뇌신경 손상으로 인해 기이한 내면세계와 전혀 다른 삶의 방식을 갖게 된 일곱 명의 이야기가 담겨 있는 책. 세계적인 신경학자이자 뛰어난 글쟁이인 올리버 색스는 자신이 담당했던 환자들의 임상 사례를 소설처럼 흥미롭고 생생하게 전하고 있다.
어느 날 갑자기 색맹이 된 화가 I씨, 뇌종양으로 기억상실증에 걸린 그레그, 투렛증후군을 가진 외과의사 베넷, 50년 만에 앞을 보게 된 시각장애인 버질, 과거의 기억에 사로잡힌 화가 프랑코, 자폐성 천재 스티븐, 자폐인 동물학자 템플 그랜딘... 등 뇌신경질환에 걸린 환자들의 기묘하고 낯선 세계가 세세하게 펼쳐진다.
이 책에 소개된 뇌신경병 환자들은 일반인과 너무나 다른 일상 경험과 사고방식, 지능과 정서를 지녔다. 그것은 단지 그들이 앞을 볼 수 없거나 색을 구별할 수 없고, 강박증이 있거나 이상 행동을 하는 등 정상적인 생활을 할 수 없다는 부정적인 의미가 아니다. 오히려 그들에게는 일반인들이 갖지 못한 비범한 재능이 있고, 그것이 그들을 특별하게 만든다고 저자는 이야기하고 있다.
저자소개
올리버 색스의 소설에 가까운 독특한 병력 작성법은 인간의 의식과 두뇌기능을 탐구하는 가장 통찰력 있는 방식 중 하나로 평가받고 있다. 색스는 신경병 환자들의 병력을 작성하는 데 있어서 그들의 병리적 상태뿐 아니라 내면의 감춰진 부분까지 파고들어 질병의 습격으로 인해 달라진 인간의 존재 방식을 들여다본다. 전 세계 22개국에 번역 소개되고 영화화되기도 한 『소생』과 『아내를 모자로 착각한 남자』 『화성의 인류학자』는 이와 같은 방식으로 씌어진 뇌신경병 환자들의 독특한 초상화다. 평생을 독신으로 살아온 색스는 올해로 73세를 맞았다. 뉴욕 근교 시티 섬에 살면서 정원에는 양치식물을 키우고, 월요일이면 TV시리즈 <스타트랙>을 빠짐없이 챙겨보고, 수영을 광적으로 좋아하여 겨울철을 제외하고는 매일같이 롱아일랜드 해협으로 뛰어든다. 19세기 자연주의와 마티스의 그림, 바흐와 모차르트의 음악을 좋아하는 그는 음악회에 가서 무대를 등지고 앉아 연주음악을 배경 삼아 자신의 글을 쓰기도 하는 괴짜다. 그는 이러한 틀에 얽매이지 않은 천성 덕분에 자신이 돌보는 규범과는 거리가 먼 신경증 환자들과 일체감을 가질 수 있다고 믿는다. 1933년 영국에서 태어난 올리버 색스는 런던과 캘리포니아에서 공부하고, 뉴욕 알베르트 아인슈타인 의과대학 신경병 교수와 브롱크스 자치구 자선병원인 베스에이브러햄 병원의 신경과 전문의를 거쳐. 현재는 뉴욕대학교 의학대학 신경학과 부교수, 알베르트 아인슈타인 의과대학 신경학과 임상교수로 재직 중이다. 뉴욕에서 신경과 개업의로 활동하고 있다. 대표적인 저서로는 『아내를 모자로 착각한 남자』 『엉클 텅스텐』 『소생』 『편두통』 등 다수가 있다.
This review is from: An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales (Paperback)
These are true tales from a clinical neurologist's notebook, but this isn't just any neurologist. Oliver Sacks, author of the justly celebrated, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1986) and Awakenings (1973), which was later made into a movie starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, and other works, is a gifted writer with a fine sense of story and an even finer sense of humanity. He has a style that is both affecting and fascinating, yet studiously objective, a style laced with footnotes and clinical observations, historical comparisons and wisdom. Part of the power of these tales, and of all of Sacks's work, is his ability to be totally engaged and to identify with the subject while part of him is off to the side observing with scientific impartiality. This makes for a compelling read. If you've never read Sacks before, you are in for a very special treat.
These tales are paradoxical because "Defects, disorders, diseases" can bring out "latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life, that might never be seen or even be imaginable, in their absence." It is this "'creative' potential, that forms the central theme of this book" (from Sacks's Preface, page xvi).
The first tale, "The Case of the Colorblind Painter" is about a successful artist who worked in color all his life only to became colorblind at age sixty-five, and the effect this had on his life and work. The second, "The Last Hippie" is about an amnesiac man with a frontal lobe tumor that left him stranded in the sixties. Sacks tells this sad, pathetic story with vivid detail, and characteristically ends it with a footnote, a footnote of such warmth and genuine identification that we are moved to tears. (Don't skip the footnotes!)
The third tale, "A Surgeon's Life," is an amazing account of a Canadian surgeon with Tourette's syndrome. It is here that we begin to see the central theme of this book in brilliant illumination. Dr. Carl Bennett, riddled with the bizarre tics characteristic of the disorder, compulsions that cause him to throw things, to touch things again and again in a ritualistic manner, to flail, jump and jerk about, nonetheless became a very successful (and beloved) doctor of surgery. Sacks scrubs up with Dr. Bennett and goes into surgery with him, during which, miraculously, the tics disappear for however long it takes to complete the surgery. Sacks visits him at home and meets his wife and two children, sees the dents in the refrigerator and on the walls, and comes away with a sense of how astounding the human potential to overcome adversity can be.
The fourth tale, "To See and Not See," is about partially restored sight and how it was not a blessing. This sad story illustrates how sight is learned from infancy and is largely a constructive and interpretive function of the brain. This tale also lets us see how the world of the sightless can be rich and fulfilling beyond our imagination.
In the fifth tale, "The Landscape of His Dreams, we meet a gifted artist, Franco Magnani, who from memory alone recreates his home town of Pontito, Italy through his paintings. He has a nearly photographic, three-dimensional memory, but because of a strange illness that befell him when he was thirty-one, he cares only to re-create his Pontito, not the people or events, but the houses, the masonry, the stones, and he does so continually with microscopic and affecting detail.
The chapter "Prodigies," focuses on an autistic artist, Stephen Wiltshire, whom Sacks is determined to befriend and understand. In this tale, and the concluding tale, "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks helps us to penetrate the world of the autistic and see it (at least in my interpretation) as an alternate view of reality, a view with its own strengths and weaknesses, a world that is just as true and valid as the "normal" one. Of course severe autism is debilitating in the extreme, and even modest autism can permanently scar and alienate the autistic from society. Yet, perhaps that is society's loss. I even got the sense, in reading these concluding stories about autism, that perhaps theirs is an evolutionary "strategy" trying to emerge, that is, a different way of seeing and dealing with the world that also might work. I would not be shocked to discover some day that the autistic, with their sometimes extraordinary gifts of memory and concentration, are melded more completely and seamlessly into our usual consciousness, and that humankind is the better for it. Incidentally, the last tale about Temple Grandin, who is a professor of animal studies at Colorado State University, is remarkable because it is about an autistic who is completely integrated into the society, yet remains autistic. She is the one who says she sometimes feels, because of her different perspective, like "an anthropologist on Mars" when she views "normal" people. Sacks allows us to see why.
Bottom line: this is an extraordinary book of insight and scholarship about the human condition, written with grace and a deep sense of humanity, not to be missed.
뇌신경 손상으로 인해 기이한 내면세계와 전혀 다른 삶의 방식을 갖게 된 일곱 명의 이야기가 담겨 있는 책. 세계적인 신경학자이자 뛰어난 글쟁이인 올리버 색스는 자신이 담당했던 환자들의 임상 사례를 소설처럼 흥미롭고 생생하게 전하고 있다.
어느 날 갑자기 색맹이 된 화가 I씨, 뇌종양으로 기억상실증에 걸린 그레그, 투렛증후군을 가진 외과의사 베넷, 50년 만에 앞을 보게 된 시각장애인 버질, 과거의 기억에 사로잡힌 화가 프랑코, 자폐성 천재 스티븐, 자폐인 동물학자 템플 그랜딘... 등 뇌신경질환에 걸린 환자들의 기묘하고 낯선 세계가 세세하게 펼쳐진다.
이 책에 소개된 뇌신경병 환자들은 일반인과 너무나 다른 일상 경험과 사고방식, 지능과 정서를 지녔다. 그것은 단지 그들이 앞을 볼 수 없거나 색을 구별할 수 없고, 강박증이 있거나 이상 행동을 하는 등 정상적인 생활을 할 수 없다는 부정적인 의미가 아니다. 오히려 그들에게는 일반인들이 갖지 못한 비범한 재능이 있고, 그것이 그들을 특별하게 만든다고 저자는 이야기하고 있다.
저자소개
올리버 색스의 소설에 가까운 독특한 병력 작성법은 인간의 의식과 두뇌기능을 탐구하는 가장 통찰력 있는 방식 중 하나로 평가받고 있다. 색스는 신경병 환자들의 병력을 작성하는 데 있어서 그들의 병리적 상태뿐 아니라 내면의 감춰진 부분까지 파고들어 질병의 습격으로 인해 달라진 인간의 존재 방식을 들여다본다. 전 세계 22개국에 번역 소개되고 영화화되기도 한 『소생』과 『아내를 모자로 착각한 남자』 『화성의 인류학자』는 이와 같은 방식으로 씌어진 뇌신경병 환자들의 독특한 초상화다.
평생을 독신으로 살아온 색스는 올해로 73세를 맞았다. 뉴욕 근교 시티 섬에 살면서 정원에는 양치식물을 키우고, 월요일이면 TV시리즈 <스타트랙>을 빠짐없이 챙겨보고, 수영을 광적으로 좋아하여 겨울철을 제외하고는 매일같이 롱아일랜드 해협으로 뛰어든다. 19세기 자연주의와 마티스의 그림, 바흐와 모차르트의 음악을 좋아하는 그는 음악회에 가서 무대를 등지고 앉아 연주음악을 배경 삼아 자신의 글을 쓰기도 하는 괴짜다. 그는 이러한 틀에 얽매이지 않은 천성 덕분에 자신이 돌보는 규범과는 거리가 먼 신경증 환자들과 일체감을 가질 수 있다고 믿는다.
1933년 영국에서 태어난 올리버 색스는 런던과 캘리포니아에서 공부하고, 뉴욕 알베르트 아인슈타인 의과대학 신경병 교수와 브롱크스 자치구 자선병원인 베스에이브러햄 병원의 신경과 전문의를 거쳐. 현재는 뉴욕대학교 의학대학 신경학과 부교수, 알베르트 아인슈타인 의과대학 신경학과 임상교수로 재직 중이다. 뉴욕에서 신경과 개업의로 활동하고 있다. 대표적인 저서로는 『아내를 모자로 착각한 남자』 『엉클 텅스텐』 『소생』 『편두통』 등 다수가 있다.
Customer Reviews
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These tales are paradoxical because "Defects, disorders, diseases" can bring out "latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life, that might never be seen or even be imaginable, in their absence." It is this "'creative' potential, that forms the central theme of this book" (from Sacks's Preface, page xvi).
The first tale, "The Case of the Colorblind Painter" is about a successful artist who worked in color all his life only to became colorblind at age sixty-five, and the effect this had on his life and work. The second, "The Last Hippie" is about an amnesiac man with a frontal lobe tumor that left him stranded in the sixties. Sacks tells this sad, pathetic story with vivid detail, and characteristically ends it with a footnote, a footnote of such warmth and genuine identification that we are moved to tears. (Don't skip the footnotes!)
The third tale, "A Surgeon's Life," is an amazing account of a Canadian surgeon with Tourette's syndrome. It is here that we begin to see the central theme of this book in brilliant illumination. Dr. Carl Bennett, riddled with the bizarre tics characteristic of the disorder, compulsions that cause him to throw things, to touch things again and again in a ritualistic manner, to flail, jump and jerk about, nonetheless became a very successful (and beloved) doctor of surgery. Sacks scrubs up with Dr. Bennett and goes into surgery with him, during which, miraculously, the tics disappear for however long it takes to complete the surgery. Sacks visits him at home and meets his wife and two children, sees the dents in the refrigerator and on the walls, and comes away with a sense of how astounding the human potential to overcome adversity can be.
The fourth tale, "To See and Not See," is about partially restored sight and how it was not a blessing. This sad story illustrates how sight is learned from infancy and is largely a constructive and interpretive function of the brain. This tale also lets us see how the world of the sightless can be rich and fulfilling beyond our imagination.
In the fifth tale, "The Landscape of His Dreams, we meet a gifted artist, Franco Magnani, who from memory alone recreates his home town of Pontito, Italy through his paintings. He has a nearly photographic, three-dimensional memory, but because of a strange illness that befell him when he was thirty-one, he cares only to re-create his Pontito, not the people or events, but the houses, the masonry, the stones, and he does so continually with microscopic and affecting detail.
The chapter "Prodigies," focuses on an autistic artist, Stephen Wiltshire, whom Sacks is determined to befriend and understand. In this tale, and the concluding tale, "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks helps us to penetrate the world of the autistic and see it (at least in my interpretation) as an alternate view of reality, a view with its own strengths and weaknesses, a world that is just as true and valid as the "normal" one. Of course severe autism is debilitating in the extreme, and even modest autism can permanently scar and alienate the autistic from society. Yet, perhaps that is society's loss. I even got the sense, in reading these concluding stories about autism, that perhaps theirs is an evolutionary "strategy" trying to emerge, that is, a different way of seeing and dealing with the world that also might work. I would not be shocked to discover some day that the autistic, with their sometimes extraordinary gifts of memory and concentration, are melded more completely and seamlessly into our usual consciousness, and that humankind is the better for it. Incidentally, the last tale about Temple Grandin, who is a professor of animal studies at Colorado State University, is remarkable because it is about an autistic who is completely integrated into the society, yet remains autistic. She is the one who says she sometimes feels, because of her different perspective, like "an anthropologist on Mars" when she views "normal" people. Sacks allows us to see why.
Bottom line: this is an extraordinary book of insight and scholarship about the human condition, written with grace and a deep sense of humanity, not to be missed.