The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales
Written and Introduction By: Oliver Sacks / Narrated By: Jonathan Davis
Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
Uhm…? Okay so like, here’s the thing…
I’ve gotta tell ya that the only knowledge I have of Oliver Sacks is from Robin Williams playing him in the movie “Awakenings” whereby we see a hopeful, jolly, oh so caring man as he navigates the sleeping sickness epidemic that felled individuals that occurred after WWI.
Uhm, noooooot reeeeally…
So like, I totally understand where he’s coming from here in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat—He’s from a certain era.
And I’m really rather aghast. I understand it; ages ago whenst my husband and I were test-driving a car and the salesman asked what we did for a living and we said we worked with the blind and visually impaired, he asked, “So, are they deaf and dumb too?”. It was kinda the way society talked at the time, so we tried not to be appalled.
And since the writing of this book, society has gone from labeling it Mental Retardation to Developmentally Delayed, to its current label in the school-system as Intellectually Disabled (ID). So I’m a bit more prone to knee-jerk horror, getting used to the more current labels, when I hear individuals being called Retard(ed) or Simpleton or when I just hear them depicted as grossly defective.
But EGADS! That caring man that Sacks is s’posed to be in the movie? Oh NOOOOO!!! This is one TOTally clinical man who clings to a diagnosis and judges people accordingly. Yup, you’ll find fascinating case studies here: A gentleman who can no longer recognize objects or people in his environment; one who has zippo short-term memory and thus (So Sacks questions) has no soul (Until Sacks is told by mortified Nuns: Watch him at church services! The man beams and glows!); a woman who loses possession of her body, having to focus her eyes on body parts to move and control them; a young man who is “an Idiot” until Sacks notices a grand affinity for drawing; and two twins who are Retards until he discovers that they speak and commune with each other and with the world by paring things down to the essence of prime numbers.
FAScinating case studies, truly they are. And Sacks has seen much here in this compilation (And I don’t mean to profane the dead, but… EGADS!), and he discovers much. And this is also a fine narration by Jonathan Davis—I’m glad he narrated it rather than Sacks who obviously had a kinda sorta lisp and did the whole R becomes a W thing. Davis brings wonder and horror to life, fascination and enlightenment to life.
It’s just that he rather glosses over those words that just stuck in my craw, and he triiiiiiies to bring warmth to such clinical, clinical, CLINICAL musings.
Yes, I was intrigued. But oh how appalled I was, especially when it came to discussions about how those in charge foisted their own ideas of what worthwhile was: Those twins? They were separated from each other… so they could be “more useful and independent” of each other, could do mindless supervised manual labor.
I’d just listened to Born on a Blue Day, so I came out of this book so much more aware of how that author experienced prejudice and woeful expectations and condemnation. Truly, if any of the “experts” treating him were like Sacks? No doubt he would’ve had a muuuuuch more dire outcome, less wonder.
Am I getting all preachy, on a soap box? Am I ruining what could be an intriguing Listen?
HELL YEAH…!!! Dunno if I wanna do any more of the Sacks I have in my Library. -BUT- it does have me interested in his memoir released before he died: I mean, did he, in the end, start seeing people as having intrinsic value, basic worth and beauty? And I mean did he from the start, as he occasionally here saw worth, but BOY did it take him a long time.
I dearly hope so.
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