Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Leg to Stand on by Oliver W. Sacks ISBN: 0-684-85395-7 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 29 April, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: ... here Sacks walks (or limps?) his talk ...
Comment: Those who gave this book a negative review have probably never understood up-close the nature of severe neurological problems. Moreover, they must have failed in their reading of his other books to recognize Oliver Sacks' consistent respect, fascination, sensitivity, and intellectual humility when dealing with the neurological complexities of his patients. Here he IS the patient. In other words, this book is operating on several levels, and Sacks is now not only identifying at a clinical distance with what others experience but he is inside the neuro-beast himself and describing with great literary power and sensitivity the horrific inner struggles of that subjective experience! In my opinion, the only Sacks book better than this one is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Sacks is a master storyteller, and A Leg to Stand On is one unique story. No, it's not strictly a neurologist's textbook analysis, but here Sacks walks (or limps?) his talk.
Rating: 4
Summary: An unusual cross between case study and diary
Comment: Sacks has made his reputation by writing insightfully about his patients and their neurological disorders. Most readers will come to this book after having read one of his better known collections, such as "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", though in fact I believe this precedes all of them except "Awakenings". "A Leg to Stand On" has much in common with those books, but it is much more personal, and it tells a unified story.
The first chapter, "The Mountain", tells how Sacks suffered a terrible injury to his left leg while hiking high above Hardanger Fjord in Norway. He was alone, and nobody knew where he was; he would certainly die of exposure if he didn't reach help by nightfall. The chapter is as gripping as anything in a thriller, and much more believable.
The next chapter, however, "Becoming A Patient", is the one that will give readers of Sacks' other work a frisson of recognition. Many times Sacks has taken the reader through the doctor-patient relationship from the doctor's side, but now he must experience it from the patient's side, and it is a revealing chapter. It ends with an extraordinary transition: Sacks has realized that he has a neurological problem with his leg--he can't "locate" it; it feels like it's made of wood--but the surgeon who operated on him refuses, point-blank, to accept that there is a problem.
The remainder of the book--about half--is devoted to the path to Sacks' ultimate recovery. Sacks has deep powers of observation, and there are luminously informative sequences here--my favourite is perhaps the exchange with the physiotherapists, when they are trying to show him how to walk, but he has forgotten how. The book closes with a chapter of musings on the nature of Sacks' experience and its relationship with his work.
This is a thoughtful book, and a good introduction to Sacks' work, but I think readers of Sacks' other books will like it the most.
Rating: 5
Summary: Journey of Healing.
Comment: I should stress from the start that this book is extremely well written. It requires a special talent to combine scientific, clinical prose with personal, emotional and philosophical insight. This book is remarkable on many counts, but its value lies in Sacks' honesty, uninhibited rendering of the personal, by and while incorporating his desire to see his profession, neurology and psycho neurology, evolve from a largely 'veterinary business", the dualistic approach to the mind as 'mental' or 'physical', to a science combining both approaches, in what he would like to call the "neurology of identity". In his terms, he would like to see neurology take "a great jump - to jump from the mechanical model, the "classical" model, it has espoused for so long, to a totally personal, self-referential model of the brain and mind". (p.189) This text eloquently strives in this direction.
In the early seventies, Sacks experienced a hiking accident that severely damaged his left leg. This near death experience (he was stranded alone on a mountain miles away from civilization) began a journey of a profound personal nature, existential, professional, philosophical, spiritual and physical, which changed his views about many things. The first chapter, 'The Mountain', has all the suspense and narrative style of a well-written thriller. To a large extent, in the next chapter, "Becoming a Patient", has all the hallmarks of the familiar insensitive doctor as mere technician, evolving a more empathetic view of the patient, developing that essential 'bedside manner' that can be so lacking, though essential, in the medical profession. Sacks describes his thoughts and feelings as a patient, having to relate his condition and feelings to his carer's, and the utter dread, loneliness, frustration, and alienation that comes with becoming ill and having to be institutionalized as a result. Anyone who has been ill and hospitalized will relate to this chapter.
The essential aspects of the text are the medical insights Sacks' gained as a result of his damaged leg. He experienced first-hand the phenomenon of intense loss of 'body-image', that is the damaged leg became entirely 'alienated' from his primary consciousness. This is more than just forgetting how to use one's leg after damage, but an actual vanishing of awareness of the limb itself. In his terms, a total collapse of memory/identity/space, "...an abyss or hole: a hole in memory/identity/space" of the limb. He goes on to write, "A Leg to Stand On is not just a story of a leg, but an account, from inside, of what primary consciousness is like; an account such as the experience of alienation..." (P.187)
This book is a splendid tale about the journey of healing. As all great philosophical writing does, it asks us to question ourselves, question our environment and attempt to see what has been right before our eyes from the beginning. It also affirms that human experience is a community affair, that we all share these experiences and can ultimately learn from them.
 |
Title: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver W. Sacks ISBN: 0684853949 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver W. Sacks, Oliver Sacks ISBN: 0679756973 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf by Oliver W. Sacks, Oliver, M.D. Sacks ISBN: 0375704078 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Awakenings by Oliver W. Sacks, Oliver Sacks ISBN: 0375704051 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Migraine by Oliver W. Sacks, Oliver Sacks ISBN: 037570406X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
