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Storytelling with Oliver Sacks - A Review of "An Anthropologist on Mars"
Biology 202
2006 Book Commentaries
On Serendip
Storytelling with Oliver Sacks - A Review of "An Anthropologist on Mars"
Suzanne Landi
Studying Neurobiology and Behavior presents us with a multitude of
fascinating cases. The brain itself is amazing and performs tasks that
hardly seem possible. Just simple functions we take for granted, like
dreaming, are performed by a finite number of neurons and reactions in
the nervous system, which in itself is a difficult concept to grasp.
For An Anthropologist on Mars, Dr. Oliver Sacks finds seven cases of
individuals that have truly extraordinary brains. He calls these
"paradoxical tales" because each person defies normal standards of
dysfunction. In this book, he collects the stories of an artist who
loses his ability to see and conceptualize color; a victim of a brain
tumor whose memory remains firmly seated in the 1960s; a surgeon with
Tourette's syndrome; a formerly blind man whose sight is restored, but
is reluctant to adapt; a "memory artist" who recreates vivid details of
his hometown strictly from remembering; an "idiot savant" prodigy
artist with published work only in his teens; and an autistic professor
who often feels like an anthropologist on Mars. Each story is
beautiful, spectacular and eloquently presented. At times it feels like
you are Sacks, observing and learning more about the brain and the
person in which it dwells.
The reason I refer to these different accounts as "stories" is because
Sacks presents a full view of each person and their individual lives.
Each chapter has a cast of characters, a setting, a plot – and all of
these elements weave together to create a fascinating story. Alone
these people are astonishing because of each paradox, but Sacks manages
to reach past a sterile account of neurological functioning that could
be found in any psychiatric journal and create a well developed
narrative of the whole person. His ability to describe his setting,
interactions and personal feelings with the subject makes every report
a story. This is what makes Sacks a prolific writer, and also an
extraordinary neuroscientist.
Sacks' analysis of each situation is uncanny. He is able to recognize
the intricate details of the brain that cause changes in behavior based
primarily on his past knowledge and experience. He points out the
possibility that Franco has a temporal lobe epilepsy as though he's
describing something as plain as a nose. However, Sacks' also
investigates each case with a personal stake involved, with a kind of
compassion that isn't always available in a psychiatrist's office or in
an MRI machine. It isn't simply a diagnosis; he makes it become
storytelling. Sacks has a responsibility to transform his characters,
from just a brain to a human with a worthy story and he does it
perfectly. As a reader, you forget that these people have neurological
"problems" and begin to identify them as the other side of the paradox.
For example, Dr. Carl Bennett is not a person with Tourette's syndrome
who performs surgery despite the obvious problems associated with his
disorder. He is first a surgeon, a father, a husband, even a pilot. We
recognize his plight but he is not a series of tics and impulses that a
purely medical description depicts. As a storyteller, Sacks develops
his characters wonderfully with appropriate background and personality.
As a scientist, he is brilliant, understanding the brain and its
idiosyncrasies.
My favorite quote from An Anthropologist on Mars comes from the story
of Franco, the Pontito artist. Sacks describes prominent figures in the
arts and the neurological disorders to which their genius is often
attributed. In a footnote he says "The danger is that we may go
overboard in medicalizing our predecessors (and contemporaries),
reducing their complexity to expressions of neurological or psychiatric
disorder, while neglecting all other factors that determine a life, not
least the irreducible uniqueness of the individual" (Sacks 165).
Although he refers specifically to the tendency of psychoanalysts to
connect genius purely with variations in the brain, I believe this view
is important to neuroscience. Throughout the Neurobiology and Behavior
course, we've analyzed the nervous system on both micro- and
macroscopic levels. When studying the brain, it's important to see
physiological changes that could be causing dysfunction. However, it is
equally important to consider the person and his or her story.
As mentioned before, Sacks is a gifted storyteller; when talking about the brain, it is necessary to adopt a holistic approach. That is to say, we can find just as many clues outside of the brain as we can in it. Images from an MRI will not suffice. This stress on the "uniqueness of the individual" makes for better science and inspiring storytelling. If I learned anything from the course and Dr. Sacks, it is that every brain is more than a series of action potentials and neurons firing. The story is what matters; the story is what makes us an individual.
Works Cited
Sacks, Oliver. "An Anthropologist on Mars". New York: Vintage Books, 1995.