박문호의 베스트북
아내를 모자로 착각한 남자
올래버 색스
14년전 뇌과학 세계
문을 열어준
이미 고전이 된 책
책장에 꽃힌채로 저를 기다리는 책입니다.
옆에있는 책읽기 선수인 아내가 먼저 여러차례 읽은 책입니다.
슬쩍 어깨너머로 보았더니 책속의 삽화가 이색적이었습니다.
만화나 소설책 처럼 보기좋게 구성되어졌지만 내용만큼은 울림을 주는 모양입니다.
올해 뇌과학 공부할 때 꼭 읽어야겠습니다.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Neurologist Oliver Sacks, who has a wonderful way with words and a strong desire to understand and appreciate the human being that still exists despite the disorder or neurological damage, treats the reader to these and twenty-two other tales of the bizarre in this very special book. My favorite tale is Chapter 21, "Rebecca," in which Dr. Sacks shows that a person of defective intelligence--a "moron"--is still a person with a sense of beauty and with something to give to the world. Sacks generously (and brilliantly) shows how Rebecca taught him the limitations of a purely clinical approach to diagnosis and treatment. Although the child-like 19-year-old didn't have the intelligence to "find her way around the block" or "open a door with a key," Rebecca had an emotional understanding of life superior to many adults. She loved her grandmother deeply and when she died, Rebecca expressed her feelings to Sacks, "I'm crying for me, not for her...She's gone to her Long Home." She added, poetically, "I'm so cold. It's not outside, it's winter inside. Cold as death...She was a part of me. Part of me died with her" (p. 182). Rebecca goes on to show Dr. Sacks that they pay "far too much attention to the defects of...patients...and far too little to what...[is] intact or preserved" (p. 183). Rebecca was tired of the meaningless classes and workshops and odd jobs. "What I really love...is the theatre," she said. Sacks writes that the theatre "composed her...she became a complete person, poised, fluent, with style, in each role" (p. 185).
Another of my favorite stories is Chapter 23, "The Twins." These two guys, idiots savants, "undersized, with disturbing disproportions in head and hands...monotonous squeaky voices...a very high, degenerative myopia, requiring glasses so thick that their eyes seem distorted" (p. 196) had the very strange ability of being able to factor quickly in their heads large numbers and to recognize primes at a glance. They could also give you almost instantly the day of the week for any day in history. One day a box of matches fell on the floor and "<111,> they both cried simultaneously." And then one said "37" and then the other said "37" and then the first said "37" and stopped. There were indeed 111 matches on the floor (Sacks counted them) and three times the prime number 37 does indeed equal 111! (p. 199). Later he discovered them saying six-figure numbers to one another. One would give a number and the other would receive it "and appreciate...it richly." Sacks discovered that they were tossing out primes to one another just for the sheer joy of doing it.
Another of Sacks's discoveries about his patients is that "music, narrative and drama" are "of the greatest practical and theoretical importance" (p. 185). He demonstrates this again and again here and in his more recent book, An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales (1995), which is also an incredibly fascinating book. (See my review here at Amazon.com.) Many people with neurological disorders or deficiencies become whole when engaged in a process such as story, music or drama. The process seems to give them a structure to follow which, for the time being, overcomes their handicap. This is seen remarkably even in a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome who, while performing surgery, was without tics (as reported in the book mentioned above).
It's clear that one of Sacks's purposes in sharing his experience is to dispel the prejudice against people who are different because of their defects. One can see that respect for others regardless of their limitations is something Sacks incorporates in his practice and his life. It is one of the many virtues of this wonderful book, that in reading it, we too are moved to a greater respect for others, people who really are challenged in ways we "normal" people can only imagine.
이 책 부담없이 재밌게 읽을 수 있는 책입니다. 이름도 특이하고 발음도 멋있죠. 올리버섹스.. 발음할때마다 아름답다는 생각이 드는 이름입니다. 뮤지코필리아를 잠깐 보고 피아노를 배워야겠다는 생각을 하고 거금을 투자해서 피아노샀는데.. 한달 배우다가 아직 그 피아노 잠자고 있습니다. 차 타면 거의 피아노곡을 듣습니다. 음악에 큰 조예는 없고 단지 그냥 피아노 소리가 좋습니다. 그냥 그 소리가 가슴을 울립니다. ^^ 올리버섹스는 피아노 무쟈게 잘 친다네요.
'아내를 모자로 착각한 남자' 제목만 보면, 뭔가 우스운 소설같은데, 참으로 다양한 정신 질환(?)을 "이해" 할 수 있고, 세상을 다르게 볼 수 있는 안목 키워주는 책이었습니다. 책을 읽고 있는 중간에 서울 출장갔다가 대전역에서 버스를 기다리는데, 틱증상을 보이는 아이를 보았습니다. 버스가 자기를 기다려 주지 않고 갔다며, 알아 들을 수 없는 말로 소리소리 지르고 있었죠. 그리곤 옆에 있던 할머니한테 "왜 잡아 주지 않았냐는?" 의미의 몸짓으로 소리를 지르다군요. 조금은 무서워하며, 그 광경을 보다가 자리를 피할까 고민하는데, 당혹해하던 그 할머니가 ' 아~ 버스가 갔어? 아니 그놈의 버스는 왜 안기다려주고 갔데.. 괜찮아 또 올꺼야' 했다. 그랬더니, 그 아이가 위로를 받았음을 알았는지 얌전히 버스를 기다리더군요. 책이 할 수 없었던, 생각하지 않았던 것을 미리 알려주는 힘은 있지만, 아직까지 행동할 수 있는 힘은 제가 키워야한다는 것을 절실히 느꼈답니다. ^^ (후기 글이 이상하게 돌아가네요.ㅋㅋ)
'아내를 모자로 착각한 남자', 1년 전 저에게 뇌과학 세계로 문을 열어준 책입니다. 드디어 제가 아는 책이 나왔습니다. ^^