Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • masthead
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 22
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2021
    • interview with Jack Flo
    • interview with Christine Sloan Stoddard
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Ed Briant
      • Eugene Cross
      • Josh Denslow
      • Christopher DeWan
      • Katherine Flannery Dering >
        • Aftermath
      • Eric Dyer
      • Julie Enszer >
        • Avowed
      • Mitchell Fink
      • Jack Flo
      • Olivia Gatwood
      • David Gerrold
      • Cynthia Graham
      • Ernest Hilbert
      • Paul Lisicky >
        • The Roofers
      • Scott McCloud
      • Jan Millsapps
      • Anis Mojgani
      • Pedram Navab
      • Kelly Norris
      • Porsha Olayiwola
      • Michael Pagdon
      • Aimee Parkison >
        • The Petals of Your Eyes
      • Brad Parks
      • Chris Rakunas
      • Carlos Ramos
      • Mary Salvante
      • Jill Smolowe
      • Christine Sloan Stoddard >
        • Stoddard Poems
      • Jayne Thompson
      • Julie Marie Wade
      • Melissa Wiley
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • photography
    • audio
    • video
    • new media
  • archive
    • read past issues
    • order print issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter

Review: The Fevers of Reason

1/1/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Community: In Sickness and In Health
Review: The Fevers of Reason

by Rachel Barton

Gerald Weissmann
Nonfiction essays
Belleview Literary Press, pp. 272
Cost: $19.99
​

As I approached The Fevers of Reason, I did so with a foot in each river of influence—or rather, a leg in one and a toe in the other. Weissmann’s essays discuss the intersection of various issues within medicine and popular culture. As a student of literature, I have often written extensive essays and participated in lengthy discussions of multiple works, like Arrowsmith and Sherlock Holmes,that Weissmann includes. Until recently, my knowledge of science and medicine has been rather superficial—me as a nervous patient in the waiting room. As my study of literature, guided by Elaine Scarry and Rita Charon, has begun to dip into the interaction between literature and medicine I’ve become more confident about the relationship between the two. Wearing my budding knowledge of the relatively young field like swimmies, I jumped right in to Weissmann’s collection and found a rich layering of past, present, science, and literature to present diverse takes on the issue at hand.
He continuously draws connections between person and person, past and present, truth and fiction, and, most of all, literature and medicine. Weissmann links the two, starting from the prefatory note, by explaining both the scientific method and organization of essays—or lack thereof. Each essay begins with at least one epigraph, often providing a definition or thoughtful viewpoint.

In “Going Viral,” the first chapter, Weissmann examines contemporary issues, like literal diseases or the metaphorical disease of gun violence, through the lens of past theory. The term “going viral” is contemporarily used to describe something of massive popularity, often on the internet. He traces the term to its disease origin before cycling back to use it to describe gun violence as a pandemic. In another essay, Weissmann uses French scientist Dr. Adrien Proust’s emphasis on quarantine to challenge the modern-day response to Ebola. Interestingly, Weissmann ties another thread into this web by including snippets of criticism by Marcel Proust, novelist son of Adrien. 

Weissmann mirrors this thematic connection on a minor level as well. He describes the crowd at a science lecture, emphasizing their heterogony:
“I spotted working scientists, grad students, lab assistants, undergraduates, a score of academicians, a Nobel laureate or two, attentive families and friends, hailing from all corners of the globe. The dress code ranged from country jeans to khakis, bike gear to saris, backpacks to bow ties.” (17)  ​
This section reveals that Weissmann not only endeavors to connect the realms of literature and medicine, but also to create community among readers in light of class, race, religion, and age. He presents this diverse group, inviting us all to partake in his discussions of science and literature despite the ways we may have been excluded from either discipline in the past. 

Weissmann continues community-building through the third chapter, “Two for the Road,” where he focuses on partnerships that produced major scientific and literary advances. Some of the cases unite medicine and literature, but each one emphasizes the theme of union and collaboration throughout the essays. One essay from Chapter 3 focuses on “American the Beautiful,” a poem by Katherine Lee Bates, which is often sung. You may have heard of it. The poem can also be utilized by people to enforce nationalism and even challenge the rights of others—like the right to marriage. Essentially, they take Bates’ words and use them to separate and destroy community. Weissmann skillfully comes full circle by discussing Bate’s long-time relationship with her partner Katherine Coman and confronting the use of a poem written by a lesbian to champion against gay rights. He argues for the strength of their union as a major contributor to the creation of the poem in the first place, making it inherently unifying. 

In “Beside the Golden Door,” Weissmann again employs his system of parallels to challenge hegemonic reasoning and draw attention to injustices that compromise community. This chapter focuses on science advances made by immigrants, like Albert Einstein and Eric Kandel. He explores not only their trememndous works, but also the lands they left to live in America. In many cases, these great minds were seeking freedom from persecution based on race and religion. Ever the master of irony, Weissmann ends the chapter with an essay on Percy Lavon Julian, a scientist who worked on the synthesis of cortisone, and the racial violence and disparagement he faced. By compiling these essays alongside one another, Weissmann mimics the amalgamation that occurs in the country as a whole, asserting that, while different, each story is valuable and must be read. 
​

Throughout The Fevers of Reason, I learned quite a bit about science, medicine, and even history. I was also rather surprised to find that I learned about literature, despite thinking I knew so much. With essays that incorporate summaries of both plots and research studies, Weissmann presents an abundance of knowledge to take away from The Fevers of Reason. Each reader can find a few things they recognize and more than a few they need to Google. However, there is also a well of wisdom from which to draw. For all of Weissmann’s comparisons and allusions, his guiding force proves continuously to be humanity itself and the messy ways we come together and break apart.  
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    book reviews by glassworks editorial staff

     


    Archives

    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    December 2012


    Categories

    All
    Able Muse
    Abuse
    Agha Shahid Ali Prize
    Alfred A. Knopf
    Alternative Book Press
    Andrews McMeel Publishing
    Animals
    Anthea Bell
    Aqueous Books
    Art
    Ashland Creek Press
    Autumn House Press
    Bedazzled Ink Publishing
    Belleview Literary Press
    Bellevue
    Berlin Wall
    Black Lawrence Press
    Book Review
    Bottom Dog Press
    Brassbones And Rainbows
    Button Poetry
    Cake Train Press
    Catholic Guilt
    Chapbook
    Chris-rakunas
    Chronic Illness
    Coffee House Press
    Cold War
    Collection
    Coming Of Age
    Copper Canyon Press
    Divertir Publishing
    Drama
    Elroy Bode
    Ernest Hilbert
    Essays
    Eugen Ruge
    Fading Light
    Fairy Tales
    Family
    Farm
    Fat Dog Books
    Father
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Flash
    Furniture Press Books
    Future Tense Books
    Gdr
    Gender
    Geology
    Glassworks Book Review
    Gospel
    Greywolf Press
    Haiti
    Harbor Mountain Press
    Haute Surveillance
    Hepner
    Historical Fiction
    Holocaust
    Howling Bird Press
    Humor
    Identity
    Imagery
    Immigration
    Jacquline Doyle
    Jaded Ibis Press
    Johanne Goransson
    Journalism
    Jude Ezeilo
    Katya Apekina
    Language
    Lee L. Krecklow
    Lewis Hine
    LGBT
    Literature
    Lori Ann Stephens
    Memoir
    Mental Health
    #MeToo
    Midsummer Night's Press
    Midwest
    Milkweed Editions
    Mixed Media
    Modern Poetry
    Multi Genre
    Multi-genre
    Nature
    Nature Writing
    Nonfiction
    Novalee And The Spider Secret
    Novel
    Other Press
    Painting
    Poetry
    Poetry Prize
    Poetry Review
    Politics
    Press 53
    Prose Poetry
    Race
    Red Bird Chapbooks
    Red Hen Press
    Relationships
    Richard Siken
    Sarah Caulfield
    Sexuality
    Shechem Press
    Shirley Bradley Leflore
    Short Story
    Sickness
    Social Issues
    Son
    Sonnet
    Spine
    Spoken Word
    Steve Royek
    Stories
    Surveillance
    Susanne Dyckman
    Suspense
    Tarpaulin Sky
    Tears For The Mountian
    Tolsun Books
    Torrey House Press
    Tragedy
    Travel
    Twodollarradio
    University Of Utah Press
    University Press
    Unmitzer
    Unnamed Press
    Violence
    William Glassley
    Wings Press
    Winter Goose Publishing
    Women
    World War II

    RSS Feed

Picture

260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu

All Content on this Site
(C) 2021 glassworks