The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
and other Clinical Tales
by Oliver SacksThe right brain shows how essential it is by being defective in some. Those folks are included in this book, from those with Korsakov's amnesia to Touretters to autists to Parkinsonian elderly. The title story is about a Dr.P, who lost the ability to recognize objects. He had to guess at what they were by putting together the small details he did see. He could not remember seeing things in wholes, and he resorted to singing his way through things.
My first confusion in reading this book was in trying to figure out when it had been written. The first copyright date listed was 1970, but Sacks referred to things that had happened after 1970 in the stories themselves, and far later in the postscripts that accompany every chapter(of which there are 20). Finally Sacks stated the year in which he was writing: 1985. As usual, Sacks frustrated me in his stubborn attempts to see his patients as damned, and their differences as bad things. Sacks gives a sympathetic view of Tourettes, syphilis, and a certain sort of seizure, but sees all other neurodiversity presented as negative.
Happy reading.
