Con Dolor

In the October 15 New Yorker our Fiction, T.C. Boyle, a U.S. born English professor at the University of Southern California, wrote this wonderful story called "Sin Dolor." In "Sin Dolor" a doctor who claims to have seen it all, including a faceless newborn, takes serious interest in a little boy, Damaso, who feels no pain. The doctor is very bored with his practice, but Damaso relieves him of this ennui. Now all the doctor is concerned about is getting Damaso's DNA and hopefully creating the DNA so that no one will feel pain. The doctor wants to make himself think that he really cares about Damaso, but really he is just like his father who uses Damaso's painless for themselves. The doctor wants to be a doctor legend and not just so regular old doctor. In reality both the father and the doctor and hurting Damaso in an area where every human feels pain, the heart. I really liked this story but I don't believe that the doctor had any intent to help Damaso. He, as much as his father, contributed to Damaso trying to impress other boys with his painless body. Evnetually he jumped to death from a three story building and it seemed that no one truly cared that Damaso was gone. I was led to believe that they were upset that they could no longer make a profit off of him. The one thing that did not impress me was the way it was written. It was very ordinary, nothing creaive or experimental. It was written well, but it would be nice if the New Yorker found some stories that are different than the regular ones we get every week.