The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat (1970)

I don't have the sort of job that obliges me to write case studies, but I know someone who does, and she tells me that they're an odd, and sometimes weirdly compelling, literary form. Oliver Sacks's "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" is essentially a compilation of extended case studies, and I suppose that the book could be criticized for lacking an overriding theme. At the same time, there's a lot of interesting stuff here, and Sacks seems to have chosen these stories specifically to expand his readers' understandings of the limits and variety of human experience. Most of these conditions that Sacks presents are pretty extreme: we meet a patient who can't remember anything that's happened during the last fifteen years, and another who can't visualize her position in space, people who hear songs playing on radios that are not there, and other patients whose conditions are weirder still. Still, while it's impossible to doubt the author's medical bonafides, his real interest here is the nature of consciousness, and many of these bizarre cases serve to illuminate the intricacies of "normal" mental functioning that most of us take for granted. Sacks seems like precisely the man to do this: he's ridiculously knowledgeable about the history of his field and extremely well-versed in literature and poetry, and he often draws on his knowledge to illustrate the points he makes about the nature of human experience and its relationship with neurology. In a sense, this sets him apart from many of today's "popular" science writers, who often come off, for better or worse, as game amateurs willing to try anything to learn about their chosen subject. Of course, this also means that Sacks's work is a bit denser than these writers' works: "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" is consistently interesting, but I wouldn't call it a fun read. I expect that some readers will probably find Sacks a bit stiff and pedantic for their liking. Even so -- and this is important -- Sacks also comes off a a true humanitarian, a compassionate doctor who is willing to empathize with their patients, particularly those who suffer from organic mental disabilities -- in order to understand their problems and worldviews. Indeed, this book might be read as a sort of argument for a less clinical, more holistic approach to neurosurgery that keeps the interplay between the brain and human experience as its central preoccupation. Perhaps for this reason alone, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" might be called a really valuable, important book. ( )

This book was absolutely impossible to put down. The stories were extremely bizarre, but they all actually happened. If you find yourself consumed by morbid curiosity every so often, this should satisfy you for a short time. ( )

April 27, 2010

Sure took me a while, but it was really interesting again! :)

Previous Read

I read this book when I lived in South Korea during my senior year of high school. I literally ran out of reading material while I was there and a lady from church let me borrow this book.

HOLY COW. It was SO SO INTERESTING! I still remember some of the stories of people with neurological conditions/disorders that you COULD NOT make up. Most of them were completely unfathomable to me! A couple stories I remember:

* The story the book is named after. The guy kept reaching for his wife's head to pick it up and put it on his head. He SERIOUSLY mistook it for a hat a LOT.
* The memory stories, where people essential had their memory wiped every 15 minutes. Perfect memory of everything that happened from age 21 and before, but couldn't remember ANYTHING beyond that unless it happened within the last 15 minutes.
* The woman(?) who lost the ability to know that her limbs were there if she wasn't looking at them. Like as long as she was LOOKING at her legs, they would work just fine, but when she looks away, her brain/body forgets that they're there, and she collapses. BIZARRE!

Freaking insane stuff! SO SO INTRIGUING!! I really really enjoyed this book! ( )

Out-of-date. ( )

This review was originally posted at my blog
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This book would fall under the popular science category but its wonderful title, I believe, is best suited to a novel. I will be bold to go as far as saying that some may have picked up the book mistakenly thinking it was fiction.

Dr Oliver Sacks is a neurologist who documented his experiences with patients facing difficulties when the brain doesn’t function ‘normally’. I often wonder why some non-fiction books piques a reader’s interest even though it is not a significant part of their life. I’ve dipped in and out popular science books for years and this book demonstrated why Sacks was successful. He is passionate about his work and compassionate about his patients. This may have easily become a bit of a ‘freak show’, writing about a man who needed spirit levels on his glasses so he could walk straight and another man who grasped at his wife’s head thinking it was his hat. I think Sacks was successful in showing us the incredible wonders of the brain and what happens when things go wrong. It’s not just about the medical nature of the brain but those things that make it a very mysterious thing:

"If we wish to know about a man, we ask ‘what is his story – his real, inmost story?’ – for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is construed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us – through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives – we are each of us unique."

It was fascinating to read his quotes from not only Freud and other scientists but from Thomas Mann and Proust. He uses the words ‘idiot’, ‘retard’ ‘defective’ and ‘simpleton’ in their correct manner.

The chapter simply titled ‘Rebecca’ is certainly the most memorable for me. A moving account of a woman-child who fails all the formal clinical tests but among the natural elements of our world, Rebecca is stunningly poetic:

"Sitting there, in a light dress, her face calm and slightly smiling, she suddenly brought to mind one of Chekov’s young women…seen against the backdrop of a Chekovian cherry orchard. She could have been any young woman enjoying a beautiful spring day. This was my human, as opposed to my neurological, vision."

An elderly man who suffered severely all his life from near-fatal meningitis in infancy was, against all odds, musically gifted – extraordinarily so (his father was also musically talented). Sacks poses a question that I still think about:

"His innate, hereditary musical gift had clearly survived the ravages of meningitis and brain-damage – or had it? Would he have been a Caruso if undamaged? Or was his musical development, to some extent, a ‘compensation’ for brain-damage and intellectual limitations?"

This book is not for everyone. At times, I struggled with the clinical elements of the stories however this medical background is needed for a popular science book to be successful. Sacks finds a good balance to sustain a reader’s interest. He gives these patients the respect they deserve and provides a convincing argument that although the brain is a frustratingly mysterious organ, it is important to respect its immense power. ( )