Two months ago I wrote about Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Lester Brown and their respective big passions. Dr. Paul Farmer is less well known, but his passion is right up there with these others as far as size goes.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (2004), the latest library addition, has the subtitle on the paperback cover, “The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World.” When he began college at Duke University, Farmer had already worked in Florida alongside Haitian immigrant citrus fruit pickers and had developed a concern for their situation. By the time he finished his undergraduate work at Duke, he had spent time in Haiti on a self-designed anthropology project and decided he would become a doctor.

While getting his M.D. degree in Boston, he spent more time in Haiti exploring how to start a clinic in his favorite remote region there. This book tells the story of a young man who keeps operating this way, always working with high energy on one goodwill mission project while also finding energy to design and start another one.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story is the description of how Farmer’s underlying anger with the larger global socioeconomic system manifests itself. His language can be offensive. His politics are extreme. His impatience with less ambitious folks who come to help is perpetual. Farmer is one colorful character, and Kidder, who followed him around for years, has written one colorful book here. Another interesting facet of the story is how, starting at Duke, Farmer was influenced by stories coming out of Central America around 1980 that told of liberation theology as a growing force for change in parts of the world that desperately need it.

One commentary in the book, by Jonathan Harr, author of A Civil Action, says, “The central character of this marvelous book is one of the most provocative, brilliant, funny, unsettling, endlessly energetic, irksome, and charming characters ever to spring to life on the page. He wants to change the world. Certainly this luminous and powerful book will change the way you see it.”

Rudy Dyck, Librarian