The MInd's Eye

I went to hear Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote Awakenings among other books, earlier in the week at the Free Library. He has a new book out called The Mind's Eye and in it he shares cases of people who navigate the world without the use of a vital sense. He describes the pianist who mid-way through a concerto suddenly had no idea what the notes on the musical score in front of her meant. Or certain people who lose their sense of three dimensional space and see the world as flat.

It was absolutely packed to the gills and people were in the upstairs lobby watching it on video. Sacks is 76 and a distinguished professor of neurology at Columbia as well as a new title which is "artist." In this role, he advises others who might be interested in writing about science. He preferred, however, the title that he had at Cornell which was "Professor at Large."

It was a wonderful talk, very candid and very entertaining. It was also fascinating that so many people in the audience stood up to talk about their own conditions, many of which involved this loss of stereoscopic vision. Who knew? Sacks himself has lost his.

In any event, the take away that had me pondering a day later was the fact that when Awakenings was the Book of the Year and made into a movie with Robin Williams and Robert de Niro, the medical community rejected it and him as being too popular. In other words, he never garnered the respect of his peers that he did from non-medically trained people who found and find his books fascinating because they are written in English. His case studies do read like novels, a trait that he works very hard to achieve.

Anyway, I wonder who is laughing now? The doctors who poo-poohed him or Dr. Sacks who is clearly laughing all the way to the bank.