Book review: The man who mistook his wife for a hat

Back at university, almost 25 years ago, one of my majors was psychology and in particular I took courses in neuroscience and abnormal psychology.

At some point in a class they must have mentioned Oliver Sacks, and out of interest at the time I read his 1985 book The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.

Sacks, by the way, was a neurologist, and the book is a collection of chapters discussing some of his patents he got to know over the years.  The title of the book comes from the first chapter, and the man, Dr P, really did attempt to pick up his wife's head thinking that she was his hat.  He had visual agnosia which meant that he was unable to visually recognise faces or familiar objects.

Fast forward a bit, and a few months ago the children and I watched Awakenings, a Robin Williams and Robert De Niro movie based on Sacks' book of the same name.

(I highly recommend the movie, and the girls enjoyed it.)

Anyway, I thought Mulan might also enjoy reading The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, so I requested it from the library.  I've just finished re-reading it, and have passed it on to Mulan.  (I don't expect Mulan to read all the neurological details, but I thought she might find the stories of the people interesting and thought-provoking.)

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat is truly a fascinating read.

First and foremost, Sacks has a delightful storytelling style.  Sacks is incredibly good at humanising his patients -- they are decent, real, (mostly) normal people, who just happen to have had something happen to their brain (injury, illness, stroke, epilepsy, migraines, etc) and consequently they perceive or interact in the world differently than most people.

To me, what I find so fascinating is how our perception of the world is tied in so much with our physical brain.  A little bit of damage/change to this part of the brain, and suddenly one has a vastly different perception of the world.  Sometimes these differences are clear defects, but Sacks has a way of also opening our eyes to the ways in which these differences become a true part of who these people are.

And in doing this, as readers we are likewise prompted to re-consider who we are in ourselves.  In everyday life we often like to think of ourselves as whole and united, as individual selves in control of our interactions in the world.  These sorts of neurological case studies deeply question this perception of ourselves, and for that matter our perception of reality.