414 RüdigerKunow
among them—which the Humanities have long cast aside as outdated
and epistemologically dubious. Hayden White, himself a central figure
in the "narrative turn" in the Humanities, warns of the ideological uses
to which narrative can be put: in the world of the narrative, "reality
wears the mask of meaning" ("Value" 20-21). Narratives "display the
coherence,integrity,fullness,andclosureofanimageoflifethatisand
can only be imaginary" (20-21). Such integrities may be very much
desired in the world of cancer but they are imaginary, even counter-
factual,innature.
An attempt to bridge the divide between patient and doctor and, at
the same time, one of the most ambitious cancer narratives to appear
over the last years is Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All
Maladies(2010). Appearance is the right word here because this is a
high-profile,verypublictext.Thebookreceivedthe2011PulitzerPrize
forGeneralNon-Fiction,wasfinalistforanumberofprestigiousprizes,
and a bestseller that has meanwhile been translated into numerous
languages, including German (De r König aller Krankheiten , 2012). It
wasalsoturnedintoaPBSdocumentary.Theastoundingechoofsucha
book—aculturalhistoryofcancer—abookaboutadreaded,unpleasant
topic (41, 44 et passim) can be explained in part through the person of
theauthorwhoissimultaneouslyapersonainhisbook.Here,aninsider
iswriting,notavictimbutacancerphysicianandresearcher,offering"a
view from the front line."^109 And indeed, the book is one of the most
detailed, informative, comprehensive histories of cancer, of medical
research, and the trial-and-error search for cures and an elegy of
generationsofpatients,mostofthemvictimsofthedisease.
But this book is not only the history of an enigmatic pathology, it is
also aesthetically ambitious. Mukherjee defines his narrative as a
"biography," even a biography "in the truest sense of the word—an
attempt to enter themindof this immortal illness.. ." (xvii). After
reading through more than 500 pages of densely presented material,
medical, technical, personal, I am not certain whether the generic self-
attribution of "biography" is accurate; certainly, the biographical pose
(^109) AViewFromtheFrontLineis the title of Maggie K. Jencks's autobiography
(1995, 2007). She was an eminent cancer researcher who lived with cancer for
severalyearsbeforeshediedfromthediseasein1995(Mukherjee328-29).