Like the Book, Detest the Protagonist?

Can you like a book, yet really detest the main character?

Perhaps that isn’t a fair question to ask, especially when the book in question is a non-fiction book.

The Avondale United Methodist Church book club just met this morning to discuss Mountains Beyond Mountains about the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti and around the world through Partners in Health .

One member of the book club commented on Facebook about it being the favorite book he has read for book club of all the books we have read in the clubs existence over the past few years.

To which Betsy, my wife, made the comment this past week, that the more she read the book, the more she realized she disliked Farmer, and resented the space he took up in her head as she gamely plowed ahead to actually finish the book.

I kept encouraging her to finish the book. I thought it was a worthwhile read, but I too found Dr. Farmer flawed in many areas, while admitting that he did and does a lot of good work. Many of his methods I approve of. Many others were both arrogant and sometimes illegal, or at least morally questionable (achieving one moral imperative by violating another).

It seemed the book club agreed that his was a necessary work, that he achieved much good, and that, at least as portrayed in the book, he wasn’t always a likable character.

We wondered how much of our impression was based on the way the author wrote him.  The author was also a character in the book, so we had many first person accounts to go on.

I noted how focused he was on his patients, on listening and connecting with them. He remembered them when he saw them later.  He obviously had quite a bit of empathy for his patients. It created a bit of disconnect for  me to compare that to other definitely arrogant actions and statements he made elsewhere.  I keep trying to decide how I should mentally reconcile the two.  The arrogance wasn’t selfish in the obvious ways. I almost wonder if his empathy for his patients also had a certain sense of condescension — in the sense that he could relate to them as patient and doctor, but not so easily as person to person.

In either case, I think the book a worthwhile read — which is why I encouraged Betsy to read it. It certainly should make your mind think about healthcare and how it is done today.  Do we do it from a concept of scarcity or abundance of resources? Do we do it from a top down authoritarian method or do we listen to the individuals being treated?

On that second question, I think Farmer in his individual practice shows he believes in the need to listen to the individual and arrive at individual solutions.  I also think he arrogantly makes up his own mind about what to do for them after he hears what they say. He at least seems to know that a one-size-fits-all solution isn’t a solution except for one person.

While I was reading the book I didn’t take too many notes, but I did write a few short things for me to remember later. Let me hit those now.

Farmer deeply despises Political Correctness, especially in word choice.  He calls poor people poor — doesn’t use other euphemisms.

People in PIH (Partners in Health) have a lot of catch phrases.  One of them is “H of G” — which is Hermeneutic of Generosity. By it Farmer means to assume the best in motives for other people’s actions. This is something I have tried to practice over the years in what I called my “Compassion Principle.”

In the same section of the book he also talked about “identity politics” — dealing with people based on their identity in groups. He feels this leads to a situation where all members of an oppressed group are viewed as equally oppressed. Farmer sees that as a false assumption, as do I.  He feels it leads to poor policy and wasting of resources without addressing the true needs.  I do too. In fact, I used identity politics as a part of the subject of a paper I wrote for one of my master’s courses — a paper on what, in my experience, I think is the greatest social problem that needs to be addressed today. Maybe you’ll get a look at that paper some day —  if the professor ever returns it with a grade.

We actually went over our allotted hour for discussion without realizing it, as we discussed the book, and many tangents on the social issues.  It was interesting to see people who often seem to be on different sides of social issue questions aligning themselves differently. The discussion wasn’t so easily categorical as it sometimes was.

I don’t think Farmer fits in any easy political categories of conservative/liberal. He certainly enjoys the monetary support of WLs (White Liberals), while looking down on their idea that they can create change without any suffering to themselves, for example. And I think that same sort of categorical ambivalence made the members of the book club look at things from different angles, to find areas of congruence and agreement that they didn’t know where there, even as they struggled with other areas of questions or disagreement.

Which is why I think it made a great book for book club, and for discussion.  I am just glad we didn’t intentionally use the prepared questions at the back of the book. Those had an obvious skewing that would have removed much of what I saw as the positive benefit of the discussion that we had.