An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales Reviews

• 
  Always Pouting

  I've read about neurologist Oliver Sacks in other books but I'm pretty sure this was my first experience reading one of his books and I actually really enjoyed it. Sacks writes up narratives for patients he works with or people he meets with neurological conditions in a way that makes it much easier to step into the perspective of the person and gives them a story. I personally don't enjoy reading case studies in academia because they do tend to stay detached from the person being talked about and so I really liked Sacks more personal accounts of other people. I especially liked reading about Tourette's syndrome and the surgeon who has Tourette's syndrome because I didn't have as much familiarity with it. The other account I enjoyed was the one of the artist who becomes colorblind later in life and found the neurophysiology discussion of the situation really cool because I already had some knowledge of the visual pathways. At times he can seem to go on and on when writing and it can be tedious but I think the over all material was really interesting and I look forward to reading more of his work.
• 
  Manny

  This book contains an extended, very sympathetic case-study of Temple Grandin, the world's most famous autistic person. I read it when my older son, Jonathan, was diagnosed autistic at age about 10. Obviously, given that it took so long to figure out why he was odd, he isn't that much like Grandin, but the book did give me some important insights.
  
  If you're autistic, your fundamental problem is that you don't naturally understand how other people think and feel. Many women summarize this as "you're like a man, but more so". If you're strongly autistic, you have so little ability to relate to other people that you don't even pick up language skills. People who are mildly autistic learn to speak, but they almost always talk in a more or less unusual way. Their prosody is odd (they speak with flat or unnatural intonation), and they haven't picked up all of the subtle rules that govern correct use of language. As a linguist, I can pinpoint some of the things Jonathan does. For instance, he forms certain WH-questions that aren't permitted in standard English. He'll say, of someone he likes, "What do you think I'm doing to Sarah?", to which the intended answer is "I'm missing her". Try explaining just why this is wrong! More seriously, he has trouble understanding why things are not permitted by the rules of social interaction, which can get him into trouble.
  
  What's fascinating about Temple Grandin is that she's shown how an autistic person can to a large extent overcome their problems, consciously learning behaviors which most people acquire without ever even knowing they are doing it. She's become a well-known advocate for autistic people, and argues convincingly that they often have compensating skills which "normal" people lack. I agree with her; I know a lot of mathematicians, and, once you are familiar with the literature on autism, it's obvious that it's not uncommon in the world of mathematics. You see that the ability to shut out the world and focus intensely on an abstract problem can be a huge strength.
  
  Jonathan, who's now 23, has an incredibly retentive memory. He can give you minute descriptions of things that happened to him when he was three or four years old. But he hasn't figured out how to get his act together and use his abilities systematically, and it's not clear he ever will.
  
  
  
• 
  cathy

  In An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks seamlessly weaves fascinating patient stories and lessons in neurology for the layperson. This may sound quite dry if you're not into reading about bizarre behavior from brain circuitry goes awry, but Sacks makes the science very palatable. He acts as our well-traveled tour guide as we explore the everyday lives and thinking processes of seven people who have made creative use of their cognitive hiccups.
  
  Some of the patients featured in this collection of case studies have managed neurological differences from birth; others have had to re-program and mourn grave deficits due to freak events. Dr. Sacks explains the malleability and compensatory functions built into the brain when one portion becomes dim. Perhaps more importantly, he demonstrates via his subjects how the human spirit also adapts after sensory loss. His tale of a painter who was made colorblind after a car accident is an example of the latter: Sacks works through myriad possible explanations for this man’s newly colorless world; however, he is eventually left without a reason—or a cure. During this process, the artist manages to reform his creative identity; he comes to see his newly gray vision as "pure" and not “distracted by color”, so previously unseen forms begin to shape his noirish, multi-shadowed work.
  
  I read this book about 4 years ago and the story that has stayed with me is that of a surgeon with uncontrollable Tourette's. This man is unable to stop his violent tics and outbursts even for a few moments, but he is allowed a mysteriously zen-like reprieve when his hands (and quite possibly his mind) are steadied as he performs surgery. The story illustrates for me what I think is Sacks' message: People are not their pathologies, and talents and interests should always be encouraged, even in the face of what we sometimes misdiagnose as deficits.
  
  Neurology for Sacks is a vocation, not a career. He conducts his research and writing in a truly humanistic spirit, and what I most love about both is the compassion and respect he shows his patients; they are not treated as curious oddities or guinea pigs, as is the case in so many medical and psychological case studies. Throughout all his work Sacks maintains a sense of wonder about the people he treats. He demonstrates that people who seem detached from experience can have full lives, and in some cases, an inner life that is cognitively richer than that of "normal" folks ( i.e. those of us unhindered by neurological or physical challenges).
  
  The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat is considered essential Sacks, but for reasons stated--especially that surgeon--I much prefer this collection.
  
• 
  Ian

  At the beginning of this book, the late Oliver Sacks explains that he wrote part of it whilst his right arm was in plaster. He describes how the activity of writing with his left hand would have caused neurons in his brain to forge new pathways and make new connections to support this new task. He cites this example as a means of introducing the main theme of this book, which features seven individuals characterised by what most of us would view as a severe disability. In each case though, the brain had adapted to “create a new organisation and order…one that fits its altered disposition and needs.” Several of the individuals who feature in this book possess(ed) hidden talents that may not have existed without their “disability”, whilst others managed extraordinary adaptations to altered circumstances. Through their stories Dr Sacks challenges the concept of disability, and asks whether the individuals featured should be considered less as disabled and more as people with an unusual mode of being.
  
  Several of the stories feature artists, perhaps most notably the autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, known for his drawings of cityscapes and buildings. Another is about Franco Magnani, a “memory artist” known for his extraordinarily accurate paintings of his home village of Pontito in Tuscany, most of which were produced at a time when he had not visited Pontito for decades. I did wonder whether the paintings by Wiltshire and Magnani might be lifeless, but I looked up their work on the web and found them anything but. A third chapter features an unnamed artist who suddenly developed total colour blindness following a car accident that may have been combined with a stroke. This wasn’t the type of colour blindness that involves difficulty in distinguishing red and green, but an absolute inability to see any colours at all. The artist adapted to his new world and eventually made a virtue of the unique perspective he had.
  
  Another chapter featured Shirl Jennings, who became almost completely blind in infancy but who had his sight restored in late adulthood. He worked as a masseur and was at home in the world of touch, but after regaining his sight found the visual world very difficult to cope with. There’s another chapter about a surgeon with Tourette’s Syndrome. Dr Sacks is quite open in being initially surprised such a career was possible for someone with Tourette’s. Perhaps the saddest story was “The Last Hippie”, which featured a man with a brain tumour that resulted in him being unable to remember anything beyond the late 1960s. Despite Dr Sacks’ attempts to accentuate the positive, this story seemed a rather tragic case. It reminded me of “The Lost Mariner” which featured in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
  
  The final story in the book features the autistic savant Dr Temple Grandin. In the book she is presented as someone conscious of her difficulties with understanding language and human emotion, but also as someone who would not trade her savant abilities in order to become more like a “normal” person. Dr Sacks notes that only a small minority of autistic people possess savant-style abilities, although Dr Grandin is described as believing that most autistic people have them, even if undiscovered.
  
  The stories are fascinating in themselves, and Dr Sacks describes each individual with his usual respect. For me though, the best thing about this book was the insight it provided into the lives of those who may be considered “disabled” by society, but whose talents are, in many respects, more developed than the rest of us.
• 
  Sebastián

  Porque los diferentes son lo mejor del mundo 5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
  📚
  Este es mi primer libro sobre neurociencia y debo decir que me encantó. La forma en que Sacks ilustra las diferentes formas en que el cerebro llega a funcionar teniendo dificultades que a veces son inexplicables, es fascinante.
  🧠
  Este libro es una recopilación de 7 historias en las que la forma en que funciona el cerebro se ve transformada por un hecho o accidental o por un breve cambio en él al momento de nacer. Lo que me encantó fue la forma en que aprendí a querer a mi cerebro (muy como Lisa Simpson) amo a mi cerebro y la forma en que hace un montón de procesos que a veces son tan naturalizados que olvidamos la magia de ser como somos (en términos neuronales). Si lo pensamos detenidamente, cada uno de nosotros tiene milagros diariamente con su cuerpo y no lo notamos.
  🤓
  Aprendí a amar los colores, a disfrutarlos; también a querer la memoria y aprender que podemos tener momentos que se quedan para siempre en nuestra cabeza, pero que no lo hacen sin más sino que hay una razón para ello. Además, que el autismo es una condición muy compleja, que requiere de comprensión y entendimiento, pero también de paciencia y dedicación si tenemos personas o conocidos cercanos en esta "condición". También que, desde hace mucho tiempo, la idea de cambiar a los discapacitados y volverlos normales es horrible. No hay nada de malo en ser diferentes, en esa diversidad es que encontramos las diferentes maneras de comprender el mundo.
  🎨
  Estos aprendizajes están sobre todo apoyados en las voces de las personas presentes en cada caso. Era ver el mundo de otra manera. La forma en que un ciego conoce el mundo nunca me la hubiera imaginado, pero con estos relatos se llega a esa otra sensibilidad. A otra forma de ver el mundo retando nuestras maneras en la que lo comprendemos.
  🖌️
  Y es que en cada relato hay una enseñanza para aquellos que nos consideramos "normales". Así que, aquí va mi top de las 7 historias. Todas son excelentes, pero entre sí mismas, cada una se supera de maneras diferentes:
  
  1) Ver y no ver
  2) El último Hippie
  3) Un antropólogo en Marte
  4) El paisaje de los sueños
  5) Prodigios
  6) El caso del pintor ciego al color
  7) Vida de un cirujano
  ✅
  Lo mejor
  La forma en que Sacks ilustra los conceptos de cada caso sin la necesidad de ahondar en ellos de manera etimológica, sino contanto qué pasaba en ese momento en la historia. Apoyarse sobre todo en una narración cercana hace que la experiencia sea comprensible sin recurrir demasiado a Internet.
  ❎
  Lo no tan bueno
  En dos casos en particular (El Caso del Pintor Ciego al Color y Prodigios) se dejan varios conceptos libres y se da por sentado que el lector los conoce, esto es una falla menor ya que uno busca los referentes en Internet y listo, se explican sencillo; pero en estos dos casos en particular pesa por mostrarlos como algo que se sobre entiende sin necesidad de más.
  📹
  Para terminar quisiera recomendar este libro en dos tipos de personas. Uno es para aquellos que buscan un acercamiento a la neurociencia, ya que explica de manera muy clara todo lo relacionado con el funcionamiento del cerebro. Por otro lado, lo recomiendo para aquellos que quieren acercarse al tema de la discapacidad y lo que llamamos diversidad. Ayuda a comprender este concepto pero lo hace de manera respetuosa, aclarando que todo hace parte de una construcción social que tenemos "los normales" frente a ellos.
  📖
  Recomendaciones
  - Rain man (Película, 1988)
  - A simple vista (Película, 1999)
  - Temple Grandin (Película, 2010)
  - Neurópolis (Serie documental, 2021)
• 
  Quo

  Books by Dr. Oliver Sacks are not so easy to review or to recommend, at least not without knowing one's fellow reader fairly well. To suggest that the author's books deal in case studies of people with neurological deficits would not normally seem a very compelling inducement for a non-clinician to read them, except that Dr. Sacks makes these case studies and the people who manifest the conditions detailed within them seem very compelling indeed.
  
  
  
  Oliver Sacks writes in manner that makes his own natural curiosity & level of fascination with the people profiled most contagious for the general reader, definitely not an easy task. And as with most authors, the more one knows about them, the more this insight into their personality & background seems to enhance the reading of their work.
  
  Many of the case studies in An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales appeared in The New Yorker magazine but even if read previously, they continue to be of interest at 2nd reading, at least for me because the tales illustrate the amazing complexity and the incredible diversity of the human mind & sensory systems, as well as the ability to adapt in the face of adversity.
  
  In some of the profiles in this & other books by Dr. Sacks, the disorders are organic, while in other cases, they are a result of an accident or illness. I think what transforms the case studies or "paradoxical tales" for the casual reader is the author's always-hopeful attitude & the warmth of his personal involvement, seemingly never confined to a doctor/patient role but rather serving as a friend/advocate & a fellow-explorer of human consciousness in its many manifestations.
  
  
  
  I had the good fortune to meet Oliver Sacks when he spoke at a local university, later chatting with those on hand & autographing copies of this book. In person, Oliver resembles so very much the portrait of him by Robin Williams in the wonderful film adaptation of his book Awakenings, rather shy but yet warmly personal. Not long after this meeting, I also was able to meet Dr. Temple Grandin, the "Anthropologist on Mars" when she also spoke locally in support of her book Thinking in Pictures.
  
  My keen interest in books by Dr. Sacks very likely stems from the neurological tales not being full of clinical detail but rather always seeming to encapsulate the humanity of the individual behind the case studies. While they would hardly be considered "beach books", Sacks is a gifted writer, almost functioning as a translator & I would find his tales absorbing to read under almost any condition.
  
  
  
  To illustrate the extent of his reach, Sacks relates some of his findings to various syndromes that afflicted authors, artists & scientists such as Dostoevsky, Lewis Carroll, Poe, Newton, Strindberg, Paganini, Proust & Van Gogh, among others. As an example, he cites studies that attribute Tourette's Syndrome to Samuel Johnson & Mozart and autism to Bartok & Einstein. Meanwhile, manic-depressive illness seems to have been the lot of Robert Burns, Blake, Byron, the Brontës, Baudelaire, Boswell, Berlioz & others, just to make reference to some of the creative "B"s, as Sacks puts it.
  
  Temple Grandin's autism is extremely limiting in that she is unable to even comprehend "normal" emotional responses to events such as splendid sunsets or to feel a sense of physical kinship with others but this is somehow surmounted by her heightened empathy for animals, something that has aided her as a professor of Animal Science in designing a less threatening environment for cattle headed to slaughter and also to deal with her own needs by fabricating a squeeze machine, rather like a modified tanning bed to provide a sense of warmth & enveloping non-personal contact for herself.
  
  
  
  There is a color-blind painter, someone who as a result of an accident can only see the world in black & white but who continues to probe his creative depths by painting wonderful images without color, like filtering the world through an old black & white television screen. And a man afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, is rather astonishingly able to overcome the facial tics & uncontrolled gesticulations, only when functioning as a brain surgeon or piloting his own small aircraft.
  
  At the end of the filmed version of Awakenings, when the dormant or comatose patients, the result of an encephalitis outbreak ages ago & who have been under treatment by Dr. Sacks, relapse after a brief awakening, he doesn't lose hope and almost immediately launches a new phase of his attempt to cure them or at least to ameliorate their condition. There is a similar feeling in considering the 7 "paradoxical tales" in this book, a sense not of unrealistic optimism but rather of endeavoring to expand the horizons of human understanding about those whose conditions Dr. Sachs has so memorably embraced.
  
  *Within my review are 4 images of the late Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died August 30th, 2015 at age 82.
• 
  Paul Bryant

  Confession time ! I must admit - friends, judge not lest ye be judged - that I boohooed my way through the last part of Awakenings The Movie, with all those frozen people coming back to life and catching tennis balls and (spoiler alerts) then living life to the FULL for one brief shining moment, and doing the hoochy coochy, which is the only dance they could remember from the 1920s which is when they all froze up, and then Mr De Niro doing the herky jerk dance which was one of his own invention, and then reverting back to catatonia (the condition not the band) and to cap it all Robin Williams not asking out that hot nurse. I mean, boo hoo hoo! You had to have a heart made of the purest cabbage not to.
  
  Anyway, Oliver Sachs makes me queasy with a capital Q. He's peddling a modern freak show, in the politest possible way. As you probably know this book contains seven tales of psychological weirdness and it's all very further reaches of the human brain and yet the indomitable human spirit conquering all and isn't life wonderful. Feel-good autism with haemorrhages. I get the feeling someone calls up Dr Sachs and says "I found a good one for you, over in Montana, twin 70 year old sisters who all talk backwards and live in a house they made out of Herman's Hermits albums" and Dr Sachs is out of the door already, flagging down the nearest taxi, his laptop aquivering.
  
  It may be I'm being a trifle unfair here.
• 
  David Rubenstein

  This is a fascinating book about seven people with very special, mental conditions. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist, and he spent a lot of time with each of these people in their homes and in their environments. As a result, Sacks can go into great detail about each of the seven, and explains their histories, their mental conditions, and how they cope with their situations. He tells their stories with wonderful insight, and with empathy. The most interesting aspect is how Sacks, like a detective, tries to figure out what is going on in their brains.
  
  Each of the seven people is special, and different. One of them is an artist who had an accident, and as a result became completely color-blind! He had to learn how to cope with his new handicap, and continue being a very creative artist. This case is singular for two reasons; first, almost all people who are color-blind are born that way, and second, very few people are completely color-blind like this artist.
  
  Another chapter is about a blind man who undergoes eye operations and can suddenly see, for the first time since early childhood. Even though he regains his sight, he has trouble integrating what he sees into a coherent world-view. Absolutely fascinating!
  
  Yet another chapter is about a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome. He has numerous and bizarre tics and habits, which his family and his community has grown to accept. He also flies a plane! But when he is in surgery, or when he flies, his strange behavior is temporarily suspended and acts quite normally.
  
  Two of the chapters are about autistic people: Steve is a youth who has an amazing artistic talent. He is capable of taking in a scene in a few seconds, and later drawing it in detail. He also has a remarkable musical talent. The last chapter is the amazing story about
  Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and well-known author of books about autism and animal behavior. While Temple Grandin freely admits not being able to understand human behavior, emotions, and social cues and communications, she is able to articulate her mode of thinking and her outlook on life to a remarkable degree.
  
  I've read a number of books by Oliver Sacks--this one is my favorite!
• 
  Nandakishore Mridula

  This was my first introduction to Sacks, and the fascinating world of neural disorders. The colour-blind artist, the man who kept on painting the same place from memory, the man without long term memory, the autistic professor - I found all the tales absolutely rivetting.
• 
  David

  For some reason, the essays of Oliver Sacks don't rock my world. He's got the attention-grabbing title thing down pat, and each case study does have a kernel of interest. But generally, I'd be just as happy if each essay were cut by 50% - most chapters didn't really sustain my interest to the end.
  
  Full disclosure: my faint generalized lack of enthusiasm for Dr S may stem from nothing more than guilt by association with Robin Williams. I have never denied being shallow.
  
  If you're in the mood for fun medical case studies (yes, I mean *you*, "House" fans), I'd recommend Berton Roueche's "The Medical Detectives", culled from his "Annals of Medicine" pieces in The New Yorker, over this collection.
• 
  Yousif Al Zeera

  Matching the "7 Wonders of the Ancient World", this book delves into the "7 Wonders of the Human World". It expands the human capacity to better understand the strengths and capabilities of what we might consider a pathology.
  
  These real stories really move you and instill some much-needed optimism to whatever seemingly negative traits or deficiencies you might possess or carry that are considered abnormal compared to the traits enjoyed by the mass. Whether yourself, a family member or a friend is colorblind or autistic, suffer from a cerebral blindness or Tourette's or became one fine day amnesiac and wouldn't be able to recollect anything happening to you till the rest of your life; this book shows how humans are fine-tuned to "adapt" to such circumstances above our expectations.
• 
  Julio Bernad

  La premisa de esta colección de ensayos clínicos es tan interesante como estremecedora. Cómo el universo tangible que conocemos gracias al funcionamiento óptimo de nuestros sentidos puede cambiar radicalmente suprimiendo o dañando uno de éstos. El ser humano es un animal visual, por lo que su concepción del mundo que le rodea se forma en gran medida a partir de la visión, de la forma, la profundidad y el color; un pequeño cambio en cómo el aparato óptico recibe la luz, una interrupción en la información química del estimulo recibido a través del nervio, o una interpretación errónea del estimulo debido a una mala función del área cerebral específica puede hacer que el mundo que tan bien conocías se presente extraño, incomprensible y, lo que es más aterrador, de manera irreversible.
  
  Claro que aquí entra otra de las grandes virtudes del ser humano, una que le ha permitida sobrevivir a milenios de historia durante los cuales el habitante promedio solo sufría por las privaciones, la enfermedad, la guerra y la rutina de la supervivencia: la adaptabilidad y resilencia. Y es que, aunque todo tu mundo cambie, uno tiene que seguir viviendo, y lo hará en la medida en que sus nuevas facultades le permitan adaptarse a este nuevo universo extraño.
  
  Así, Oliver Sacks nos presenta a un pintor que, a raíz de un accidente de coche, pierde la capacidad de ver -y recordar- el color. Una ironía terrible: un hombre que ha dedicado cuarenta años de su vida a estudiar y mezclar pigmentos para extraer todos los sentimientos que la paleta cromática permite condenado a vivir el resto de sus días, y recordar todos los ya vividos, como si fuera una película en blanco y negro ensuciada por el granulado y el ruido. Esto último es lo más terrible, quizá, pues el pintor decía que el mundo que ahora veía en nada se parecía al de las elegantes películas del Hollywood clásico, sino que se le presentaba sucio, como si los tonos de gris se presentaran de manera arbitraria, incorrecta. Por suerte, gracias a la ayuda de profesionales -entre ellos, la del propio Oliver Sacks- pudo vivir con este defecto hasta convertirlo en nuevo arte. Y es cierto, pues los pocos artistas que puedan beneficiarse -luego de unas fases de duelo más o menos largas, más o menos traumáticas- pintaran cuadros como nadie capacitado para ver el color puede pintar.
  
  Hay otro caso en el que se involucra a otros dos pintores. El primero, un pintor emigrado de raíces italianas tan enamorado de su pueblo natal, Pontito, que puede pintar cada calle, cada casa y cada esquina como si la hubiera extraído directamente de sus recuerdos infantiles, sin cambio y sin mácula. En este caso se nos muestra un tipo de memoria fotográfica limitada a un lugar y a un espacio muy concreto; una memoria rayana en la obsesión, pues el desafortunado pintor no es capaz de sustraerse de este idilio rural, hasta el punto que solo puede pensar y hablar de Pontito. El segundo es algo menos anecdótico y mucho más mundano dentro de las muchas anomalías que pueden afectar al cerebro humano: los savants, autistas con sorprendentes aptitudes matemáticas, dotados para el dibujo, capaces de memorizar largas secuencias de números o cantidades obscenas de páginas. En este caso, este muchacho era capaz de dibujar de memoria cualquier edificio o paisaje urbano que observara una sola vez, no hacia falta ni que fuera detenidamente, convirtiéndose en una pequeña celebridad a la que llevaban de visita a varias ciudades del globo para que sorprendiera a los nativos con su portentosa memoria visual.
  
  Este caso se enlaza con varios más dedicados al espectro autista y al Asperger, en los que se enumeran y describen las características de ambos trastornos, métodos de diagnóstico, un poco de historia de la ciencia para descubrir cómo se diagnostico por primera vez, etc. Estos casos son bastante interesantes y didácticos en tanto que ofrecen información útil para entender un trastorno que afecta a un importante porcentaje de la población, y del cual el ciudadano de a pie sabe bastante poco. Indispensable para maestros y profesores. El problema que le veo, además de ser excesivamente prolijo, es que este libro tiene ya 40 años, y estoy seguro que los métodos diagnósticos y las formas de estimulación a los niños afectados han debido de evolucionar mucho. Pero ese es el problema inherente a cualquier libro de divulgación científica: la ciencia avanza, y todo conocimiento, en mayor o menor medida, tiene fecha de caducidad.
  
  Hay más casos clínicos, como el que habla de un cirujano con síndrome de Tourette, que es simpático y permite conocer cómo funciona la mente de una persona afectada por tics incontrolables y qué pulsiones les obligan a manifestarlos. Este caso es de los más aburridos, por desgracia, aunque es indispensable para desmitificar este síndrome, retratado de maneras infames en comedias como Toc Toc, que los muestran más como fenómenos de feria controlados por los tics más exagerados y escatológicos. Leyendo este caso descubres que muchos de estos tics son inusuales, pero para nada son explosivas sartas de insultos, o por lo menos no son solo explosivas sartas de insultos.
  
  Me dejo el mejor, y más terrorífico, para el final, el caso del último hippy, un muchacho que debido a un tumor cerebral que le devoro gran parte del cerebro quedo encerrado en si mismo, privado por completo de la capacidad de generar nuevos recuerdos y viviendo, eternamente, en los últimos años de la década de los sesenta, rememorando una y otra vez sus canciones favoritas de Grateful Dead, sus escarceos amorosos y su búsqueda espiritual. Un caso que ejemplifica el triste desenlace del movimiento hippy, destruido por la implacable realidad, consumido por las drogas y presa de cualquier secta de gurúes espirituales. La pena de este caso es que, si alguien se hubiera molestado en ayudar a este pobre chaval enfermo, en vez de convertirlo en un idiota iluminado en busca de la gracia hare krisna, los daños cerebrales podrían haberse limitado y este muchacho podría haber vivido una vida más plena. Para cuando consiguieron diagnosticarle porque había perdido la visión, ya fue demasiado tarde. Oliver Sacks conoció y trato a este hippy durante varios años en los que paso internado en el hospital, donde vivió el mismo día, hasta su muerte. Ni siquiera la noticia de la muerte de su padre pudo dejar una impresión visible permanente. Todo nuevo recuerdo se desvanecía. Pero lo más triste de todo es que este hombre, amable, simpático y cariñoso para con todos, personal del hospital e internos, sentía como algo dentro de él estaba mal, que su identidad estaba congelada del tiempo y que había sensaciones de tristeza inexplicables que, a veces, le asaltaban, para inmediatamente desaparecer, dejando solo un eco desagradable. Lo peor no es que este hombre viviera en una cárcel mental: es que lo sabía.
  
  Hay varias personas muy críticas con Oliver Sacks, con el neurólogo y el escritor. Algunos compañeros de profesión decían de él que era mejor escritor que científico. Nada puedo añadir a esto, pues solo conozco la obra divulgativa de Sacks, salvo que esa misma crítica se le hizo a Carl Sagan o a Stephen Jay Gould; de este último Richard Dawkins -que ni a nivel científico ni literario le llega a la suela de los zapatos- llegaría a señalar que su "genio para malinterpretar las cosas era equiparable a la elocuencia con que lo hacía". Dawkins nunca le perdonó su crítica a su teoría del gen egoísta. Con esto quiero decir que los científicos, mejor dicho, algunos científicos, son tan celosos de su trabajo que ven como una especie de traición que alguien del gremio transcriba los arcanos con que se construye la ciencia a un lenguaje apto para profanos. Es una crítica habitual a la que, sinceramente, está superada, pues gracias a estos pioneros muchas disciplinas son a día de hoy más accesibles que nunca, y son muchos los científicos actuales que también son divulgadores. Otras críticas, estas mucho más viscerales y, me atrevería a decir, injustas, pintan a Oliver Sacks como un P.T. Barnum para intelectuales, un dueño de un espectáculo circense de monstruos disfrazado de ensayos clínicos. Este retrato puede verse en Los Tenenbaums, donde Wes Anderson le da unos cuantos pellizcos de monja al neurólogo ingles. Estas críticas vienen tanto de científicos como de activistas por los derechos de las personas discapacitadas, aunque me consta que los segundos son los más duros, como no podía ser de otra forma. Como siempre, es fácil verter bilis desde la comodidad del siglo XXI, cuando la mayor parte de los derechos por los que se luchan ya los ganaron otros -en que grado se apliquen ya es otra historia-; lo difícil es que alguien hablara de enfermedades mentales y discapacidades en los años 70, y que, además, lo hiciera con humanidad, empatía y cariño, presentando a personas con nombres y apellidos y no a sujetos numéricos en una tabla Excel. Toda crítica es legítima y necesaria: ayudan a enriquecer las opiniones y las ideas. Pero cuando estas críticas se hacen con intereses por detrás y con descalificaciones personales son tan legítimas como sospechosas, y es importante señalar esto último.
  
  Bueno, esto se ha quedado un poco largo, así que lo dejo por aquí. Si os interesa la psicología y la neurología, los casos clínicos de Oliver Sacks siempre son recomendables. Es cierto que muchos están ya desfasados, pero a día de hoy siguen siendo muy disfrutables por la calidad humana con que están escritos. Eso sí, os recomiendo empezar con El hombre que confundió a su mujer con un sombrero: los casos que en ese libro se describen me parecen más interesantes.
  
  
  
• 
  Mehrsa

  Such a fascinating and illuminating book. I've followed Sacks' work for a while so none of these stories were new, but the book is so well written and the analysis is brilliant. I loved the first and last stories the best--the story of color and the last of autism. Sachs probes into the meaning of life, the nature of humanity, friendship, love, art, and intelligence by looking at neurological dysfunction. Such wonderful insights.
  
• 
  Jesse

  The stories were interesting and informative, but not my taste.
  
  I wouldn't recommend it.
• 
  James Klagge

  This is a paradigm of a good Oliver Sacks book--several essays allowing him to move from topic to topic, occasionally returning to earlier topics, not calling for any grand theory, but noting similarities and differences. He treated autism in several places.
  But the most interesting essay to me was the 4th one: "To See and Not to See." Here he studies a man who is essentially given sight in adulthood after a cataract operation. The man did not have a great desire for this operation, but his fiancee did--who was excited by the expanded life this man would have. However, the story is a tragedy more than anything else. He never gets very good at seeing, mostly regresses/retreats into blindness, and soon dies. What is impressive about the story is how you come to sympathize with the man. While Sacks never mentions the parallel, it sounds much like Plato's Parable of the Cave, and gives me new insight into the attitude of the chained prisoners who don't want to be freed or taken from the cave. The man had developed a complete world--not a world in which something was missing. So when a new dimension was opened up, there was no obvious place for it to go. Rather as though someone offered to give you an additional sense--wouldn't you want it? But the problem is how to incorporate it into the complete world that you already inhabit. This gave me an understanding of people who insist that blindness or deafness are not "disabilities." While there are certain (of our) abilities that such people lack, they are compensated for by the enhancement of other abilities (probably to a degree that we lack). And I can see why such people do not want to be considered disabled or handicapped.
  The story also made clear how sight is an achievement, not simply a window on the world, that is developed over many months, if not years, and developed at a time in brain development when space for it is provided. When that space is not used at the appropriate time, it doubtless gets devoted to other things (and so the enhanced senses that we others lack).
  Oliver Sacks died 3 months ago today, and he is and will be sorely missed. I hope to learn of other humanistic scientists, or scientists who are storytellers. But he was a great one. Thanks. RIP.
• 
  Caitlin Constantine

  The theme of this book can be summed up in one single idea, about the plasticity of the human brain, and the way the deficit of disability can be turned into the benefit of compensation. Isn't that such a cool thought? What seems like a disability may ultimately end up a gift.
  
  That's what this whole book is about. Sacks is a neurologist with a bit of Sherlock Holmes mixed in, and he finds himself drawn to some of the most inexplicable cases, like a painter who goes completely colorblind after a concussion, a young boy with autism who also happens to be an extremely gifted visual artist. (I was very compelled by the story of the man, blind since childhood, who gets his sight back and finds himself profoundly disturbed by the experience, although I also loved reading about his time with Temple Grandin.) He is a writer of enormous sensitivity, and you never get the sense that he has dehumanized his subjects. Rather, what makes his writing so remarkable is his tremendous respect for everyone he writes about, even if they sometimes annoy him (as with one man, who obsessively paints his memories of the ruined Sicilian village in which he was born.)
  
  But Sacks isn't content to just stay on the surface, to just write out case histories of these people. He delves into theory and literature on subjects that, well, I can't speak for anyone else, but subjects that I take for granted, things like color, emotion, memory and perspective. Things that enrich our lives tremendously, but are also such an integral part of our existences that it can be impossible to imagine life without them. I suppose it makes sense that a book about brains would be so thought-provoking, not just because, hey, it's about brains, but because our brains are the centers of our existence, the way we perceive everything that is going on within and without.
  
  I came away from this book with a new appreciation, not just for my own mind, but also for the myriad ways in which people grow and develop, and for all of the strange and beautiful gifts such differences bestow upon us.
  
  Recommended for anyone with an interest in....well, actually, recommended for anyone.
• 
  Siobhan

  An Anthropologist on Mars is one of those books that has been mentioned countless times across my academic career, with lectures and students alike constantly referencing it. It took me a long time to work around to it, but I can finally say I’ve given it a read.
  
  For me, An Anthropologist on Mars was an interesting read. Considering how much people had enjoyed it, though, I had expected a little bit more. It covered seven interesting cases, allowing me to better understand the specific cases mentioned rather than simply having the knowledge of someone who had glossed over the cases during studying. I’d expected to be more engaged, I’d expected to be pulled right into the cases, yet I found it wasn’t as engaging as other academic reads have been.
  
  Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable; it simply felt harder to get through than it should have.
• 
  Claudia Turner

  This is the kind of book you wish you had read with others merely because it has revelations and insights everyone should have and you want everyone to have them with you.
  
  Some parts feel like anthropological Notes, others medical, others like the intimate impressions in a poetic diary, and you’re not sure as a reader if you’ve just experienced a new revelation or something that you understood all along.
  
  Oliver Sacks is one of a kind. I miss him greatly.
  
• 
  Jarrah

  An Anthropologist on Mars is an engaging collection of seven neurological case studies that illustrate a supposed paradox - that what is perceived as disability or neurological deficit can result in amazing adaptations that make it a kind of gift. For example, a painter sustains a brain injury that makes him unable to see colour, and after a period of initial depression and disorientation, begins to appreciate his new way of seeing, and to reproduce it in black and white art.
  
  The most famous case outlined in this book is of Temple Grandin, the renowned animal scientist and autism spokesperson. But the case I found most compelling was that of Virgil, a man in his fifties blind since childhood, who regains vision through surgery and finds his entire identity and way of life destabilized.
  
  Sacks weaves together his subjects' case histories and stories of his visits with excerpts from medical, scientific, historical, psychoanalytic and classic literature. At times it gets a little bogged down in the history of research of a particular condition, but overall it remains accessible.
  
  I don't doubt Sacks' good intentions towards his subjects - his goal was clearly to get a "normal" audience to understand his subjects' experiences and think about them as more than their disability or condition. In a few cases it's clear Sacks provided some useful treatment and advice to the people he writes about - such as the colourblind artist he studies or Greg, "the last hippie" - a man whose brain tumour dramatically affected his memory, personality and sense of time.
  
  However, there were moments that gave me pause from an ethical perspective. Ultimately he is profiting off stories of people who, in some cases, can't fully consent to this or appreciate his words (Greg being the best example). This becomes especially problematic when he uses his expert status to override their voices. For example he describes some subjects somewhat condescendingly (e.g. his references to Virgil's weight and ill health) and questions the wisdom of friends and families who actually observe the subjects on a more regular basis (e.g. questioning Margaret's faith that Stephen Wiltshire experiences emotions).
  
  While these may all be fair medical observations, I would have been interested to know more about conversations Sacks would have had with the subjects and their advocates before publishing their stories.
• 
  Cindy

  Fascinating reading of seven case histories of people with neurological disorders including Temple Grandin who is autistic and the author of Emergence, Labeled Autistic which I read several years ago and loved.
  
  The case of the colorblind painter and to see and not to see were very interesting to me. People who had long term blindness, upon having sight restored have no visual memories to support a perception of what they are seeing. They cannot understand size or distance. Someone living their whole life in a dense rainforest who is brought out to a wide empty plain, may reach out to touch the mountaintops with their hands; no concept of how far away they are.
  
  A man cannot recognize his dog as being the same animal when it turns in different angles. He can sometimes see an eye, the ear, or nose, but cannot see them together as a whole.
  
  Also: the blind live in time, not space. Space is reduced to one's own body when blind. The position of the body is known not by what objects have been passed, but by how long it has been in motion. For the blind, people are not there unless they speak. People are in motion, they are temporal, they come and they go. They come out of nothing; they disappear.
• 
  Danilo Weiner

  Não conhecia o Oliver Sacks, então essa foi minha primeira empreitada em sua obra (conversando com amigos, fiquei surpreso com as menções a outros livros e projetos dele). Apesar do título do livro ter sido emprestado de uma frase dita por uma paciente retratada no último capítulo (uma PHD com quadro de autismo), ele pode se aplicar a mensagem geral do livro.
  
  Para entendermos doenças como autismo, tourette, demência, entre outras, pacientes em geral não podem ser diagnosticados / cuidados no âmbito exclusivo de um consultório / quarto de um hospital. Os mecanismos dessas doenças são muito mais complexos que as respostas fisiológicas do corpo, das reações identificadas pelo corpo de enfermaria ou qualquer outro protocolo médico tradicional.
  
  É preciso sair em campo, viver a vida do paciente, entender os momentos de sua rotina onde a doença se manifesta mais ou menos e como são essas reações. Em suma, é preciso ser um antropólogo e ampliar a relação paciente-médico para outras frentes.
  
  O livro é bacana, tem boas histórias, mas as vezes entra fundo em alguns jargões médicos e, certamente, tem problemas de tradução (a palavra retardado me incomodou um pouco). Talvez outros livros do autor sejam mais universais...
• 
  Charlene

  Oliver sacks provides entertaining and informative stories of people living with various brain abnormalities. In this book, sacks focused on abnormalities that often compelled the individual to record their environment in extreme ways. For example, Sacks suggest maybe we are all hardwired for recording history, since our only tools for millions of years were our brains and voices, and we handed down an oral history of human existence, throughout the generations. However, in some individuals, the areas responsible for this are overly active, and often the other parts of the brain are under-active. This results in echolalia, a perfect recording of the environment that can be reproduced over and over, a perfect memory that can produce drawings of whole cities-- even years after the artist saw it, a replication of various sounds-- such as instruments, an obsession on preserving the past-- as with someone stuck in the past and unable to live in the present day.
  
  Sacks also gives a wonderful account of his interviews and examinations of Temple Grandin. Instead of seeing her brain as defective, Sacks truly wants to understand how she might simply think differently. Even when Grandin herself views her brain as defective, it is clear Sacks is more interested in understanding the way her brain works than he is in judging if it's defective or not.
  
  Sacks is an excellent writer. The pages flew by and in no time, the book was sadly over. I love him so much; time to start a new Sacks book.
• 
  Liliana Boada

  Este es el recopilatorio de siete casos clínicos del neurólogo Oliver Sacks, en los cuales nos permite conocer la vida de algunos de sus pacientes con distintos transtornos neurológicos y como se va desarrollando su vida cotidiana y la de sus allegados, así como el análisis de cada uno de los casos y la conclusión de los mismos.
  
  El primer relato corresponde a un ciego del color, el segundo a un paciente con amnesia lobular, el tercero a un cirujano con el síndrome de Tourette, el cuarto corresponde a un ciego que luego puede ver, el quinto a un pintor con una memoria fotográfica de su pueblo natal, el sexto de un artista con autismo y el séptimo de una joven con el síndrome de Asperger.
  
  Algunos de estos relatos tienen variso términos científicos algp complicados pero la narración de Sacks facilita basyante el lenguaje de cada uno de sus casos de estudio.
  
  Los relatos que más me gustaron fueron:
  
  ☆ Ver y no ver
  ☆ Prodigios
  ☆ Un antropólogo en marte
  
  Estos relatos me hicieron pensar mucho sobre estas personas, los transtornos neurológicos y sobre mis comportamientos ante determinadas situaciones y como reaccionaría en otras respectivamente.
  
  Me gustó mucho este ensayo científico y aunque al principio me costó seguirle el hilo, fue muy interesante y me permitió aprender bastante sobre algunos casos neurológicos y sobre los comportamoentos humanos y la identidad propia de cada persona, lo recomendaría ampliamente.
• 
  جودي تكريتي

  يسرد لنا المؤلف و طبيب الأعصاب أوليفر ساكس قصصاً لبعض مرضاه الذين طوروا قدرات مختلفة ليتأقلموا مع أمراضهم العصبية.
  
  يبدأ برسام يصاب بحالة عمى ألوان كلي و يحاول من خلالها تغيير أسلوبه بالرسم. كما يتطرق لصبيّ هيبيّ يصاب بحالة من فقدان الذاكرة تجعله يبدو أكثر حكمة. بعدها يذكر حالة طبيب جرّاح مصاب بمتلازمة توريت. كما يذكر حالة شخص يصبح مبصراً و يواجه مشكلات أكثر من قبل. ثم يروي حالة رسام مصاب بمتلازمة تجعله يبدو و كأنه يستلهم لوحاته بالوحي. و في نهاية الكتاب يتطرق لعدد من حالات التوحد عالية الأداء.
  
  أسلوب السرد سهل التتبع و مسلي، فالمؤلف يزور الأشخاص في منازلهم و يصطحبونه في حياتهم اليومية و هو ينقل هذه الزيارة بكل تفاصيلها مع ماضيهم الطبي. أحببت الإضافة العلمية و الطبية و الفلسفية، و أحببت إضافته للتفاصيل الأكثر طبيّة و للقصص المشابهة ضمن الحاشية.
  
  استمتعت بالقراءة و استطعت فهم و تقمص حالة الأشخاص أكثر. الكتاب خفيف نسبياً و يمكن قرائته قبل النوم. متحمسة لقراءة كتاب (نزعة إلى الموسيقى) لنفس المؤلف.
  
  علقت في ذهني فقرة كان يتسائل فيها إن كنا سنعتبر اللوحات المذهلة و التفصيلية للطفل المصاب بالتوحد فناً إن كان لربما لا يعبر عن مشاعره و ذاته من خلالها.
• 
  Emily

  Didn’t finish. Some interesting case studies and I learned about some cool things- color perception, motion perception, etc.- but the chapters about autism and Tourette’s in particular were pretty upsetting. Really dehumanizing and ableist language and viewpoints. Not anything that would be acceptable today. It took me a minute to remember that I don’t owe it to anyone to finish this book just because it’s a product of its time, and I should learn about the history of healthcare or health knowledge. Nope. It made me uncomfortable and I don’t have to read it. Full stop. No one who wants to show any respect for neurodivergent people should read this book with anything less than a handful of salt and criticism, if you must read it at all.
  
  Also reminder to support the Autism Self Advocacy Network and not Autism Speaks!
• 
  Will Ansbacher

  After a couple of Sacks’s books that were a little disappointing, this is one that I really enjoyed and was totally absorbed in. Perhaps because there are only a few (seven) stories, rather than the reams of case notes that Sacks normally uses to illustrate anything, and they are fleshed out enough so that you do actually care about the subjects. They are all obsessive in one way or another – an artist who only draws perfectly remembered scenes from his childhood village, a surgeon with Tourette’s Syndrome. I must be the only person who had never heard of Temple Grandin; that was a fascinating interview, but in fact the other characters grabbed me more.
• 
  Jess

  Whoa. What a journey. This book makes my heart goes ugh, makes me in awe, and ultimately makes me realize how vast our world is. My favorite ones would be The Last Hippie. This book makes me realize, that so many out there who are suffering, who are blessed, and who can use their weakness as their advantages towards their passion and dream. It teaches me that, even if straught by bad luck, humans will be able to seek its positivity out of them
  This book is magical. And it makes you notice how precious our given life is.
  Easily 5 out of 5.
• 
  Odgerel

  Through this book i obtained a much deeper understanding of peculiarity and perks of neuroligcal conditions. I had previous knowledge about those conditions, yet i learned lots of new details and interesting aspects that never occured to my mind. I am forever thankful to have discovered Oliver Sacks, who through his books made me aware of my ignorance, opening my eyes wider to the variety of struggles, journeys people go through...
• 
  Josh Friedlander

  Sacks is a humanist, holding a quill along with his scalpel, and honestly befriending his patients. It's amazing how little we know about the mind. Rather than looking for a solution to their ailments, the author seems to just get to know them, see the world as they do, and set it out journalistically. The result is captivating and moving.
• 
  Sarah Al Qassimi

  I finished it.
  
  I didn't want to finish it.
  
  It was an accident, I swear.