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Memories of Amnesia
Brain surgeon Izzac Drogin experiences firsthand the mysterious, frightening, and hilarious intricacies of the human mind when he begins to lose his to amnesia
- GenresFictionLiterature
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 4, 2011
As our organ of primary understanding and the seat of our self-awareness, the brain holds a special place in the pantheon of the body, and not just its literal special place in the bony bowl at the top of our spines. The brain’s illnesses pose potentially unresolvable paradoxes about the nature of identity and about the accuracy of our understanding of the world. Memories of Amnesia, a novel of brain damage and its effects, by neuropathologist Lawrence Shainberg, addresses issues of mind and body and the curiously circular self-awareness of a mind investigating its own brain.
The narrator, brain surgeon Isaac Drogin, notices early on in the novel that he is suffering symptoms of a brain irregularity that he commonly diagnoses in his patients. When Drogin asks a colleague to examine him, his fears are confirmed: Drogin has a progressive brain disorder, and he begins a highly self-conscious observation of his own deterioration, in which he is both doctor and patient. The problem, for the reader, is that Shainberg’s narrator has told us that the condition he suffers from makes his grasp of reality unreliable, so it quickly becomes unclear whether or not anything Drogin observes about himself and his surroundings is true, despite the accurate and complicated jargon that the doctor uses to describe his condition.
The novel’s highly readable medical passages take us behind the scenes in the theater of surgery and in the grand opera of the self, describing neurosurgical procedures with disturbing clinical accuracy and explaining correlations between brain chemistry and thoughts with uncanny metaphysical insight. Sometimes, as you read, you become so aware of your own brain processing the language you’re reading that the language itself become secondary to your thoughts about yourself processing it. The ultimate paradox of the book—that the brain constructs a self that the self cannot find in the brain, even when the self is a neurosurgeon—comprises the main metaphor of the book, which is the hall of mirrors that modern self-consciousness has become.
Shainberg handles the philosophical implications of his story with perverse wit. Once Dr. Drogin decides that a belief in a self separate from the body is the ultimate neurological function, he declares war on his own brain: in order to prove that he really does exist apart from his brain and that his sense of identity is not merely an illusion of his own neurology, Drogin attempts to undermine his brain’s functioning and liberate himself from it.
His wife, who may or may not be named Martha or Marjorie or Marcia, cheers him on. “You’ve got more courage than anyone I know!” she says. “You’ve challenged your brain! Rebelled against the tyranny of thought! The whole charade of language and memory.”
The doctor’s rebellion leads to an extraordinary climax, in which narrative point of view, the concept of the self and even observable reality are all called into question. Memories of Amnesia begins off-kilter and grows more convincingly askew as it progresses, until, when you put it down, the world of the book seems normal and the world around you seems to have shifted.
The narrator, brain surgeon Isaac Drogin, notices early on in the novel that he is suffering symptoms of a brain irregularity that he commonly diagnoses in his patients. When Drogin asks a colleague to examine him, his fears are confirmed: Drogin has a progressive brain disorder, and he begins a highly self-conscious observation of his own deterioration, in which he is both doctor and patient. The problem, for the reader, is that Shainberg’s narrator has told us that the condition he suffers from makes his grasp of reality unreliable, so it quickly becomes unclear whether or not anything Drogin observes about himself and his surroundings is true, despite the accurate and complicated jargon that the doctor uses to describe his condition.
The novel’s highly readable medical passages take us behind the scenes in the theater of surgery and in the grand opera of the self, describing neurosurgical procedures with disturbing clinical accuracy and explaining correlations between brain chemistry and thoughts with uncanny metaphysical insight. Sometimes, as you read, you become so aware of your own brain processing the language you’re reading that the language itself become secondary to your thoughts about yourself processing it. The ultimate paradox of the book—that the brain constructs a self that the self cannot find in the brain, even when the self is a neurosurgeon—comprises the main metaphor of the book, which is the hall of mirrors that modern self-consciousness has become.
Shainberg handles the philosophical implications of his story with perverse wit. Once Dr. Drogin decides that a belief in a self separate from the body is the ultimate neurological function, he declares war on his own brain: in order to prove that he really does exist apart from his brain and that his sense of identity is not merely an illusion of his own neurology, Drogin attempts to undermine his brain’s functioning and liberate himself from it.
His wife, who may or may not be named Martha or Marjorie or Marcia, cheers him on. “You’ve got more courage than anyone I know!” she says. “You’ve challenged your brain! Rebelled against the tyranny of thought! The whole charade of language and memory.”
The doctor’s rebellion leads to an extraordinary climax, in which narrative point of view, the concept of the self and even observable reality are all called into question. Memories of Amnesia begins off-kilter and grows more convincingly askew as it progresses, until, when you put it down, the world of the book seems normal and the world around you seems to have shifted.
June 15, 2024
I enjoyed this but I suspect a big part of that was familiarity with some basic neuroscience - I think if you don’t this will be largely incomprehensible. I love an unreliable narrator especially if they don’t think they’re unreliable. The characters are all mad but in a very fun way
May 2, 2011
A surprisingly good, if dense, short read. Shainberg creates a terrifying world where nothing is right or believable, yet the narrator is utterly convinced of everything he tells the reader. A good philosophical romp that should take you an afternoon.
July 24, 2017
Unmemorable. :)
Not really - great book covering the crazy reflexiveness of being suffering from a neurological disease while being a neurosurgeon.
Not really - great book covering the crazy reflexiveness of being suffering from a neurological disease while being a neurosurgeon.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews