The problem with this approach, Verghese said quoting the Polish-American philosopherand father of semantics, Alfred Korzybski, is that "the map is not the territory."

It is from the exotic highlands of childhood memory-mr Verghese was born in Ethiopia of Indian parents-that the novel launches itself, plumaged in myth and magical realism.

Verghese urged psychiatrists to stand by the real patient and to make the "argument of ritual," stating that examining, being with, and listening to the patient were transformative rituals.