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A review by muheb
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
5.0
[English / Arabic review]
الريفيو العربي بعد الريفيو الإنجليزي
" Is there any 'place' in the world for a man who is like an island, who cannot be accultured, made part of the main? Can 'the main' accommodate, make room for, the singular? "
That was the main inquiry of this insightful, compassionate, moving and Remarkable book .. the lucidity and power of a gifted writer.
A wonderful book … full of wonder, wonders and wondering. Sacks brings to these often unhappy people understanding, sympathy, and respect. Sacks is always learning from patients, marveling at them, widening his own understanding and ours.
Dr. Sacks treats each of his subjects with a deep respect for the unique individual living beneath the disorder.
These tales inspire awe and empathy, allowing the reader to enter the uncanny worlds of those with autism, Alzheimer’s, Tourette’s syndrome, and other unfathomable neurological conditions.
He shares his experiences with readers to dispel prejudice against people who are different because of their problems. One very important truth that Sacks tries to incorporate into his life and work is that one can respect others no matter what their limitations may be.
" animals get diseases, but only man falls radically into sickness " and this book is about weird conditions and the human reaction towards them, about the attempts at restitution and reconstruction of a world of complete chaos. This book is about this 'organized chaos'.
These case histories are about the individual and his history, about the person and the experiences he faces, and struggles, to survive his disease.
In the first case, Mr.P. and prosopagnosia, the man who mistook his wife for a hat, we see how he picks-up tiny features, but not the scene-as-a-whole, failing to see the whole and trapped in the details, and lost in a world of lifeless abstractions.
Luis Bunuel said : " You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all." and that what happened to the 'Lost Mariner', " what sort of a life (if any), what sort of a world, what sort of a self, can be preserved in a man who has lost the greater part of his memory and, with this, his past, and his moorings in time? " , he was stuck in a constantly changing, meaningless moment, imprisoned in his past. He haven't felt 'alive' for a very long time. His time suddenly stopped, and he lost his soul.
But the fact is " A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, and moral being .. Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely "
Proprioception is the way by which the body sees itself, and her body went blind, she was disembodied. " What life it is if you painfully forced to use your consciousness with every simple movement you attempt to do? " she replaced her natural posture and self-image with a second conscious nature, she even will grip the fork and knife with painful force.
Christina is condemned to live in an indescribable, unimaginable realm. She says about the 'old Christina' : " I can't identify with that graceful girl any more! She's gone, I can't remember her, I can't even imagine her. It's like something's being scooped right out of me, right at the center."
Nietzsche writes : " One can lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace, one nevertheless tells the truth ", and that exactly what the aphasics grasp in their 'second nature', after loosing any meaning to any word.
You read about a 'handless' woman , who turns into a sculpting artist, and a woman who completely lost her left half. You read about " the paradox of an illness which can present as wellness - as a wonderful feeling of health and well-being, and only later reveals its malignant potentials."
In the second part of the book, the excess, we read about the feverish energy and the morbid brilliance, about the deceptive euphoria with abysses beneath, about patients who are faced with disease as seduction, " for 'wellness', naturally, is no cause for complaint- people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill- not well. Unless, as George Eliot does, they have some intimation of 'wrongness', or danger, either through knowledge or association, or the very excess of excess."
Nietzsche says : " Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit " , and that what happened with the wild disease of Tourette, and that is how a person is 'reanimated' , as in Cupid's disease. Even the patient says about it : " I know it's an illness, but it's made me feel well. I've enjoyed it, I still enjoy it."
" We are in strange waters here, where all the usual considerations may be reversed- where illness may be wellness, and normality illness, where excitement may be either bondage or release, and where reality may lie in ebriety, not sobriety."
The world keeps disappearing, losing meaning, vanishing - and they must seek meaning, make meaning, in a desperate way, continually inventing, throwing bridges of meaning over abysses of meaningless, the chaos that yawns continually beneath them.
You read about people drowning in an ocean of sounds, about 'mental diplopia', about the possessed, this woman who, becoming everybody, lost her own self, became nobody. About the woman who took a back-home journey, and died after she 'arrived'.
And in the last part about the world of the simple, he tells us about people who are, though mentally defective in some ways, they may be mentally interesting, even mentally complete, in others. " We find ourselves entering a realm of fascination and paradox, all of which centers on the ambiguity of the 'concrete'."
" In medicine, understanding and collaborating are central, patients and physicians are coequals, on the same level, each learning from and helping the other , and between them arrive new insights and treatments."
===========================================
"لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ فِي أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ"
هذه الآية هي ما يتردد صداها بداخلك بعد قراءة هذا الكتاب
يا لروعة و جمال و عمق هذا الكتاب
أوليفر ساكس كتب كتابا بمنتهى العمق و الجمال و الرومانسية و الحب
ما الذي يمكن أن يحدث لو فقدت حياتك و أنت على قيد الحياة ؟
ما الذي يمكن أن يحدث لو أنك أصبحت بلا ماض و لا حاضر و لا مستقبل ؟
لو أنك أصبحت لا تدرك الصورة التي تراها ؟؟ حتى لو كانت صورة زوجتك ؟؟
لو أنك في عمر الستين و رددت حتى لا تعلم بعد علم شيئا ؟؟
جسدك في الستين من العمر, و توقف بك الزمن عند السادسة عشرة من العمر ؟؟
هل تخيلت أنك من الممكن أن تستيقظ من النوم ناظرا نحو قدمك جاهلا أنها تنتمي لجسدك و تصرخ طلبا لنجدة من يخلصك منها ؟؟
هل تخيلت أن من الممكن أن يجهل مخك تماما وجود نصف آخر أيسر لجسدك يماثل تماما النصف الأيسر ؟؟
ماذا لو تحول عالمك لمجموعة من الأصوات المستمرة التي لا تنقطع ؟ و ماذا لو انقطع فهمك لما تسمعه؟ او لما تراه ؟
ماذا لو أن مرضك تسبب لك في قدرة خارقة لم تكن موجودة من قبل , تخفي من ورائها سبب فنائك ؟
و ماذا عن بساطة عالم من نسميهم بالمتخلفين ذهنيا ؟ هل هم بالفعل متخلفين ؟ أم أن لهم عالما آخر خاص بهم ؟ و لغة أخرى ؟ و كيف هو شعورهم نحو العالم الجاهل من حولهم ؟
ماذا و ماذا و ماذا؟؟؟؟
كل هذه التساؤلات و أكثر لا يحاول أوليفر ساكس أن يتساءلها و يناقشها فلسفيا فقط , بل إنها مآس و معاناة لأناس حقيقيين مثلي و مثلك , تسبب عطب أحد أجزاء المخ في أن يسبب لهم هذه الأمراض, أو هذه اللعنات.
أوليفر ساكس يكتب و يصف مآسيهم و أحزانهم, و معاناة أرواحهم التي سلبت منهم بمرض لعين. دمر حياتهم, و أثر على حيوات من حولهم.
يصف كيف قد غير المرض حياتهم جذريا , و كيف شكلها , و كيف دمر مستقبل بعضهم.. و صنع مستقبل آخرين
يقول أوليفر ساكس : " الجميع يمرض, بما فيهم الحيوان, لكن الإنسان فقط هو من يعاني" و يقول نيتشة : " المعاناة الكبرى هي المحرر الأعظم للروح " و هذا الكتاب ليس عن المعاناة التي حررت الأرواح, بل التي قتلتها
هذا كتاب عظيم , و أجمل ما فعلته أنني لم أقرأه في ترجمته العربية, بل في لغته الأصلية, كانت لدي النسخة العربية لكنني من فرط شغفي بالكتاب و بموضوعه اشتريت النسخة الإنجليزية . و كان خير ما فعلت, فالترجمة العربية حين قارنتها في بعض الأجزاء وجدتها كأسوأ ما يكون. سلبت من الكتاب كل شيء, فلسفته و روحه و أسلوبه المتفرد
هذا الكتاب من أصعب الكتب التي كتبت مراجعة لها على الإطلاق.
نصيحتي لكل من سيقرأ الكتاب أن يقرأه في نسخته الإنجليزية
الريفيو العربي بعد الريفيو الإنجليزي
" Is there any 'place' in the world for a man who is like an island, who cannot be accultured, made part of the main? Can 'the main' accommodate, make room for, the singular? "
That was the main inquiry of this insightful, compassionate, moving and Remarkable book .. the lucidity and power of a gifted writer.
A wonderful book … full of wonder, wonders and wondering. Sacks brings to these often unhappy people understanding, sympathy, and respect. Sacks is always learning from patients, marveling at them, widening his own understanding and ours.
Dr. Sacks treats each of his subjects with a deep respect for the unique individual living beneath the disorder.
These tales inspire awe and empathy, allowing the reader to enter the uncanny worlds of those with autism, Alzheimer’s, Tourette’s syndrome, and other unfathomable neurological conditions.
He shares his experiences with readers to dispel prejudice against people who are different because of their problems. One very important truth that Sacks tries to incorporate into his life and work is that one can respect others no matter what their limitations may be.
" animals get diseases, but only man falls radically into sickness " and this book is about weird conditions and the human reaction towards them, about the attempts at restitution and reconstruction of a world of complete chaos. This book is about this 'organized chaos'.
These case histories are about the individual and his history, about the person and the experiences he faces, and struggles, to survive his disease.
In the first case, Mr.P. and prosopagnosia, the man who mistook his wife for a hat, we see how he picks-up tiny features, but not the scene-as-a-whole, failing to see the whole and trapped in the details, and lost in a world of lifeless abstractions.
Luis Bunuel said : " You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all." and that what happened to the 'Lost Mariner', " what sort of a life (if any), what sort of a world, what sort of a self, can be preserved in a man who has lost the greater part of his memory and, with this, his past, and his moorings in time? " , he was stuck in a constantly changing, meaningless moment, imprisoned in his past. He haven't felt 'alive' for a very long time. His time suddenly stopped, and he lost his soul.
But the fact is " A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, and moral being .. Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely "
Proprioception is the way by which the body sees itself, and her body went blind, she was disembodied. " What life it is if you painfully forced to use your consciousness with every simple movement you attempt to do? " she replaced her natural posture and self-image with a second conscious nature, she even will grip the fork and knife with painful force.
Christina is condemned to live in an indescribable, unimaginable realm. She says about the 'old Christina' : " I can't identify with that graceful girl any more! She's gone, I can't remember her, I can't even imagine her. It's like something's being scooped right out of me, right at the center."
Nietzsche writes : " One can lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace, one nevertheless tells the truth ", and that exactly what the aphasics grasp in their 'second nature', after loosing any meaning to any word.
You read about a 'handless' woman , who turns into a sculpting artist, and a woman who completely lost her left half. You read about " the paradox of an illness which can present as wellness - as a wonderful feeling of health and well-being, and only later reveals its malignant potentials."
In the second part of the book, the excess, we read about the feverish energy and the morbid brilliance, about the deceptive euphoria with abysses beneath, about patients who are faced with disease as seduction, " for 'wellness', naturally, is no cause for complaint- people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill- not well. Unless, as George Eliot does, they have some intimation of 'wrongness', or danger, either through knowledge or association, or the very excess of excess."
Nietzsche says : " Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit " , and that what happened with the wild disease of Tourette, and that is how a person is 'reanimated' , as in Cupid's disease. Even the patient says about it : " I know it's an illness, but it's made me feel well. I've enjoyed it, I still enjoy it."
" We are in strange waters here, where all the usual considerations may be reversed- where illness may be wellness, and normality illness, where excitement may be either bondage or release, and where reality may lie in ebriety, not sobriety."
The world keeps disappearing, losing meaning, vanishing - and they must seek meaning, make meaning, in a desperate way, continually inventing, throwing bridges of meaning over abysses of meaningless, the chaos that yawns continually beneath them.
You read about people drowning in an ocean of sounds, about 'mental diplopia', about the possessed, this woman who, becoming everybody, lost her own self, became nobody. About the woman who took a back-home journey, and died after she 'arrived'.
And in the last part about the world of the simple, he tells us about people who are, though mentally defective in some ways, they may be mentally interesting, even mentally complete, in others. " We find ourselves entering a realm of fascination and paradox, all of which centers on the ambiguity of the 'concrete'."
" In medicine, understanding and collaborating are central, patients and physicians are coequals, on the same level, each learning from and helping the other , and between them arrive new insights and treatments."
===========================================
"لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ فِي أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ"
هذه الآية هي ما يتردد صداها بداخلك بعد قراءة هذا الكتاب
يا لروعة و جمال و عمق هذا الكتاب
أوليفر ساكس كتب كتابا بمنتهى العمق و الجمال و الرومانسية و الحب
ما الذي يمكن أن يحدث لو فقدت حياتك و أنت على قيد الحياة ؟
ما الذي يمكن أن يحدث لو أنك أصبحت بلا ماض و لا حاضر و لا مستقبل ؟
لو أنك أصبحت لا تدرك الصورة التي تراها ؟؟ حتى لو كانت صورة زوجتك ؟؟
لو أنك في عمر الستين و رددت حتى لا تعلم بعد علم شيئا ؟؟
جسدك في الستين من العمر, و توقف بك الزمن عند السادسة عشرة من العمر ؟؟
هل تخيلت أنك من الممكن أن تستيقظ من النوم ناظرا نحو قدمك جاهلا أنها تنتمي لجسدك و تصرخ طلبا لنجدة من يخلصك منها ؟؟
هل تخيلت أن من الممكن أن يجهل مخك تماما وجود نصف آخر أيسر لجسدك يماثل تماما النصف الأيسر ؟؟
ماذا لو تحول عالمك لمجموعة من الأصوات المستمرة التي لا تنقطع ؟ و ماذا لو انقطع فهمك لما تسمعه؟ او لما تراه ؟
ماذا لو أن مرضك تسبب لك في قدرة خارقة لم تكن موجودة من قبل , تخفي من ورائها سبب فنائك ؟
و ماذا عن بساطة عالم من نسميهم بالمتخلفين ذهنيا ؟ هل هم بالفعل متخلفين ؟ أم أن لهم عالما آخر خاص بهم ؟ و لغة أخرى ؟ و كيف هو شعورهم نحو العالم الجاهل من حولهم ؟
ماذا و ماذا و ماذا؟؟؟؟
كل هذه التساؤلات و أكثر لا يحاول أوليفر ساكس أن يتساءلها و يناقشها فلسفيا فقط , بل إنها مآس و معاناة لأناس حقيقيين مثلي و مثلك , تسبب عطب أحد أجزاء المخ في أن يسبب لهم هذه الأمراض, أو هذه اللعنات.
أوليفر ساكس يكتب و يصف مآسيهم و أحزانهم, و معاناة أرواحهم التي سلبت منهم بمرض لعين. دمر حياتهم, و أثر على حيوات من حولهم.
يصف كيف قد غير المرض حياتهم جذريا , و كيف شكلها , و كيف دمر مستقبل بعضهم.. و صنع مستقبل آخرين
يقول أوليفر ساكس : " الجميع يمرض, بما فيهم الحيوان, لكن الإنسان فقط هو من يعاني" و يقول نيتشة : " المعاناة الكبرى هي المحرر الأعظم للروح " و هذا الكتاب ليس عن المعاناة التي حررت الأرواح, بل التي قتلتها
هذا كتاب عظيم , و أجمل ما فعلته أنني لم أقرأه في ترجمته العربية, بل في لغته الأصلية, كانت لدي النسخة العربية لكنني من فرط شغفي بالكتاب و بموضوعه اشتريت النسخة الإنجليزية . و كان خير ما فعلت, فالترجمة العربية حين قارنتها في بعض الأجزاء وجدتها كأسوأ ما يكون. سلبت من الكتاب كل شيء, فلسفته و روحه و أسلوبه المتفرد
هذا الكتاب من أصعب الكتب التي كتبت مراجعة لها على الإطلاق.
نصيحتي لكل من سيقرأ الكتاب أن يقرأه في نسخته الإنجليزية