“A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of
education.” ~Smiley Blanton
Well, if that’s the case then, Arthur Hailey is
that school’s star pupil. Arthur Hailey and his novels, for who are unfamiliar
with his work, are generally about people in particular fields and their lives.
He writes so thoroughly that even if that particular character’s portrayal is
in a world that is alien to yours , you would somehow feel for them, be happy
them, that is, in short understand them more than maybe you would know the
people around you.
PLOT
Strong Medicine is no exception. It is a
brilliant piece of work, almost art, almost because for me personally the book
is a tad bit long. Justifiably so, because he doesn’t believe in loose ends or
leaving anything to our imagination. This particular book is about the
ever-evolving field of “drug-science-research” and its sponsors and benefactors
(financially speaking), the pharmaceutical companies. The book goes to great
length give you a fair version of how it happens inside the industry as all Mr.
Hailey’s books do but this one particularly is not just about the industry.
This one begins and ends with people, their flaws, their brilliance, their
determination and most importantly their character. It is the story of one
greatly ambitious woman’s career (Celia) in the entirely male-dominated
pharmaceutical sales field, it is the story of how one woman’s role in a
company can make or break the company, and one person’s single handed
determination can just outsmart the entire hand played by fate.
STYLE
What struck me as the most significant nature of
the book was that you never know when a thunderbolt is going to be dropped,
small incidences becomes history while historical incidents turn unimportant
with a small twist of time. All through the book, you watch the company, the
people progress with a country’s and the world’s progress and you are just
struck and made to believe there are no things as coincidences, no events
unimportant in anybody’s life. It’s all a big plan.
VERDICT
Speaking from a society and development point of
view, this book must be read by all because it is one of those books that teach
you what life is without actually trying to. It has handled some major
controversial issues such as drug-addiction in doctors, lack of presence of
women in sales and marketing, the over-prescription of drugs by doctors because
of factors like advertising, good publicity and above all how nobody is perfect
but some people’s mistakes cost more than the other.
Read this book and you would never think why is
it so difficult for a doctor to prescribe medicines before asking the patient
to take umpteen number of tests, and you would also realize that it is because
of pharmaceutical companies that we have a variety of medicines to make us live
a more comfortable and healthy life. They are as important as the doctors, and
like doctors they too err.
This book might just serve as a “strong
medicine” for all of us who think life on the other side of the pasture is
greener.
This book is must for every bookshelf!
-Wanna-be-Savant
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