tamaranth | 2022/163: The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat

2022/163: The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat — Oliver Sacks

...our ‘evaluations’ are ridiculously inadequate. They only show us deficits, they do not show us powers; they only show us puzzles and schemata, when we need to see music, narrative, play, a being conducting itself spontaneously in its own natural way.[loc. 2829]

Neurologist Oliver Sacks' compilation of twenty-four of his most interesting clinical cases, organised into four sections: 'Losses', 'Excesses', 'Transports' and 'The World of the Simple'. This was first published in 1985 and I suspect neurology has advanced in many of these areas: I definitely found some of the language more, ah, robust than would be usual today. (Sacks refers to his patients as 'morons', 'retarded' and so on: these are used as simple descriptions rather than slurs, but the terms feel harsh and jarring.)

Sometimes Sacks errs too much on the clinical side, but on the whole I found this a very readable account of the various ways in which the brain can malfunction. Sacks is keen to appreciate the marvels, as well as the tragedies, of neurological conditions: the lady who suddenly wakes up hearing the music of her youth, the twins who communicate In a 'thought-world of numbers' by sharing prime numbers with one another, the 'innocent wonder' of a man who can't recall the last few decades of his life, the sheer intensity of heightened sensory input. I was particularly taken with Sacks' aside about Shostakovich, who had a physical brain injury: "a metallic splinter, a mobile shell-fragment, in his brain, in the temporal horn of the left ventricle. Shostakovich was very reluctant, apparently, to have this removed: Since the fragment had been there, he said, each time he leaned his head to one side he could hear music. His head was filled with melodies – different each time – which he then made use of when composing." [loc. 2281]. An interesting read, though I think I enjoyed his autobiography, On the Move: A Life, more, because Sacks' voice is so engaging there, and his compassion and humanity so vivid.

Fulfils the ‘Throwback | Published In 1980s or 1990s’ rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge.