The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, Ethics by Arthur W. Frank

The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur Frank was a book that I didn’t particularly enjoy. Sadly there was virtually nothing I agreed with in terms of his thought process and yet I did find his book to be interesting. Many of his concepts relating to categorizing bodies was intriguing and certainly an interesting interpretation of how to perceive people, yet I don’t exactly agree with them. I feel that this book was written by a psychologist, which to my knowledge he is not. When he spoke of chemotherapy I found that to be the only part that really seemed to make logical sense. That part I agreed with at the very end, in fact that’s when I liked the book; at the very end. His writing style was just so all over the place in my opinion, that I often found it hard to follow his train of thought. Through about the first three quarters of the book I would have to say I was absolutely bored with it. It was one of the very few times I have had to stop with such a frequency, because I enjoy reading almost anything; and even at the very least can get through almost any book without a problem. This particular work seemed to give me a problem, which is one of the many reasons I did not care for this book. I think that perhaps if he actually took one of the narrative stories and talked about it in great detail it would have been far easier to get through, and certainly make his analysis a lot more interesting because it would have had something substantial to fall back on. I felt as though most of his claims were empty in the sense that there weren’t any true concrete examples. Sure he spoke of a few patients and their issues but that encompassed about a paragraph of his time. The rest was how he judged them, or more aptly put categorized them based solely on his own interpretation. Unfortunately I can’t say I would recommend this book and it has to be the least favorite of mine that we have read in the class. Hopefully, upon further discussion I will see the light and perhaps find his ideologies to be closer to my own. Until then all I can say is I am certainly not a fan of Arthur Frank.