Starred review from November 12, 2001
Surgeon-cum-journalist and documentary filmmaker Kaplan travels to the edges of the world and back in this confident, gripping debut, a field doctor's tale of life and death on the front lines. Journeying to the Middle East with an offshoot of Médecins sans Frontières (and in the process having much of his medical equipment mistakenly tossed from the back of a Marine helicopter into the mountains in northern Iraq), the South African native confronts the atrocities of the ongoing Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish conflict. Operating on floors, administering medicines by penlight, he saves a handful of refugees and loses many more, casualties "largely the victims of preventable suffering, inflicted by the policies and actions of their fellow humans." As a cruise ship doctor in the South China Sea, Kaplan treats crazed alcoholics and sets bones broken in brawls; later, he becomes a "flying doctor," traveling wherever in the world his surgical expertise is urgently needed. Eventually, he researches occupational contamination in South Africa and Brazil. From Namibia to Mozambique, Burma to Eritrea, Kaplan is an eloquent, observant narrator. And at the heart of these beautifully written adventures, a rich human drama unfolds as Kaplan makes superhuman efforts to uphold the Hippocratic oath: "I might have hoped that it would be possible to take a holiday from war—even to have lost interest in it entirely—but war, as Lenin had warned, remained interested in me." (Feb.)Forecast:Brave tales of traveling doctors might resonate more these day, as readers consider those who care for Americans and Afghanis in the world's newest war. But Kaplan presents himself not as a hero but as a historian of contemporary strife—here there are none of the syrupy, self-congratulatory reflections that can plague the memoir and the adventure book both.
December 1, 2001
Trained as a physician in South Africa and London, Kaplan has had an extraordinary professional life as an emergency field surgeon on the front lines of apartheid in Nambia and Zululand, as well as in Kurdistan, Mozambique, Burma, and Eritrea. Between stints on those horrific battlefields, Kaplan served as a hospital surgeon, flying doctor, ship's medical officer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. In this near-swashbuckling autobiography, he attempts to demonstrate his own humanity and professional fulfillment in the face of brutality and pain. Sometimes he focuses on front-line military medicine, other times on how civil war harms animals. Then there is the cruise ship experience, which almost reads like folly among drunken capitalists. Kaplan has indeed led an exciting life, but there's just too much here to absorb; the book lacks a guiding thread. An optional purchase. James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York
Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 15, 2001
Kaplan, born in South Africa to a medical family, was educated there and in England and the U.S. His experiences in war and peace have spread over five continents and three decades. He graphically describes the frequent brutality brought on by apartheid unrest and several other uprisings, and the many accounts of bloody operations may put sensitive readers off the book. But his detailed accounts of fighting in the Kurdistan-Iraq mountains and many African countries bring the scenes and suffering sharply into focus. The war, bribery, and opium trade he saw in Burma and his experiences as a ship's surgeon in the South China Sea are especially interesting; his most shocking stories are those about the mercury pollution perpetrated by a respectable English company and the entrepreneurial gold miners of Brazil; and his exploits as an aeromedical surgeon provide comic relief as well as occasional heartbreak. Knitting such episodes together are Kaplan's skepticism about governments and publicity-seeking organizations, rage at man's cruelty to man, and glancing humor. Remarkably engaging, though at times horrifying.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)