Softcover, 243 pages
English language
Published May 24, 1998 by Touchstone Books.
In his most extraordinary book, “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders.
Oliver Sacks’s THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.
If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world …
In his most extraordinary book, “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders.
Oliver Sacks’s THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.
If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine’s ultimate responsibility: “the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject.”
Well written, interesting stories, but I lost interest in hearing more of them about halfway through. Others will probably find it more interesting from beginning to end.
A series of fascinating insights and stories about people with the most unusual neurological disorders and differences.
Dry writing. Don't get me wrong - Dr. Sacks was a hugely popular, influential and brilliant neurologist and his case histories became best-seller books (like this one) - but for me, his writing left a lot to be desired.
Intressant med anekdoter inom neurologi.
A classic collection of short essays on neuro-atypical patients of Dr. Sacks and the thoughts about memory, music, and identity that their case histories provoke. Some are so short they are nearly as cryptic as short stories by Jorge Luis Borges (who Sacks often quotes).
