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A Leg to Stand On
by
Oliver Sacks
Dr. Oliver Sacks's books "Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars" and the bestselling "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" have been acclaimed for their extraordinary compassion in the treatment of patients affected with profound disorders.
In "A Leg to Stand On, " it is Sacks himself who is the patient: an encounter with a bull on a desol
...morePaperback, 224 pages
Published
April 29th 1998
by Touchstone
(first published 1984)
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My attention ebbed and flowed as Sacks recounted his own experiences of first being injured by a bull in Norway, becoming a patient and then convalescing, but the last chapter and the 1993 afterword, when he generalizes about the alienation he felt from his injured leg, are really excellent peeks into the world of neuropsychology. Criticizing classical neurology for being too focused on a Humean understanding of empirical science and neglecting experiences of "self" in favour of a focu...more
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A very engaging book in which Oliver Sacks, through a bizarre accident involving a bull at the top of a mountain, ended up badly breaking his leg, damaging the nerves there, and half dragging himself down the mountain to get help. At this point, the narrative changes. He is hospitalized and becomes a patient for about 6 weeks. At first, the idea of reading about someone's leg slowly healing might sound dull. But this isn't anyone's leg, this is Oliver fucking Sack's leg!
Oliver Sa...more
Oliver Sa...more
A fascinating neurological self-study, A Leg To Stand On is Sacks's account of his recovery from a serious leg injury.
You'd think a book with this subject would be boring: what could be less interesting than a story about being laid up in a hospital for months? And at times, it is boring, but mostly just because Sacks never uses one word where twelve would do, and is a huge fan of the long and tangential footnote. Most of the time, though, it's a surprisingly captivating account.
...more
You'd think a book with this subject would be boring: what could be less interesting than a story about being laid up in a hospital for months? And at times, it is boring, but mostly just because Sacks never uses one word where twelve would do, and is a huge fan of the long and tangential footnote. Most of the time, though, it's a surprisingly captivating account.
...more
In this book, Sacks writes about the conditions of injury and patienthood and their effects on the psyche, using an extreme, autobiographical example. The writing is sometimes (okay, often) overwrought, and there is little suspense throughout the entire narrative. However, as a description of a curious condition, this book succeeds.
Sacks completely wrecked his leg in a run-in with a bull on a mountain in Norway, and barely got out alive. This is his memoir of his recovery, focusing on his post-operative distress to discover that the leg was psychologically absent from his body awareness, thanks probably to undiagnosed nerve damage.
I picked this up on a tangent from other research, and it was useful as subjective narrative. But it's also grossly overwritten in places. I'm kind of torn, because this book is clear...more
I picked this up on a tangent from other research, and it was useful as subjective narrative. But it's also grossly overwritten in places. I'm kind of torn, because this book is clear...more
My star rating about sums it up. It was okay. He discusses some interesting topics associated with consciousness and self, some of it a little beyond my ability to differentiate, I just think he could have covered the same ground in about half the time.
This book is particularly fascinating because it turns the tables on Sacks -- he's the patient here, suffering from a neurological problem that in another context he might be diagnosing in a patient of his own.
Audible just brought this one out in audio, a year or so after Sacks' latest The Mind's Eye; my library didn't have a print copy of "Leg", so I spent a credit on it. Both books deal with the issue of doctor-as-patient, but this one's less approachable. Once he's rescued in Norway, and sent off to Britain for treatment, the story becomes progressively more inward and self-absorbed. I was interested when he veered towards the mind-body connection in healing, but otherwise his thoughts we...more
kyle
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When Oliver Sacks sustains a serious leg injury, something funny happens. His healing leg no longer feels like his. Though his doctors ignore his concerns, Sacks learns that this experience is common if not talked about. This book combines Sacks' typical insightful writing (the opening story of his encounter with a bull on a Scandinavian mountain that gave him his injury is worth reading alone) with a fascinating exploration of how and why something feels like us and something does not. I'll...more
s jealous as hell because he recovered so quickly but it was incredible to read while suffering a physical ordeal. what a writer, what a mind! and read a poem in a new book about ten poems to read and reread(will find and post title later, bautiful book) that mentions the very animal he encountered. this author/doctor is alwyas encountering dream figures in real life; i can realte. it goes beyond magic realism in a way i wish i could as an author and a human, as ifhis entire life is a cogniscent...more
قراءة كتابٍ في تجربة شخصية تأتي في قالب مؤثّر وفق اهتمامات الشخص ومنظوره لها يجعلني أتساءل بحزن : كم من تجربة إنسانية أذهبها الجهل\ اللامبالات أدراج النسان !
أحببت الكتب واستمتعت بقراءته .. الكاتب يمتلك حسًا ساخرًا يطلّ بخجل في بعض المواضع .. لن تكون المرة الأخيرة التي أقرأ فيها شيئًا لـ ساكس ..
أحببت الكتب واستمتعت بقراءته .. الكاتب يمتلك حسًا ساخرًا يطلّ بخجل في بعض المواضع .. لن تكون المرة الأخيرة التي أقرأ فيها شيئًا لـ ساكس ..
I must be on a compassion kick. I picked up this book expecting to learn more neuro, but what I got instead is a view of the road to Enlightenment. Oliver Sacks, already an MD but not yet in the field we know him for, is badly injured. During his recovery he experiences an eerie loss of proprioception, of the sense of whole body. OK, nothing really new there -- that wasn't well documented in 1980, but it certainly is now.
What really captured me, though, was his feelings as he tri...more
What really captured me, though, was his feelings as he tri...more
It seems like I've been reading a lot of borderline 3-4 star books lately. This one is hard to give only 3 stars, because it was a gift, and I hate to seem ungrateful.
The first third or half of the book is great. The last quarter of the book is good. In between, not as much. It seemed to me that Sacks was way more enamored of the things he was thinking and writing than I was, which was very frustrating. Many times he would repeat the same thought several times, expounding and elabor...more
The first third or half of the book is great. The last quarter of the book is good. In between, not as much. It seemed to me that Sacks was way more enamored of the things he was thinking and writing than I was, which was very frustrating. Many times he would repeat the same thought several times, expounding and elabor...more
While I enjoyed his other works immensely, I got sort of tired of this one midway through. I can't really fault him for accomplishing what he set out to do (describing in agonizing detail his injury and subsequent recovery), but the extended meditations in the middle of the book just became tedious. His shorter, more compact case studies are a bit easier to swallow than this was. Still, not a bad book by any means, just not my favorite Oliver Sacks.
The neuroscience made for heavy going (for me), but still a fascinating book by a great observer. Especially enlightening: the author's discovery that he needed to create a new field of science to describe and illuminate the experiences he had just undergone himself as the result of a mountain hiking accident, that short-circuited the nerves in his leg. What leg? He no longer believed that he had one, though it was still attached to his body, and capable, in theory, of working. And what a th...more
Rebecca Clark
is currently reading it
I stopped reading as Sacks is realizing that his leg is taking longer than expected to recuperate. His specialists are starting to show concern that his leg is non-responsive.
My mother is meanwhile enduring a rough recovery post-knee surgery. I find myself focusing on other books, and neglecting Sacks. Will return to it in time!
My mother is meanwhile enduring a rough recovery post-knee surgery. I find myself focusing on other books, and neglecting Sacks. Will return to it in time!
I am a fan of Oliver Sacks' writing. This is perhaps his most personal book. Introspective and fiercely exploratory - exploring his inner perception (apperceptions) - he models the essence of profoundly reflective subjectivity here. A story that is fraught with suspense told with lightness and consistent grace.
This book is a wonderful tale of discovery, recovery, and revelation. Oliver Sacks describes his own experience as a patient going through something that wasn't understood or even initially accepted by his surgeon. Sacks really does a great job explaining his feelings and observations regarding his 'alienation.' At one point I realized that I had experienced to some degree what Sacks describes in this book when I slept on my arm causing it to 'fall asleep.' Of course at the time I had the fe...more
Sacks writes of his experience of a severe leg injury and subsequent "loss" of his sense of the leg. His forthright descriptions of himself, his caregivers and the healing process are beautifully written. One could not hope for a more empathetic healer than Sacks.
It's a particular pleasure to read this neuroscientist's account of his disassociation with his ailing body (in this case, the alienation from his own leg) as the doctor becomes the patient and describes in detail what so many patients cannot.
A scientist who experiences himself the paradox phenomenon he before only observed and described in his patients. Who would be better to describe the odd feeling of having a leg which you think doesn't belong to your body then somebody.
Description of patienthood is really long-winded. The "I was invincible, hale and hearty!" prose of most of the book gets tiring, but the insights into Luria and humanistic neurology at the end were life-changing.
here is the place to learn a little more about sacks the person. long and sometimes a bit repetitive - it's a totally different pace than his much shorter narratives in man who mistook wife and elsewhere, but the same delicious old-fashioned british flavor, rich with literary references. And in the same way, his narrative instructs on multiple levels: we learn something about how our neurology works, but also about the methodological problems of neurology as a discipline, and finally, there's mu...more
I find the mind an amazing thing and doctors who can clearly explain what is, or might be, going on very interesting.
a surprisingly strong narrative. moving, at times mawkishly so, but still pretty good overall.
For all Oliver Sack's fans. A book to bring more insight into the man himself,
Interesting book about his injury and recovery process. A little wordy and repetitive but good overall.
Sacks is an acclaimed medical writer because he sets forth clinical observations in an interesting and engaging fashion; he can provide an excellent view of external circumstances and conditions. In A Leg to Stand On, however, Sacks himself is the patient, and his dedicated attempt to transcribe every feeling—physical and emotional—running through his head (and leg) causes the book to suffer.
Jan Dawson
added it
Fascinating account of when Oliver Sacks hurt his own leg badly and subsequently lost his mental association with it. He opens up completely about the experience so it's fascinating as a view into what happens to someone in this situation. But he also adds in his remarkable erudition and knowledge about neuro-psychology which makes it all the more interesting. And as a bonus it's relatively short too!
This book just dragged on and on, it was an interesting subject though.
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Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born July 9, 1933, London), is a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a phys...more
More about Oliver Sacks...
Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a phys...more
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