... my writings need extensive pruning and editing, because I may express the same thought in many different ways. I can get waylaid by tangential thoughts and associations in mid-sentence, and this leads to parentheses, subordinate clauses, sentences of paragraphic length. I never use one adjective if six seem to me better and, in their cumulative effect, more incisive. I am haunted by the density of reality and try to capture this with (in Clifford Geertz’s phrase) “thick description.” [loc. 2280]
Okay, six adjectives to describe Oliver Sacks, as conveyed in this memoir: shy,curious, gregarious, reckless, energetic, cerebral. But wait: that's not sufficient... Sacks is perhaps best-known as the author of Awakenings, which was made into a film starring Robert de Niro (of whom Sacks writes engagingly) and Robin Williams. Sacks was a neuropsychologist with a gift for writing about his work in accessible and poetic prose. He was also Jewish, gay and, for most of his life, an expatriate: he was born in London but lived in the States from the early 1960s until his death in 2015, just after the publication of On the Move.
I am fascinated by the persona depicted in this book, while accepting that it was written at the end of a long and varied life, with the benefit of hindsight and years of reflection. Despite being painfully shy, Sacks comes across as a gregarious and sociable type: his friends included Thom Gunn and W H Auden, he worked with Francis Crick of DNA fame, he name-drops throughout the book. He also presents as a profoundly physical person, with a passion for surfing, swimming, riding motorbikes and body-building: perhaps to balance this physicality, or because of his lifelong professional fascination with the workings of the human brain, he also drank, took drugs and became addicted to amphetamines.
On the Move isn't truly chronological, though it starts with his childhood and ends with his old age, but the general movement is forwards. However, as indicated by the quotation at the top of this review, he digresses and parenthesises and revisits: he is a profligate footnoter* and the footnotes are always worth reading.
When his mother, whom he adored, found out he was homosexual, she told him he was an 'abomination': he doesn't discuss the impact of this on his emotional and sexual life (except to remark that it was 'anguish as much as accusation'), but it may have contributed to his long periods of celibacy. Only late in life did he form a lasting relationship. This was not due to any emotional lack: his love and compassion is evident in his accounts of various patients: he gives the impression of caring deeply about them, and of a determination to remain open-minded and receptive rather than diagnosing by the book. (There's rather less compassion for his own injuries and accidents: he seems to regard them as payback for his misjudgements.)
A fascinating account of a life, of a man with immense energy and humanity who used his intellectual gifts for the good of others, not only in a medical setting but in daily life. I'm looking forward to reading or rereading more of his work.
Purchased 2016: read as part of my non-fiction 'reading diet'.
*So much easier on Kindle! I think I gave up on Musicophilia in paperback because of the sheer weight of footnotes and the tiny font in which they were printed: I'll buy the ebook and give it another try.
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