Today is a book post, in part because I haven't watched any new movies recently (or really in the past month at all) but also because books are something I love, but don't have the opportunity to talk about very often. Books are something I really ought to talk about here, being as my movie experience is very much based upon storytelling - a movie without a good story is not a good movie at all, people! - and being as I'm a creative writer (particularly poetry right now, but more on that in future). Reading is just something I do.
In particular, I love reading non-fiction; fiction is great and all, you get a wonderful sense of escapism and vast scale in a good fantasy or sci-fi, and the stories they tell can bring to light modern problems, even if they were written long ago. But as a kid I really grew up reading the Horrible Histories and Horrible Science books, I found them endlessly fascinating and amusing and I'm sure they're still a great influence on what I read, although now that quest for real-world information has turned to perusing the "Popular Science" and "Smart Thinking" sections in Waterstone's rather than the back-of-beyond dusty history sections in second-hand bookshops. But what I find there is still of great interest, particularly when I stumble upon something as engaging and informative as Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.
It's almost like reading a book of short stories: there are over twenty case studies in the book, ranging from the eponymous man who mistook his wife for a hat to the "autist artist" to a Tourette's-afflicted woman who imitated everyone who passed her by in a crowd. Each one is a unique character Dr. Sacks has come across or treated in his time as a physician, and each condition he encounters is as rare and perplexing as the last. But for all its observation and description of conditions it's a surprisingly accessible book - though at times it gets bogged down in scientific detail, Dr. Sacks has a way of engaging with patients rather than observing and, being as this was written in 1985, laments the lack of interaction between doctors and their patients in psychoanalysis. His outlook on the psychological scene is welcome and thought-provoking, as is his insight: in his years of work he has seen, and documents, great leaps in the advancement of medicine to suppress conditions such as autism or Tourette's, but he admits that he is skeptical of the nature of neurological study, in particular in his introductions to part one and two, Losses and Excesses respectively. "...an excess or superabundance of function? Neurology has no word for this..." This quote, from his introduction to Excesses, shows his problem with neurology as a whole.
But for all this, his own approach aims to enlighten not just the wider community of neurologists and psychiatric workers, but also himself as he learns about the conditions he encounters through his patients, often away from the rigours of scientific study and instead seeing them as actual, real human beings. As you read, you can see his understanding of mental illnesses growing as he accepts that, where he once saw limits, he now sees transitions, reparations, compromises within the brain itself when it is damaged. And as he understands the reasons for the conditions, so he becomes more and more amazed at the human brain's capacity for compensation after injury or trauma.
And what of the case studies, the characters who inspire such thought in Sacks? They are as unique and quirky as the title suggests, the titular man being an amazing musician who can no longer recognise faces, only pick out details. But he is given a comparatively short shrift compared to other patients of Sacks's (Sacks only visited him once, to be fair). We meet such charming people as Witty Ticcy Ray, a man with Tourette's syndrome who used it to become a locally-renowned jazz drummer but who cursed it as it lost him jobs frequently; or the mysterious twins, two young men who spoke almost solely in numbers and played number games between themselves - though they had low IQ's and problems with basic arithmetic, they were able to "see" particular numbers, and were especially fond of primes. These and other astounding stories fill the book, each one more interesting than the last, and it leaves you with a greater understanding of the problems facing many people afflicted with mental health issues, as well as Sacks's own insights into the brain and his patients which explain to greater depth the issues themselves and how they were dealt with.
The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat is a wonderful book, at times whimsical, at times heartwarming, at times tragic, and it's all explained informatively and simply, but more importantly, humanly by Oliver Sacks. That these studies have endured for nearly thirty years is testament to Sacks's skill as a writer, but that they give their subjects a voice and a story above simply their condition is an admirable demonstration of his skill as a doctor too.
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