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Review
'Provocative but often funny, encyclopedic but down to earth...Hustvedt's erudite book deepens one's wonder about the relation of body and mind.' (Oliver Sacks )
'Readers of Oliver Sacks will rate this book highly; as with Sacks, scientific knowledge and a powerful capacity for empathy are closely linked...It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear.' (Hilary Mantel, Guardian )
'She thinks her way through complex subject matter with the effortless clarity of a poised and sceptical outsider...a short book with an encyclopaedic breadth' (Lisa Appignanesi, Independent )
'She has an enviable ability to digest and reframe her discoveries into clear, accessible prose' (Melanie McGrath, Sunday Telegraph )
'Fascinating...what gives the book its originality is that she wavers on the edge of the various disciplines, preferring her own imaginative, deeply personal reflections to the potential certainty that might be offered by doctors...Although a desire for clear-cut answers is understandable, Hustvedt suggests that this is often far from possible. And she leaves the reader thinking about his or her own bouts of illness in a thoroughly fresh way.' (Lorna Bradbury, Daily Telegraph )
'Readers of Oliver Sacks will rate this book highly; as with Sacks, scientific knowledge and a powerful capacity for empathy are closely linked...It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear.' (Hilary Mantel, Guardian )
'She thinks her way through complex subject matter with the effortless clarity of a poised and sceptical outsider...a short book with an encyclopaedic breadth' (Lisa Appignanesi, Independent )
'She has an enviable ability to digest and reframe her discoveries into clear, accessible prose' (Melanie McGrath, Sunday Telegraph )
'Fascinating...what gives the book its originality is that she wavers on the edge of the various disciplines, preferring her own imaginative, deeply personal reflections to the potential certainty that might be offered by doctors...Although a desire for clear-cut answers is understandable, Hustvedt suggests that this is often far from possible. And she leaves the reader thinking about his or her own bouts of illness in a thoroughly fresh way.' (Lorna Bradbury, Daily Telegraph )
Product Description
While speaking at a memorial event for her father, the novelist Siri Hustvedt suffered a violent seizure from the neck down. Was it triggered by nerves, emotion - or something else entirely?
In this profoundly thought-provoking and revealing book, Hustvedt takes the reader on her journey through psychiatry, philosophy, neuroscience and medical history in search of a diagnosis. Conveying the often frightening mysteries of illness, she illuminates the perenially mysterious connection between mind and body and what we mean by 'I'.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really enjoyed this book. In it Hustvedt embarks on a journey to try and discover why she is the victim of violent, epileptic-like seizures from time to time. She pulls in commentators and experts from the worlds of neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, philosophy etc. and in the process dismantles the arguments of some and supports the arguments of others. Along the way there are several very interesting case histories. One in particular comments on how people remember when they are involved in the act of writing. Ask a person to remember something verbally and you probably won't get very far; but give them a pen and paper and ask them to begin their passage of writing with 'I remember...' and you may get a lot of memories that the writer themselves forgot.
In the end you're left wondering what the 'self' is? Do we really know who 'me' is? I have to say that I've never given this much thought before, but Hustvedt's book has now made me think about it a great deal.
Highly recommended.
In the end you're left wondering what the 'self' is? Do we really know who 'me' is? I have to say that I've never given this much thought before, but Hustvedt's book has now made me think about it a great deal.
Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Through Medical self-investigation. Great if tetany/spasmo sufferer or into neurosciences&psychiatry
6 Jun 2011
Format:Hardcover
There is at times much much research, very academic actually. But then I liked the throughly scientific method used, like Dr House but much thorougher ! I'm into neurosciences and psychosciences myself, and being a sufferer of a spasmophilia/tetany/shaking-woman condition, with unexplained fits, I was interested in the result a lot.
But I do warn people that it's not a novel or a tale that you can read to relax, you need acute brain on.
But I do warn people that it's not a novel or a tale that you can read to relax, you need acute brain on.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Siri Hustvedt is a writer whom I much admire. Particularly the wonderful What I Loved. I am also fascinated, both professionally and personally, by the narrative of health and dis-ease, and particularly in how illness impacts identity. It has always felt to me as if the proper understanding of disease HAS to move out of the medical textbooks and into the individual story of how THIS condition impacts on the `I' of this person.
So Hustvedt's book joins a growing pile of my much admired books which are written by fine writers who explore both the narrative and the clinical interpretation of an illness they have personally suffered from : Hilary Mantel's Giving up the Ghost: A memoir (hypothyroidism and endometriosis) Tim Parks' Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing (bladder dysfunction) , Oliver Sacks' Migraine and A Leg to Stand on (Picador Books) (neurological problems) , Joanne Limburg's The Woman Who Thought Too Much: A Memoir (OCD)
Following the death of her beloved father, Hustvedt, a practised lecturer and public speaker, finds herself overcome, possessed even, by a sudden attack of spasmodic strong shaking, whilst speaking at a memorial service eulogising his work. Curiously, she had no prior sense of stage fright, and whilst her body was out of control, the shaking did not affect her voice, and she was able to continue her speech. Almost as if her mind and voice (and of course the musculature of the throat) were one thing, and the muscles of her limbs and back were quite another. The attacks of shaking continued to occur, generally connected with some, but not all, of her public speakings. Her background as a writer, and that writerly ability to stand outside self (in order to create `character' and the narrative of `other') enabled her to research and comment on her condition even whilst it inhabited her. Indeed she began to speak at various gatherings whether writerly or more scientifically based, about her researches into the borders between neuropsychiatry/neurology and psychiatry. Inevitably there's an inhabiting of the nature of brain, the nature of mind, the nature of identity.
This isn't an easy book - some of the `left brain stuff' involves quotations from texts on neurology, psychiatry, psychoanalytic theory which are at times almost unbearably dense and jargonistic, but Hustvedt sharply and clearly guides the reader through.
However, the particular `gem' which I will take away from this book is not from Hustvedt herself, but a quotation from one Rita Charon, a physician with a PhD in literature, who ran a series of talks as part of a programme in Narrative Medicine, at Columbia University. Hustvedt quotes Charon thus:
"Non-narrative knowledge (in medical term, my bracketed inclusion) attempts to illuminate the universal by transcending the particular; narrative knowledge, by looking closely at individual human beings grappling with the conditions of life, attempts to illuminate the universals of the human condition by revealing the particular"
Quite. Whether a deeper understanding of wellness and illness (or indeed, even the wellness still within a person despite of, or even INSIDE the fact of their illness) by the understanding of the particular person's story; or, in an even wider context, storytelling itself as illumination.
So Hustvedt's book joins a growing pile of my much admired books which are written by fine writers who explore both the narrative and the clinical interpretation of an illness they have personally suffered from : Hilary Mantel's Giving up the Ghost: A memoir (hypothyroidism and endometriosis) Tim Parks' Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing (bladder dysfunction) , Oliver Sacks' Migraine and A Leg to Stand on (Picador Books) (neurological problems) , Joanne Limburg's The Woman Who Thought Too Much: A Memoir (OCD)
Following the death of her beloved father, Hustvedt, a practised lecturer and public speaker, finds herself overcome, possessed even, by a sudden attack of spasmodic strong shaking, whilst speaking at a memorial service eulogising his work. Curiously, she had no prior sense of stage fright, and whilst her body was out of control, the shaking did not affect her voice, and she was able to continue her speech. Almost as if her mind and voice (and of course the musculature of the throat) were one thing, and the muscles of her limbs and back were quite another. The attacks of shaking continued to occur, generally connected with some, but not all, of her public speakings. Her background as a writer, and that writerly ability to stand outside self (in order to create `character' and the narrative of `other') enabled her to research and comment on her condition even whilst it inhabited her. Indeed she began to speak at various gatherings whether writerly or more scientifically based, about her researches into the borders between neuropsychiatry/neurology and psychiatry. Inevitably there's an inhabiting of the nature of brain, the nature of mind, the nature of identity.
This isn't an easy book - some of the `left brain stuff' involves quotations from texts on neurology, psychiatry, psychoanalytic theory which are at times almost unbearably dense and jargonistic, but Hustvedt sharply and clearly guides the reader through.
However, the particular `gem' which I will take away from this book is not from Hustvedt herself, but a quotation from one Rita Charon, a physician with a PhD in literature, who ran a series of talks as part of a programme in Narrative Medicine, at Columbia University. Hustvedt quotes Charon thus:
"Non-narrative knowledge (in medical term, my bracketed inclusion) attempts to illuminate the universal by transcending the particular; narrative knowledge, by looking closely at individual human beings grappling with the conditions of life, attempts to illuminate the universals of the human condition by revealing the particular"
Quite. Whether a deeper understanding of wellness and illness (or indeed, even the wellness still within a person despite of, or even INSIDE the fact of their illness) by the understanding of the particular person's story; or, in an even wider context, storytelling itself as illumination.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
My favourite writer
She really is: Siri Hustvedt is my favourite writer. Even if I admire her husband Paul Auster, I prefer the books of Siri. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Moka
weird book
This lady seems to be a bit strange. It is impossible to have a migraine headache for a year. (I am a doctor).
Published 19 months ago by penname
Not Entirely Dissapointing
I looked forward to reading this book, but it did not live up to my hopes.
The excuse, "the shaking" was one of the weakest most superficial ideas for a book, with the... Read more
The excuse, "the shaking" was one of the weakest most superficial ideas for a book, with the... Read more
Published on 7 Mar 2010 by W. Knezevic
Who am I - no answers plenty of intriguing questions
I came across this book via a review in New Scientist magazine and had a sense it would draw on areas of academic and personal interest. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2010 by Miriam Moss
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