Then I looked at the cloth the nurse had spread over the top third of the exam table. It had a big wet patch on it. There were fine tendrils of yellow pus on it as well. And after you read a paragraph like that on page 24, you know you're going to go all the way to the end of the section. It's the same sort of thing any writing teacher tells his or her students over and over again.
Language is a very demanding medium to work in.
Two fine and writerly appendixes supplement this middle section, as well. He does all these things, or course, and he even starts writing again. But when we see him start to write, we realize what a gift any of us must be given to be healthy and able to do what it is we want to do with each day. And I would not suggest that this book is flawed because his narrative sections are so much more compelling than his instructive ones. A well-told story told can communicate so much more than a straightforward school lesson.