Tanya's review
Awakenings
by Oliver W. Sacks
Tanya's review
Awakenings by Oliver W. Sacks
Tanya's review
rating:
bookshelves:
health,
memoirs,
science
After having read another Oliver Sacks book, I picked this up just because I enjoyed the 1990 movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. This turned out to be an amazing story. The book is about Dr. Sacks's actual experiences with a new drug and several dozen patients suffering from post-encephelatic lethargica, a form of Parkinsons. Unlike Dr. Sayer in the movie, Dr. Sacks encountered a wide variety of responses to the drug, L-dopa. In fact, every patient's response was unique although most of them followed a pattern of "awakening, tribulation, and accommodation." For the first 200 pages, I had a hard time putting the book down but I got somewhat bogged down in his wrap-up in the last 50. It was more difficult to understand and wasn't holding my attention, but I got through it, still with a tremendous appreciation for what he did, what these patients went through before and after the drug, and the intricate workings of the human brain.
