Against Forgetting Derrick Jensen review

In contrast, the article, “My Last Day as a Surgeon” by Paul Kalanithi describes his last day at work as a neurosurgeon. At the age of 36 years old, Kalanithi tested positive for metastatic lung cancer which was at advanced stage IV. Despite his diagnosed condition, the surgeon did not give up but kept on working because he wanted to finish his last case perfectly. The CT scans indicate that his health condition kept on deteriorating but this did not kill Kalanithi’s dream of becoming a perfectionist. This essay gives a comparison and contrast between the works of the two authors who seem to have different interest in achieving perfectionism. The moment people forget to see what used to look like a sky filled with marbled murrelets, fireflies, hummingbirds, and butterflies, they tend to cease from fighting for such wild animals.

Does it mean that people no longer miss the beauty of these living things? Jensen uses this article to give a solution to the fading face of living things found in our natural world. He wants us to listen to the sound of disappearing frog and take time to watch fireflies during the night and keep a record of what we have seen and at what time. The author wants us to picture how the life was before with the presence of these species. He uses such phrases to draw the attention of the readers to imagine how the world looks ugly and unattractive without some living things. According to him, “There it was. A new tumor, large, filling my right middle lobe. It looked, oddly, like a full moon having almost cleared the horizon.

Going back to the old images, I could make out the faintest trace of it, a ghostly harbinger now brought fully into the world” (Kalanithi). Kalanithi could hardly do anything about his health condition but what was left was just to accept and move on with life as he waits for his final day. This is achieved in the story by having a close relationship with his colleagues at the hospital such as Victoria who he later disclosed his feeling. According to him, “Later that night, I called [my co-resident] Victoria and told her I wouldn’t be in on Monday, or possibly ever again, and wouldn’t be setting the O. R. schedule” (Kalanithi). Also, while still at the hospital, Kalanithi kept on repeating the words “And possibly never again” when his colleagues asked him whether she will be on call over the weekend.

We should always strive to be perfect in life. Kalanithi wanted his last case to be successful, and for sure he achieved his purpose. On the other hand, Jensen reminds readers about how our natural world used to be compared to the present situation. Different animals such as fireflies, marbled murrelets, hummingbirds and butterflies, black bear and gray foxes used to make world lively but most of these species are becoming extinct. The author proposes different ways of how such beauty can be redeemed. newyorker. com/books/page-turner/my-last-day-as-a-surgeon. Accessed 4 Oct.