Awakenings - which inspired the major motion picture - is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.
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It hardly seems fair that so many great doctors are also great writers. Perhaps it's qualities like sensitivity, craft, and dedication that keep physicians like Oliver Sacks in hospitals all day and at writing desks all night; if nothing else, these qualities shine in books like Awakenings. This powerful set of case histories rises above its pathological foundation to find new literary territory, a medical-spiritual synthesis equally stimulating for the mind and the soul. It's no wonder Hollywood producers chose to turn it into a feature film--anyone can see the universal human struggle against bondage and despair in these pages.
The sleeping-sickness epidemic of 1918 caused hundreds of survivors to slip into a bizarre rigid paralysis with similarities to advanced Parkinson's disease. These patients, only occasionally able to communicate or move, were nearly all institutionalized for life, their ranks increasing every now and then with similarly afflicted men and women. Sacks came to work at a long-term care facility shortly before the first exciting results with L-dopa and Parkinson's in the late 1960s; his patients soon embarked on dramatic, difficult recoveries from up to 50 years of torpor. He documents their spiritual and medical obstacles with great care to portray their individual personalities, long suppressed but finally released. Though many great doctors are also great writers, few can compare with Oliver Sacks for expressing the relation of medicine to the human spirit. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
"One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time." --"The Washington Post
""Compulsively readable. . . . Dr. Sacks writes beautifully and with exceptional subtlety and penetration into both the state of mind of his patients and the nature of illness generally. . . . A brilliant and humane book." --A. Alvarez, "The Observer"
"[Sacks] opens to the reader doors of perception generally passed through only by those at the far borders of human experience." --"The Boston Globe
""A masterpiece." --W. H. Auden --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
""Compulsively readable. . . . Dr. Sacks writes beautifully and with exceptional subtlety and penetration into both the state of mind of his patients and the nature of illness generally. . . . A brilliant and humane book." --A. Alvarez, "The Observer"
"[Sacks] opens to the reader doors of perception generally passed through only by those at the far borders of human experience." --"The Boston Globe
""A masterpiece." --W. H. Auden --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
One of the things I find most striking about Oliver Sacks is his humanity. I find myself instilled with his sense of compassion and understanding by reading his cases.
Awakenings succeeds at being accessible to both the layperson and professional, and captivating both. There is a glossary to familiarize yourself with neurological terminology, but again the book isn't overtly prolix; rather a gripping account of neurological maladies.
Through Mr.Sack's these patients have received a certain immortality; a sense that their suffering has not been in vain, but tremendously valuable, not only to the advancement of neurology but as testament to the inherent strength and resolve in us all.
By S. Hung
Format:Paperback
If I had never read "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" before this book (both by the same author), I would have rated this as a five-star classic. Though as well written as the other work, this book presents his studies in a less humane, and more scientific way. Read the other work and one will sense the noticeable difference in the way that Dr. Sacks approached his patients. When reading the "Awakenings", I felt as a detached bystander looking through the windows of his clinic and observing the patients. When reading "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat", I was so engaged by Dr. Sacks vivid descriptions of the patients, physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, that it was as if I was face-to-face with the patients, and that I was connected in some intrinsic way to each and every one of them. Please please read the other work as well as this one.
By tzefirah
Format:Paperback
This is the true story of a group of very sick people permanently living in a hospital. They have an amazing semi-recovery due to some drug experimentation, but there is no lasting or long-term recovery.
Unlike the movie, there is no love story, and the Leonard character is not a lovable hero. But the book is well written, and the medical ramifications are clearly explained for the lay-person.
I recommend this, and all of Oliver Sacks' books, highly.
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4.6 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
THe book shipped by amazon was wrong!
First the book sent by ups by amazon.ca was in French and about Jappanese models as far as I can discern. Read more
Published 24 months ago by loki44
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant, though confusing
though this book can get extremely confusing at some times, it is well worth both the money, and your time. Read more
Published on Nov 18 2001 by David Topping
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic
The 20th Century has ended, and we can look back on this famous classic with perhaps a better perspective. It in its own way has moved mountains of ignorance. Read more
Published on May 14 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
great movie
This Movie based on an excellent story by talented medical writes Dr. Sacks. It is about 2 hours movie descriping how the medication "L-dopa" helped Parkinson' s disease... Read more
Published on Nov 21 2000 by Zeyad Morcos
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book about an event I have ever read!
I believe this book is a great book to read for the following reasons:
1. It explains in great detail, an event that stock the world, in the summer of 1969.
2. Read more
Published on May 2 2000 by Mads Heden Nielsen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Medical Case histories as great art
Oliver Sacks has elevated the case history in Awakenings to a literary art form of the highest kind. Read more
Published on Dec 31 1999 by "jisom2"
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