Rating: 
Summary: Disapointing and long winded
Review: " A Leg to Stand On" by Oliver Sacks [ ISBN 0-684-85395-7]Disapointing and long winded. Doctor Oliver Sacks is well known for his informative and fascination explorations of the profoundly odd ways the human brain can go wrong and the stories of the people so afflicted. "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and "An Anthropologist on Mars" are interesting and worth the time to read because of the insight they give into the little understood field of neurology. Unfortunately when Dr. Sacks tries to tell the story of his own injury, he totally fails to bring much expertise or insight to the story. Dr. Sacks tears a tendon in his leg while hiking alone in the mountains of Norway and the book is, ostensibly, the story of his lone decent from the mountain and his subsequent treatment. I expected a narrative about the treatment and recovery from a serious injury told from the point of view of an experienced physician. Sadly Dr. Sacks brings no special insight to the situation and merely recounts his concerns and impressions during this process. You might think his training and knowledge would allay most fears after he is delivered to the hospital but they only seem to get worse. The descriptions and narrative lack focus or discernible direction. In the "Acknowledgments" section he thanks his editors (six of them) for dealing with the original manuscript of 300,000 words. With six editors cutting and pasting from a bushel of manuscript, it is no surprise the final work seems to have been written by a committee because it WAS. The section dealing with Sacks' decent from the mountain has a few good moments but the rest could have easily bin reduced to a chapter in one of his other books. I think this book was a bit of indulgence on the part of a publisher towards an author that has done well in the past.
Rating: 
Summary: Seeing the Subtle
Review: Anyone who doesn't appreciate this book just doesn't "get it." This is a brilliant look at awareness and the interconnectedness of body and mind. Perhaps Sacks' best book. There is no other writer of neuroscience topics who so grasps all that goes into consciousness as does Oliver Sacks. He has a genius of seeing. And what a writer! How I would love to meet him.
Rating:
Summary: Seeing the Subtle
Review: Anyone who doesn't appreciate this book just doesn't "get it." This is a brilliant look at awareness and the interconnectedness of body and mind. Perhaps Sacks' best book. There is no other writer of neuroscience topics who so grasps all that goes into consciousness as does Oliver Sacks. He has a genius of seeing. And what a writer! How I would love to meet him.
Rating:
Summary: Quietly revolutionary
Review: I must disagree with the reviewer who says Sacks is better when not writing about himself. His whole point in this book, it seems to me, is that we must speak from the "I" (the present consciousness) if we are to understand what he calls a neurology of the self. I think Sacks is one of the best writers working--he embodies the ideal of combining the humanities and the sciences in his eloquent, incisive prose. I found this book quietly revolutionary in its attempt to write a new kind of narrative of the self. I read it in 24 hours and could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Quietly revolutionary
Review: I must disagree with the reviewer who says Sacks is better when not writing about himself. His whole point in this book, it seems to me, is that we must speak from the "I" (the present consciousness) if we are to understand what he calls a neurology of the self. I think Sacks is one of the best writers working--he embodies the ideal of combining the humanities and the sciences in his eloquent, incisive prose. I found this book quietly revolutionary in its attempt to write a new kind of narrative of the self. I read it in 24 hours and could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Journey of Healing.
Review: I should stress from the start that this book is extremely well written. It requires a special talent to combine scientific, clinical prose with personal, emotional and philosophical insight. This book is remarkable on many counts, but its value lies in Sacks' honesty, uninhibited rendering of the personal, by and while incorporating his desire to see his profession, neurology and psycho neurology, evolve from a largely 'veterinary business", the dualistic approach to the mind as 'mental' or 'physical', to a science combining both approaches, in what he would like to call the "neurology of identity". In his terms, he would like to see neurology take "a great jump - to jump from the mechanical model, the "classical" model, it has espoused for so long, to a totally personal, self-referential model of the brain and mind". (p.189) This text eloquently strives in this direction. In the early seventies, Sacks experienced a hiking accident that severely damaged his left leg. This near death experience (he was stranded alone on a mountain miles away from civilization) began a journey of a profound personal nature, existential, professional, philosophical, spiritual and physical, which changed his views about many things. The first chapter, 'The Mountain', has all the suspense and narrative style of a well-written thriller. To a large extent, in the next chapter, "Becoming a Patient", has all the hallmarks of the familiar insensitive doctor as mere technician, evolving a more empathetic view of the patient, developing that essential 'bedside manner' that can be so lacking, though essential, in the medical profession. Sacks describes his thoughts and feelings as a patient, having to relate his condition and feelings to his carer's, and the utter dread, loneliness, frustration, and alienation that comes with becoming ill and having to be institutionalized as a result. Anyone who has been ill and hospitalized will relate to this chapter. The essential aspects of the text are the medical insights Sacks' gained as a result of his damaged leg. He experienced first-hand the phenomenon of intense loss of 'body-image', that is the damaged leg became entirely 'alienated' from his primary consciousness. This is more than just forgetting how to use one's leg after damage, but an actual vanishing of awareness of the limb itself. In his terms, a total collapse of memory/identity/space, "...an abyss or hole: a hole in memory/identity/space" of the limb. He goes on to write, "A Leg to Stand On is not just a story of a leg, but an account, from inside, of what primary consciousness is like; an account such as the experience of alienation..." (P.187) This book is a splendid tale about the journey of healing. As all great philosophical writing does, it asks us to question ourselves, question our environment and attempt to see what has been right before our eyes from the beginning. It also affirms that human experience is a community affair, that we all share these experiences and can ultimately learn from them.
Rating: 
Summary: Sacks is at his best when he writes about others
Review: I slogged through this one twice, reading it once 6 years ago and again recently. It was my introduction to Sacks when I read it originally. I think that what annoyed me most is that Dr. Sacks here seems so self-absorbed and pretentious that it distracted from his story - which is pretty fascinating in the abstract. You know I love Goethe, Nietzsche, Proust et al. too, but it just seems sophomoric and self-indulgent to dredge them up at every opportunity. I've read his other books in the meantime, and this one still is my least favorite. I think that he's at his best in An Anthropologist on Mars, Awakenings or Island of the Colorblind, when he's writing (primarily) about others. If you're looking for a good starting point to read Dr. Sacks wonderful stuff - pass this one up. If you've read the rest and still need more, look elsewhere. In a perfect world this would have remained in Sacks' personal manuscripts and never seen the light of day.
Rating:
Summary: A neurological short story of disembodiment
Review: In this the most personal of all his books, neurologist Oliver Sacks tells the story of an injury he sustained while climbing a mountain in Norway and the terrifying, bizarre aftermath when he realized with horror that his leg felt alienated. It did not feel like it was part of his body, but a foreign object somehow attached to him. This sort of disembodiment, with alterations in the mind-body image that affected Sacks deeply, was as confusing as it was frightening. When he finally recovered, he experienced unbounded joy and a new wonder for being properly "oriented" to his body. With insight, learning, and an unusually unbuttoned metaphysical self-revelation in which he discusses his religious background and doubts, Sacks shows how the soul is stirred by the changes in the body. This is an eminently readable book, free from the conglomeration of footnotes and asides that accompany most of Sacks' other books. I read it in one day, fascinated and entertained throughout the reading. Besides being an autobiographical, neurological novel, this book also explores what it is like for the physician to become a patient, how experiencing something firsthand can change the way a physician views and practices medicine, and how the mind-body image so strongly affects our worldviews.
Rating:
Summary: on becoming a patient
Review: On one level, this is a doctor-becomes-patient story, with the many revelations that come to those in medicine who suddenly find themselves at the other end of the stethoscope. For anyone who's been a patient, there's some satisfaction in reading stories like this in which an ill or injured doctor finds out "what it's really like" to be in a hospital bed and more or less at the mercy of the medical profession. I suppose Oliver Sacks isn't quite a likely candidate for this tables-turned scenario. In his books and TV interviews (e.g., "Glorious Accident"), and in Robin Williams' portrayal of him in "Awakenings," he comes across as anything but the stereotypical doctor. But he learns plenty from his experience anyway, and not just from the imperious surgeon who insists that there's nothing wrong with Sacks now that his leg has been repaired or the jolly hockey-stick nurse who is copeless when he does not respond to physical therapy. He also learns first hand the terror of being injured, alone, and far from any other humans to rescue him. He experiences the helplessness that can overwhelm a person who not only loses the use of a limb, but as a "patient," loses his identity as an independent person. Sacks' descriptions of his feelings as a patient, sometimes soaring, sometimes despairing, are vividly told and are a reminder to any healthcare worker of the wild fluctuations of emotions that a patient can experience, even from one hour to the next. Another fascinating aspect of the book is its account of the mystery of healing. Sacks describes in great detail the slow and unpredictable experience of recovering the ability to walk again. And he gives special consideration to the process of "re-entry," as he spends time in a sanatorium, among others who are healing, finally venturing out into the world on his own to rediscover himself and his lost independence. Sacks is a vivid and analytical writer, with a rich gift of language. This is a slender book, but much is packed into it. It is a journey through the looking glass for any healthcare worker who has never been hospitalized with a serious and debilitating injury or illness, and should be required reading.
Rating:
Summary: Sacks is at his best when he writes about others
Review: Sacks has made his reputation by writing insightfully about his patients and their neurological disorders. Most readers will come to this book after having read one of his better known collections, such as "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", though in fact I believe this precedes all of them except "Awakenings". "A Leg to Stand On" has much in common with those books, but it is much more personal, and it tells a unified story. The first chapter, "The Mountain", tells how Sacks suffered a terrible injury to his left leg while hiking high above Hardanger Fjord in Norway. He was alone, and nobody knew where he was; he would certainly die of exposure if he didn't reach help by nightfall. The chapter is as gripping as anything in a thriller, and much more believable. The next chapter, however, "Becoming A Patient", is the one that will give readers of Sacks' other work a frisson of recognition. Many times Sacks has taken the reader through the doctor-patient relationship from the doctor's side, but now he must experience it from the patient's side, and it is a revealing chapter. It ends with an extraordinary transition: Sacks has realized that he has a neurological problem with his leg--he can't "locate" it; it feels like it's made of wood--but the surgeon who operated on him refuses, point-blank, to accept that there is a problem. The remainder of the book--about half--is devoted to the path to Sacks' ultimate recovery. Sacks has deep powers of observation, and there are luminously informative sequences here--my favourite is perhaps the exchange with the physiotherapists, when they are trying to show him how to walk, but he has forgotten how. The book closes with a chapter of musings on the nature of Sacks' experience and its relationship with his work. This is a thoughtful book, and a good introduction to Sacks' work, but I think readers of Sacks' other books will like it the most.
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