[.ca] Vintage Sacks (ISBN 1400033977)

An introduction to Sacks:
I heard Dr. Oliver Sacks speak on BookTV recently. What caught my interest was his obvious love for science and the warm, humoruos manner in which he presented the studies and experiments borne of his curiosity. Looking at the list of books he has written in the last 30 or so years I chanced upon, Vintage Sacks. Having never read any of his works before this anthology, of sorts, seemd like a good place to start. The narrative literary form brings a "human" dimension to science and Dr. Sacks uses it to good affect. This is clearly seen in the selections from Awakings, Seeing Voices, and An Anthropologist on Mars. I found the selections from his autobiography, Uncle Tungsten, less compelling. Though, I must admit his categorizing of sulfur, selenium, and tellurium as "stinkogens" rather humoruos - especially given his penchant for experimenting with these odoriferous compounds and the resultant gas clouds. His retelling of the stories of his childhood on BookTV was far more endearing than the selections chosen from Uncle Tungsten. The addition of the selection from Migrain is rather puzzling. It is only 5 pages long and I can't really tell what purpose the book serves, or even the point he was trying to make. The rest of the selections are significantly longer - enough that you get a feel for the book and his style of writing. In Seeing Voices he talks about the difference between postlingual and prelingual deafness - a distinction I never really thought about. In postlingual deafness, the affected individual was able to hear before becoming deaf and thus able to develop language skills. Someone who is prelingually deaf was either born, or became shortly after birth, without the ability to hear and so in the absense of remedial measures did not develop language skills. Here is what Dr. Sacks has to say, "For the prelingually deaf, unable to hear their parents, risk being severely retarded, if not permanently defective, in their graps of language unless early and effective measures are taken." I'm sure you've wondered, as I have, if given a choice, would you rather be blind or deaf. Dr. Sacks has made me rethink my position. The selections from Awakenings bring to attention a malady of the early twentieth century that I had never heard of before: encephalitis lethargica, or "sleeping sickness". The thought of being in such a "trance-like" state for decades is unnerving; able only to communicate is whispers and short sentences, unable to move much at all, must be horrifying. One of Dr. Sack's patients, Rose R., descibes, when asked what she is thinking about, "Nothing, just nothing" - and she meant it almost literally. Overall this is a good place to start before reading his other books.