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The Island of the Colorblind, by Oliver Sacks
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Oliver Sacks has always been fascinated by islands--their remoteness, their mystery, above all the unique forms of life they harbor. For him, islands conjure up equally the romance of Melville and Stevenson, the adventure of Magellan and Cook, and the scientific wonder of Darwin and Wallace.
Drawn to the tiny Pacific atoll of Pingelap by intriguing reports of an isolated community of islanders born totally color-blind, Sacks finds himself setting up a clinic in a one-room island dispensary, where he listens to these achromatopic islanders describe their colorless world in rich terms of pattern and tone, luminance and shadow. And on Guam, where he goes to investigate the puzzling neurodegenerative paralysis endemic there for a century, he becomes, for a brief time, an island neurologist, making house calls with his colleague John Steele, amid crowing cockerels, cycad jungles, and the remains of a colonial culture.
The islands reawaken Sacks' lifelong passion for botany--in particular, for the primitive cycad trees, whose existence dates back to the Paleozoic--and the cycads are the starting point for an intensely personal reflection on the meaning of islands, the dissemination of species, the genesis of disease, and the nature of deep geologic time. Out of an unexpected journey, Sacks has woven an unforgettable narrative which immerses us in the romance of island life, and shares his own compelling vision of the complexities of being human.
- Sales Rank: #920482 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Knopf
- Published on: 1997-01-07
- Released on: 1997-01-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 6.00" w x 1.25" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 298 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Amazon.com Review
In his books An Anthropologist on Mars and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks details the lives of patients isolated by neurological disorders, shedding light on our common humanity and the ways in which we perceive the world around us. Now he looks at the effects of physical isolation in The Island of the Colorblind. On this journey, he carried with him the intellectual curiousity, kind understanding, and unique vision he has so consistently demonstrated.
Drawn to the Micronesian island of Pingelap by reports of a community of people born totally colorblind, Dr. Sacks set up a clinic in a one-room dispensary. There he listened to patients describe their colorless world in terms rich with pattern and tone, luminance and shadow. Then, in Guam, he investigated a puzzling neurodegenerative paralysis, making housecalls amid crowing cockerels, cycad jungles, and the remains of a colonial culture. The experience affords Sacks an opportunity to elaborate on such personal passions as botany and history and to explore the meaning of islands, the dissemination of species, the birth of disease, and the nature of deep geologic time.
From Publishers Weekly
Neurologist Sacks, famed for his investigations of unusual medical conditions (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, etc.), went to Micronesia in 1993 to study firsthand two rare disorders: achromatopsia, or total congenital color blindness, which afflicts more than 5% of the population on the islands of Pingelap and Pohnpei; and lytico-bodig, a fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disease common in Guam, causing paralysis, dementia and catatonia. His total immersion in island life makes this luminous, beautifully written report a wondrous voyage of discovery. Most of those born color-blind never learn to read because they can't see the teacher's writing on the board; they can't work outdoors in bright light, and are unable to see fine detail; yet many achromatopes, Sacks found, develop acute compensatory memory skills and curiosity and thus live in a world of heightened reality. On Guam he visited families tragically scarred by lytico-bodig, a disease blamed by some scientists on the natives' ingestion of cycad trees' toxic seeds; other researchers suspect that the cause can be traced to a virus, diet as a whole or genetics. With aplomb, Sacks wears many hats?cultural anthropologist, naturalist, explorer, ethnographer, neuroscientist?as he delves into the islands' volcanic origins, their archeological wonders (e.g., Pohnpei's megalithic ruins, remnants of a monumental civilization), their unique flora and fauna (nocturnal tree-climbing snakes, iridescent ferns, dwarf forests), their bloody colonial history under Spanish and German rule, their still active indigenous myths. As a travel writer, Sacks ranks with Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin. As an investigator of the mind's mysteries, he is in a class by himself. Illustrated with drawings, maps. 150,000 first printing; Literary Guild selection; Random House audio.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
YA. Fans of Sacks's previous publications will be enchanted by the newest work of the famous neurologist. Written as a travelogue/medical adventure, the book is actually an account of two separate observational journeys. The first, to an island in Micronesia called Pingelap, was to observe a community with an extraordinary large number of the population suffering from an inherited colorblindness. The author offers a vivid description of this handicap: extreme sensitivity to light, less than one tenth of normal vision, and a lack of fixation of the eyes resulting in repeated "nystagmic jerks." The second voyage was to Guam to observe the sufferers of lytico-bodig. Victims can have progressive paralysis, Parkinson-like symptoms, or even dementia. The clear way in which the author portrays the human spirit coping with vast disabilities will appeal to YAs interested in medical and science oddities. From night fishing with achromotopes on Pingelap to playing catch with a "frozen" bodig sufferer on Guam, Sacks carries readers along on a wave of interest and opens a fascinating, little-known world. Students who are looking for science, medical, or travelogue literature?or just attention-grabbing reading?will be swept away by The Island of the Colorblind.?Carol DeAngelo, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A South Seas Journey with Oliver Sacks
By Diane Hinckley
Oliver Sacks was a sensitive writer and a polymath. The Island of the Colorblind is filled with history and science concerning the superficially unrelated topics of neurology and botany. The first part of this book focuses largely on inherited blindness among a tiny Pacific population, and the second part examines a strange illness afflicting the older residents of Guam that in some patients looks like ALS and in others looks like parkinsonism. Some researchers have speculated that the disease may be the result of poisoning brought on by the consumption of cycad seeds, and it so happens that Oliver Sacks harbored a lifelong fascination with cycads and other "living fossil" plants.
On one island that Sacks visited, there are many bars serving, not alcohol, but a bordeerline-hallucinogenic fluid, and, in the interest of science and discovery, he drank a great deal in one session. (You have to love Oliver Sacks.)
The huge overflow of information in the book makes for a huge section of endnotes. I finally decided, after frustratingly leafing back and forth, to simply blast ahead with the body of the book and then read the endnotes as just another chapter. It worked; the endnotes really do stand on their own.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
For fans of Oliver Sacks
By Evelyn Uyemura
If you are an Oliver Sacks fan-girl or -boy, you will probably enjoy this. But it is an odd book. There actually *is* no "island of the colorblind, though there are a couple of places where there are more totally colorblind people than usual. And the second half of the book is about Sacks passion for cycads, trees somewhat like palm trees. Yeah, Dr. Sacks has a number of odd passions. His writing is, what shall I say....discursive? Undisciplined? Free-flowing? He has so many ideas, so many experiences, and he has a passion to share them all. If that sounds like a ride you want to take, this book is for you. Me, I liked it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
An amazing read for anyone interested in the human brain and its affect on the body.
By Jade
If you are a fan of Oliver Sacks, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. I was first introduced to Dr. Sacks through the film Awakenings, featuring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. It was this movie with encouraged me to further investigate and purchase the book by the same title. If you have not read Awakenings, I would highly recommend it, and if you have, I would definitely recommend this as the next book for your collection. The first half of the book deals with two islands that have an extremely high number of colorblind people residing there. Your eyes will be opened to what you assumed you knew about colorblind people, and what the truth actually is.
The second half of the book deals with Guam, where scores of people are suffering from a debilitating illness with symptoms that mimic the vast and varied symptoms of the post-encephalitis patients we saw in Awakenings. You will discover the mystery surrounding this disease, and the overwhelming task of trying to find a cause of this illness.
One of my favorite things about Dr. Oliver Sacks is that when he writes about these illnesses and patients, he is not treated them as just another case. After you read about each individual person, as we did in Awakenings, you feel as though you actually knew the person an experience a portion of the hurt the family feels. Dr. Sacks writes each case with love, and you can feel that he actually loves and cares for these people. Experience an amazing journey on some of the vast illnesses that affect the human brain and thus the rest of the body.
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