Oliver Sacks (1933–2015)

I am so angry right now. I can’t take another word of this self-righteous, ignorant, judgmental narrative masquerading as compassion. I am close to the end but I can’t bear to finish. I just want to fling my phone (I was taking the audiobook route) to the wall and scream, NO! NO! NO!!! These are people, not freaks, idiots, morons, retards!!!

I know this is how it was in the seventies, but I am reading it now. And even in the seventies - how can a doctor clearly see extraordinarily show more abilities in someone, and still call them a retard and a freak, because some other abilities are lacking, and because they don’t understand where some behaviors (like tantrums) are coming from? (He is describing someone clearly on the autism spectrum.) You have someone with superhuman ability to remember and understand very complex nuances of music, and your conclusion is not that this person is smart and we misdiagnosed him, but that music does not require intelligence? Wtf is wrong with you???

This last chapter is just an avalanche of belittling, terrible language. Defectives, retards, morons, simpletons, freaks. Just so derogatory. It seems too much of this language, and not just used as a clinical term.

The blurb says Dr Sacks talks of people with compassion. Bullshit. Pity is not compassion. He is dripping with condescension, talking of everyone like “it is such a pity that their life is shattered”, always analyzing how terrible it is when this or that ability is missing. He even goes to the point of suggesting that some people with memory loss do not have a soul! WTF! He does not treat the “patients” as people, does not feel like he should help their strengths, special abilities flourish, help them live a full life. Again, I am aware that this was the seventies. But that does not make it right.

This book is dated to the point of blood-boiling. It is not a book we should still be reading. I can’t recommend it to anyone in the 21st century. show less

Ok, io mi entusiasmo facilmente e i miei entusiasmi sono spesso dei fuochi di paglia destinati a spegnersi a una rilettura più attenta, ma credo che questa volta sia diverso. "L'uomo che scambiò sua moglie per un cappello" è uno dei libri più belli che io abbia mai letto, non solo tra i saggi, ma in assoluto.
Questa raccolta di casi clinici affrontati dal Dottor Sacks durante la sua carriera contiene tre elementi che la rendono un'opera eccezionale:(1) l'interesse scientifico suscitato show more dalle strane anomalie che possono colpire il sistema nervoso umano,(2)l'umanità e la sensibilità dell'autore/medico nell'affrontarle e riportarle a noi lettori e (3), infine, il potenziale narrativo di ciascuno dei casi presenti.
Ogni storia descritta è un universo di emozioni e riflessioni che susciteranno in voi un vortice di domande importantissime sulla realtà, l'identità e come le percepiamo, domande che non vi lasceranno neanche quando finirete di libro. show less

As usual, Sacks does a stunning job of describing disturbing neurological states in such a way that you realize they are normal. He doesn't exempt himself from his kind, respectful, yet dispassionate examining eye, describing his own experiences of alternate realities. When you finish, you understand that our perceptions of reality are seriously skewed, and that the probing alien of today may just be the night-mare or the succubus of yesteryear.

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 show more 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. show less