; on each of its horns was a crown, and on each its heads there was a name that was insulting to God.”
There follows reports on the initial bird flu cases in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia and what governments and medical health leaders are doing about these.
In a sense, the first three parts of the book does nothing but lay down invaluable information about the subject, including how and where the possible cure may be obtained in case the disease becomes pandemic. In fact, upon this foundation is based the action and drama of this book.
Part IV is headed: “Babylon.” Its Revelations quote: “These are kings who have not yet begun to rule, but who will be given authority to rule as kings with the beast…No one can buy or sell without this mark.”
Actually, the book is all about how our modern world, with its political conflicts and global institutions, contends with a threat to humanity and how it insures human survival, with the backdrop of terrorists involved in the manufacture of oseltamivir, the only bird flu cure.
Part VII is called “Armageddon,” with the Revelations quote: “Then the spirits brought the kings together in the place that is called Armageddon.”
This is Dr. Marciano Lee’s first book. Vito could not believe that his son, who used to attend classes with his notebook rolled and placed in the back pocket of his pants, wrote in between his practice in New York.
Published by iUniverse Inc., “When the Sparrows Stop Singing” has still to hit Cebu’s bookshops. But having gone through Vito’s autographed copy, it is a truly interesting read.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 28, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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