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3rd out of 114 books
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50 voters
A Journey Round My Skull
by
Frigyes Karinthy,
Vernon Duckworth Barker , Oliver Sacks (Goodreads Author)
The distinguished Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was sitting in a Budapest café, wondering whether to write a long-planned monograph on modern man or a new play, when he was disturbed by the roaring—so loud as to drown out all other noises—of a passing train. Soon it was gone, only to be succeeded by another. And another. Strange, Karinthy thought, it had been years sin...more
Paperback, 312 pages
Published
March 11th 2008
by NYRB Classics
(first published 1936)
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Who did the photo editing for this particular New York Review Book? My God, it's dreadful, and by far the most off-putting aspect of the book. The book itself is a fascinating autobiographical account by a well-known member of Hungary's pre-WW II literati who discovers that he has a brain tumor. The text itself is an interesting blend of travel writing, medical memoir, cultural observation, and philosophical inquiry. Karinthy is interested in the effect of his tumor on everything, not just himse...more
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In his introduction to Karinthy's work, Oliver Sacks states that this is "the first autobiographical description of a journey inside the brain" - and while there are surely qualifiers to attach (in Western literature; in Western form) Karinthy's work does stand as a remarkable look at neurological illness, brain surgery, and treatment in early twentieth century Europe. The book is a muddle of styles - flamboyant description; stripped-bare medical detail; camp gossip - but within that muddle lies...more
I'll first list some interesting things I've learned about Karinthy:
--He was the first to posit the idea that any two people on earth are joined by six degrees of separation, an idea that seems almost ludicrous before the computer age.
--The cafe in which he performed most of his writing, including Journey, is called the Central Cafe, and still functions as it always has. I'm making a point to visit it on our trip to Budapest.
--In Journey, Karinthy makes a seemingly off-hand allusion to his firs...more
--He was the first to posit the idea that any two people on earth are joined by six degrees of separation, an idea that seems almost ludicrous before the computer age.
--The cafe in which he performed most of his writing, including Journey, is called the Central Cafe, and still functions as it always has. I'm making a point to visit it on our trip to Budapest.
--In Journey, Karinthy makes a seemingly off-hand allusion to his firs...more
A fascinating book by a Hungarian author describing the onset of a brain tumor in Budapest in the 1930s, and how his case came to be properly diagnosed after visiting many physicians there and in Vienna. Finally, when the diagnosis of a tumor in the cerebellum is made, he is sent to Dr. Olivecrona in Stockholm, Sweden, to actually perform the surgery. He recovered completely -- a real raity in those days -- only to die two years later of a stroke while stooping down to tie his shoelaces.
Karinth...more
Karinth...more
People interested in medicine and the history of medicine will enjoy this memoir by a middle-aged man who had a benign brain tumor removed in 1936. Karinthy, a Hungarian writer and journalist, was a bit of a celebrity in his native country and it was thanks to his social connections that he was able to be operated on by one of the best brain surgeons in the world. But the operation and Karinthy's recovery are only a small part of the book; he also covers in detail the months leading up to the op...more
In recognition of its thoroughness and accuracy, book store franchises shelve this memoir in the medical section, though it reads like literature. Frigyes Karinthy was a well known and much respected writer and humorist in Budapest in the 1930s when he began to suffer from intensifying auditory hallucinations. These disturbances initiate his progression through the medical establishments of Budapest, Vienna and Stockholm. In parallel, his symptoms accumulate, prompt various misdiagnoses (such as...more
Mar 31, 2008
Mark
marked it as to-read
While sitting in a Budapest café, writer Frigyes Karinthy (1887–1938) suddenly heard the roaring of a train, without there being a train station nearby. The roaring noise he heard over and over again turned out to be an auditory hallucination, and the writer’s calvary began.
Even though he fainted on several occasions and his eyesight deteriorated severely, first neither he nor his doctors suspected serious illness. But as his symptoms became more and more severe, he arrived at the conclusion tha...more
Even though he fainted on several occasions and his eyesight deteriorated severely, first neither he nor his doctors suspected serious illness. But as his symptoms became more and more severe, he arrived at the conclusion tha...more
This book is great, the author writes about his experience living through (though eventually dying from) a brain tumor. Amazing descriptions of brain surgery while conscious. Read this one while my dog was dying of a brain tumor, sad, strange...
This book was good, in a medical way. Maybe it was the translation but the writing was at once dry and flowery. I could have skipped the first 3/4 of the book, as it did not add much. The operation itself, as told from the patient was fascinating. Apart from that it was a bit...bland.
One of the best books that exist in hungarian language but also one of the hardest to read, the low stars I gave is because the book itself is too cryptic.
Interesting book, at moments a bit hard to follow author's train of thought. Took me a while to read it, but was well worth the effort.
On Crusoe's island (...) I see now that there is little point in crying out against injustice of man or the cruelty of fate, for, if my friend betrays and my brother in arms deceive me, a foreigner whom I never knew comes forward and saves my life.
A neat book--Karinthy was a Hungarian humorist/journalist/etc., so the book about his brain tumor and operation reads a little like James Thurber. A closer comparison might be Joseph Heller/Speed Vogel's "No Laughing Matter," but with fantasy sequences and creative descriptions, this is a much more interesting book (though I wouldn't call it funny--the humor is dated and James Thurber is better). The later chapters--when he gets a little less goofy and a little more scared--are actually better,...more
A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for
Csodálatos.
É estranho ler as memórias de um homem contando como um tumor cerebral afetou sua vida – especialmente quando sabemos que esse tumor acabou por matá-lo. Mais estranho é que isso é não só interessante, mas divertido, graças à escrita de Karinthy.
Karinthy, always.
Too bad the world won't know his genious for the lack of translations and the impossible task of translating the full depth of his writing.
He is Vonegut and Huxley and Defoe and so much more than all of them combined.
Too bad the world won't know his genious for the lack of translations and the impossible task of translating the full depth of his writing.
He is Vonegut and Huxley and Defoe and so much more than all of them combined.
Oct 18, 2010
Mary
marked it as to-read
do ILL
This book is very interesting. It was a first hand account of a brain tumor surgery. It can be very wordy at some times. I would recommend this book to someone that doesn't know what book to read next.
incredible to read a book about a person's experience of a brain tumour, written back in the 1930s almost 30 years before the word "neuroscience" was first used.
Added to list after reading Oliver Sacks' article in the NY Review of Books. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21159
Very cleverly done.
May 16, 2013
shapeshifting
marked it as to-read
May 15, 2013
Laila Ayed
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May 13, 2013
Maddie Mcintyre
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May 11, 2013
Lee
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Frigyes Karinthy (25 June 1887 in Budapest – 29 August 1938 in Siófok) was a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist, and translator. He was the first proponent of the six degrees of separation concept, in his 1929 short story, Chains (Láncszemek). Karinthy remains one of the most popular Hungarian writers. He was the father of poet Gábor Karinthy and writer Ferenc Karinthy.
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“My head ached. I was thinking of the pain, and wondering how it was possible for physical agony to be so intense. I had never imagined that such a torture could be endured. Yet here was I, both conscious and able to think clearly. And not only to think, but to observe the process and make calculations about it. The steel circle round my skull was closing in with faint cracking noises. How much farther could it shrink? I counted the cracking sounds. Since I took the triple dose of pain-killer, there had been two more. …I took out my watch and laid it on the table.
“Give me morphia,” I said in a calm, hostile, icy tone.
“You mustn’t take morphia! You know perfectly well. The very idea! And what are you doing with that watch?”
“You will give me morphia within three minutes.”
They looked me uneasily up and down. No one moved. Three minutes went by. Then ten more. I slipped the watch calmly into my pocket and rose unsteadily to my feet.
“Then take me to the Fiakker Bar. They say it’s a good show, and to-night I want to enjoy myself.”
The others jumped up with a feeling of relief.
I never confessed the secret to anyone, either then or afterwards. I had made up my mind at the end of those three minutes — for the first and last time in my life — that if my headache had not stopped within the next ten I should throw myself under the nearest tram.
It never came out whether I should have kept to my resolve, for the pain left with the suddenness of lighting.”
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More quotes…
“Give me morphia,” I said in a calm, hostile, icy tone.
“You mustn’t take morphia! You know perfectly well. The very idea! And what are you doing with that watch?”
“You will give me morphia within three minutes.”
They looked me uneasily up and down. No one moved. Three minutes went by. Then ten more. I slipped the watch calmly into my pocket and rose unsteadily to my feet.
“Then take me to the Fiakker Bar. They say it’s a good show, and to-night I want to enjoy myself.”
The others jumped up with a feeling of relief.
I never confessed the secret to anyone, either then or afterwards. I had made up my mind at the end of those three minutes — for the first and last time in my life — that if my headache had not stopped within the next ten I should throw myself under the nearest tram.
It never came out whether I should have kept to my resolve, for the pain left with the suddenness of lighting.”
