[.ca] An Anthropologist on Mars (ISBN 0394281519)

From Amazon.com:
The works of neurologist Oliver Sacks have a special place in the swarm of mind-brain studies. He has done as much as anyone to make nonspecialists aware of how much diversity gets lumped under the heading of "the human mind." The stories in An Anthropologist on Mars are medical case reports not unlike the classic tales of Berton Roueché in The Medical Detectives. Sacks's stories are of "differently brained" people, and they have the intrinsic human interest that spurred his book Awakenings to be re-created as a Robin Williams movie. The title story in Anthropologist is that of autistic Temple Grandin, whose own book Thinking in Pictures gives her version of how she feels--as unlike other humans as a cow or a Martian. The other minds Sacks describes are equally remarkable: a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, a painter who loses color vision, a blind man given the ambiguous gift of sight, artists with memories that overwhelm "real life," the autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, and a man with memory damage for whom it is always 1968. Oliver Sacks is the Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould of his field; his books are true classics of medical writing, of the breadth of human mentality, and of the inner lives of the disabled. --Mary Ellen Curtin

This is the mind:
Many of us feel removed from the world of medicine. Doctors seem to speak a language beyond our comprehension. Oliver Sacks takes us into his world where we feel immediately at home. He writes of real people and gives us a fascinating, if disturbing, insight into the paradoxes of the human mind. For me the most moving story is 'The Last Hippy'. Greg lost his immediate memory following a massive cerebral tumour. However many times you see him it is always a meeting of strangers. They go to a Grateful Dead concert. Greg is once again a fan. He shouts cheers and sings. Next day the whole experience has gone. We also read of the Tourette's syndrome sufferer whose tics disappear whenever he begins work - as a surgeon. There is the artist who sees only black and white, the autistic/artistic genius. This is a gem of a book which deserves to be read over and over. You will learn something new every time.

Sporadically wonderful, consistently immersive.:
By no means do clinical case histories hold boundless interest; the cases themselves are only as interesting as they are far from analogy. The book opens with an outstanding treatise on perception (The Case of the Colorblind Artist) but, from then on, Sacks manages to enumerate merely interesting tales of various misperceptions without the neurological backdrop of the first history. This is not a bad thing -- often, by keeping the cases anecdotal Sacks is able to build a very good narrative. Make no mistake -- the book is indeed very good but doesn't set a consistent rhythym (there is a constant battle between clinical examination and anecdote) that is required for any work to be spectacular. I suspect this is in the writing and organization of the material; the material, standing alone, is of a great interest.

detachment?:
Oliver Sacks's title "An Anthropologist from Mars" suggests detachment(35 million miles) yet he investigates the intimate details of human perception. It took me nearly 50 pages to remember to see that it is his literary zoom lens that I find so fascinating. From the 5x of historical perspective to the 500x of a patient's diagnosis he twirls the lens. I love it.

The humane psychiatrist:
I am filled with awe for a psychiatrist like Sacks, who takes personal interest in every special person he comes across in his professional life. He has the rare insight to recognise each individual as a unique, never-to-be-repeated creation of the Creator, and to accord the respect and awe due to each patient he comes across; even to observe, sometimes with a sense of humour, the relativity of our definitions of 'normaility'. The time Sacks takes to just be with each special person, and appreciate the uniqueness of each, is commendable, and goes way beyond a mere call of duty. When an autistic person, featured in this book, commended that she feels like "an anthropologist on Mars" because she has to study human behaviour and interactions to be socially adaptable, Sacks picked up on her standpoint, and recognised, with unusual humility, that as a psychiatrist of special persons, he too is like an anthropologist on Mars, not always understanding their world, but not being too quick to pronounce them stereotypically abnormal and himself normal...a sensitive, insightful work that reflects a sensitive, insightful author.

Encapsulating the human condition.:
Could one be an artist without having a real "self"? The fascinating story of the autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire makes one wonder. Apparently the whole visible world just flows through him - without making sense, without becoming part of him. Yet, he can make excellent drawings! This story and the others in the book are indeed very interesting reading and does enlarge ones understanding of what the human is. To quote the book - It is possible that persons with these traits (malfunctions) are more creative. If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole world would be taken over by accountants! And lets hope not! It is so much more fascinating with all its current mental richness! -Simon