Richard Selzer and the Rhetoric of Surgery

Anderson provides the context from which Selzer's writing grows and a concept of language adequate to his purposes and accomplishments. He takes a careful look at Selzer's writing to demonstrate that these abstract considerations do tell us why a surgeon would write. The works Anderson examines are "Jonah and the Whale" (an important early short story) and the first three essays inMortal Lessons.These examples show the reader exactly how the symbols of literature interact directly with the world and the everyday communications of both writer and reader. According to Anderson,Mortal Lessonsis also Selzer's most artistic statement of his own sense of why and how he became a writer. Selzer's books includeRituals of Surgery, Mortal Lessons, Confessions of a Knife, Letters to a Young Doctor,andTaking the World in for Repairs.Anderson, Charles M. is the author of 'Richard Selzer and the Rhetoric of Surgery' with ISBN 9780809315024 and ISBN 0809315025.