The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales 
asked by 78704 on November 21, 2006 11:54 PM
In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th 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."
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One trend in contemporary healthcare that I find particularly disturbing is the degradation of doctor-patient relationships - realistically or not, I fear a future in which patients will be viewed not so much as people, but as pathologies. As a step towards preserving the humanism of the medical profession, I propose that The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat become required reading for everyone involved. Written between 1970 and 1985, the stories that Dr. Sacks recounts are by turns fascinating, bizarre, and profoundly moving. Not every case that he encountered could be fully elucidated at the time, but whatever current science lacked in its understanding of the disorders, Dr. Sacks more than compensated for with a supreme understanding of his patients. This book teaches us that when the problem lies inside the mind, the identity of the patient is more than indispensable - in the hands of a perceptive and empathetic doctor, it can actually become the most powerful medicine available.
reviewed by markymark on November 28, 2006 3:33 AM
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This book definitely had a fascinating collection of anecdotes but at the end of each story, I felt I was left hanging.
reviewed by megafan on November 29, 2006 6:03 AM
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This is my favorite book! It's fantastic! You can't put it down and the stories stay with you for years. You can pick it up in any chapter and it's quite funny as well. Beautifully written.
reviewed by vicky123 on November 29, 2006 7:43 AM
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Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" is an incredible and fascinating book--I highly recommend it. The book is divided into a number of stories/clinical tales about various patients Dr. Sacks has seen over the years who have exhibited strange symptoms or ailments due to damage in the right hemisphere of the brain (his summary of the differences between the left and right sections of the brain, and how the disorders of the right half have not been given nearly enough attention by the medical community, is also really interesting). All of the stories caught my attention, but "The Disembodied Lady" was probably the most disturbing. Dr. Sacks is a neurologist who not only knows what he is talking about when it comes to medicine, but he is also deeply committed to his patients and their well-being. He is a humanist in every sense of the word. He is also a great writer--he can explain complicated medical conditions with the greatest of ease and such a sense of compassion. He also wrote the book "Awakenings" on which the movie with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams is based.
reviewed by webin on November 29, 2006 1:12 PM
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And even then, you have a very good chance of appreciating the amount of insight that Dr. Oliver Sacks has into the minds and lives of his patients, and into life and the human condition in general. Sacks, both the author and the narrator in this book, has chosen some of his favorite, poignant, and exemplary cases from the many patients he has worked with in his home for those with neurological disorders (or, more romantically, a home for those who see the world in a completely different way.). Not only does he describe the disease and condition of the patient, he describes the life, the person, behind the disease. In some cases, he also updates the information he has with the specific patient, i.e., what the patient has gone on to do, or not to do, with their life.
Since this book is a reprint of the original version, a postscript after some of the stories describe similar patients, revelations that he has had, and the medical advances that have been made since the original writing. These also include incredible insight, as well as a sense of hindsight and fondness on the part of Sacks.
As both the writer and the narrator, Sacks exhibits both his impressive clinical knowledge and his personal feelings on each case: it is obvious in reading this book that he cared about and was interested in the well being (or, if well being was impossible, simply the being) of his patients. His writing makes each of these stories, for the most part, assessable to anyone, regardless of their previous knowledge on the subjects of psychology and neurology or attention span: these short stories are comprehendible and, for the most part, concise, and are written in such a way that the reader gets drawn into the story of the patient and feel, at least partially, invested in their health as well, and make you want to keep on reading to find out how, if at all, they were cured or treated.
Whether the story is comic or tragic, whether you want to do a little more general research on neurological disorders, or if you just want to feel lucky that your body and mind work to the capacity that they do, Dr. Sacks' book The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat will keep you both informed and entertained. You don't have to be crazy to read this book, but if you are, I'm sure Dr. Sacks would understand.
Since this book is a reprint of the original version, a postscript after some of the stories describe similar patients, revelations that he has had, and the medical advances that have been made since the original writing. These also include incredible insight, as well as a sense of hindsight and fondness on the part of Sacks.
As both the writer and the narrator, Sacks exhibits both his impressive clinical knowledge and his personal feelings on each case: it is obvious in reading this book that he cared about and was interested in the well being (or, if well being was impossible, simply the being) of his patients. His writing makes each of these stories, for the most part, assessable to anyone, regardless of their previous knowledge on the subjects of psychology and neurology or attention span: these short stories are comprehendible and, for the most part, concise, and are written in such a way that the reader gets drawn into the story of the patient and feel, at least partially, invested in their health as well, and make you want to keep on reading to find out how, if at all, they were cured or treated.
Whether the story is comic or tragic, whether you want to do a little more general research on neurological disorders, or if you just want to feel lucky that your body and mind work to the capacity that they do, Dr. Sacks' book The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat will keep you both informed and entertained. You don't have to be crazy to read this book, but if you are, I'm sure Dr. Sacks would understand.
reviewed by bestseller on November 29, 2006 6:02 PM