Han Yu is a professor in the Department of English at Kansas State University where she teaches scientific and technical communication. In a “Last Words” section of her new book, The Curious Human Knee, she states: “I want to intrigue my readers, to surprise them, to take them on a journey of discovery about this supposedly lowly joint that really is rather fascinating…I want readers to see that science and medicine…are in fact deeply intertwined with diverse human lives, experiences and values…Equally important, I want my readers to value history and culture, including and especially their deep-seated injustice.” This is a huge proposal that encompasses many goals. I wish Han Yu had stated this purpose in the first pages or a foreword to the book. That may have helped sharpen a focus for a very interesting but wide-ranging number of topics. Individually, I found that these chapters stood by themselves and were entertaining, unusual in its presentation of information unknown to me. In research for this review, I found Han Yu’s article, “Why Our Knees Are So Easy to Injure,” an adaptation for publication in the Wall Street Journal. Within this one article itself, the writing stood well on its own and was contained to answering the question.
There is much to like in The Curious Human Knee, especially when Yu extends her research into history and the humanities, into “fashion from flappers to miniskirts and ripped jeans, cultural practices spanning Japanese knee walking and Thai boxing, and more. Yu reflects on the symbolic power of kneeling from the imperial court in China to the football field in the United States and shows why the knee figures into so many social and political phenomena.”
My problem with The Curious Human Knee comes from the arrangement and attempted links to unify all of these facts and research. There are references and notes to other chapters which don’t seem to be necessary. In fact, in “Last Words,” Yu states: “As I draw this journey to an end, now seems the time to offer some sort of grand conclusion about the knee. And believe me, I tried. But as I look back to the stories I told, I’m rather afraid that any conclusion I try to come up with will be woefully inadequate.”
It seems to make sense for Han Yu to begin with an exploration of bipedalism and why it’s important to be followed logically with the pros and cons of the knee as an operating hinge joint. Within these “science” driven articles, Yu follows controversies involving interpretation and analysis. For someone not devoted to an in-depth analysis of anthropology or anatomy, this kind of reporting tended to give me a ping-pong, one scientist says this, another says that effect. The voice changes from research and analysis in the physical anthropology chapter of how the knee became modified with the evolution of walking upright. With diagrams and helpful illustrations, the authorial focus then shifts to anatomical strengths and weaknesses of the knee. I was hoping for a thesis when Yu explains: “Well, I suppose this is what we know relatively well about the knee—hence, it is what we tend to talk and hear about. The problem is that there is quite a bit that we don’t know well—things that doctors don’t talk about and that patients don’t ask.” This is followed up with personal anecdotes about Yu’s own knee injury and the diagnosis and treatment she’s been advised to take. With the third chapter, the voice changes once more to personal reflection: “In 1920s America, it didn’t take much for women to be accused of practicing nudity…On some level, I guess, the accusation makes sense.”
Yu’s greatest strength is the amount of research she brings to each topic. She uncovers many interesting anecdotes and details, and the chapters on Colin Kaepernick and George Floyd are thoughtfully presented.
But from the chapter on women’s fashion when the knee was exposed during the flapper age, the book is followed by the arguments of icing as a standard treatment for injuries and sore muscles.
Composed of eight chapters (other than the aforementioned “Last Words”), their titles reveal a scattered range of topics, times, and cultural geography: “Knees Before the Brain,” “Confused Anatomy,” “Bare Knees, Dicey Power,” “The Weaker Sex?” “To Kneel, or Not to Kneel,” “Treatment, or Placebo,” “The Hurtful Knee,” and “Race and Money.” Each chapter ranges in length from 18 to 23 pages long.
What Yu truly succeeds at is documenting her sources. In fact, the total narrative of The Curious Human Knee is no more than 169 pages while the notes for each chapter, bibliography and index make up the remaining 118 pages.
The material is all here. What needs to be explained comes across quite clearly within its own segment. My recommendation would be to read individual chapters as one sees fit and to use the notes and bibliography as a way to deepen the inquiry.
