The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

This is probably peak Oliver Sacks. And you need Oliver Sacks in your life. We lost a very special person when he died in 2015.

This book is Sacks's big-hearted portrayal of a bunch of neuro-atypical case studies, pulled from his experiences as a clinical neurologist working at a bunch of mental hospitals in NYC in the 70s and 80s. Like all of his books, he's a Romantic (big R) naturalist in love with the human mind, and his wide-ranging enthusiasm and respect for both the analytical and emotional/spiritual qualities of his work is always evident. His passion is contagious; his writing is often - dare I say it - divine.

Sacks wrote with enormous affection for the human spirit: I was regularly moved by each case, and not at all in a pitying way. He structures the book around the three (artificial?) categories doctors use for classifying neurological disorders: (1) having deficiencies (e.g. amnesia, agnosia (inability of recognizing things), aphasia (word salad)), (2) having too-much-nesses (e.g. Tourette's, other compulsive/tic behaviors), or (3) being “unintelligent”/mentally challenged. Each case study is both intrinsically fascinating (the titular “man who mistakes” things is amazing) and a moral lesson in how we often misjudge and miss a lot of the complexity behind seemingly intractable afflictions.

Sacks's introduction to the too-much-ness section was especially amazing; I loved hearing about the uneasiness we feel when things feel “too good” - i.e. when the human mind starts whirring too fast as we approach manic, hallucinatory experiences. And I loved Sacks's emphasis, early in the book, on covering maladies of the right hemisphere - since that's our big-R Romantic, mystical, hallucinatory side after all.

Anyway, Sacks is great. Highly recommended. Read his memoir next.