Book Review: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat” by Oliver Sacks

The title of this book sounds like a clickbait headline, but it’s entirely accurate: The first of the 24 case studies of neurological disorders in this book does indeed describe a man who mistakes his wife for a hat, even pulling on her head in attempt to “put her on”. Not all of the conditions in this book are as bizarre as this – some, like phantom limbs and Tourette’s Syndrome, have already made their way into the public consciousness – but Oliver Sacks explores all of them, and the people that have them, with a sense of curiosity and empathy that makes this classic of psychology a captivating read.

Though there are occasionally some dense technical passages and clinical jargon thrown around, the book is generally pretty accessible. It’s clear that Sacks is as interested in the people as he is in the science; he does a great job of putting you into the shoes of these various patients, describing in great detail the neurological issues that they’re dealing with, and how these issues affect them. Some of the patients have adapted surprisingly well to their strange conditions; others, by the nature of their condition, are blissfully unaware; and some, tragically, are unable to fully overcome their situation. Such is the case in the “The Disembodied Lady”, one of the cases in the book that has stuck with me the most. The case centers around a woman named Christina who had lost her sense of her own body, something that most of us take for granted, and had to learn how to walk and move using only her vision to keep track of her hands, legs, and every other part of her. Though she was eventually able to adapt to this and return to a mostly functional life, she was never able to fully get over the “disembodiedness” that she felt, and the miserable feeling that it entailed.

But fortunately, even in the most severe cases, most of the patients in this book are able to find some level of peace with their condition, and much of the time they do this through art. Indeed, one reoccurring theme of this book is the ability of art to transcend the neurological issues that these people face. The titular “Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” sees the world in entirely abstract terms, unable to visualize faces and scenes with any level of clarity. Yet he manages to live a surprisingly well-adjusted life as a music professor, having essentially substituted the role of image in his life with musicality. The last chapter, “The Autist Artist”, describes a mentally disabled man with a talent for drawing that belies a deeper understanding of the world that he seems unable to express in any other way. And in “The Lost Mariner”, a fifty-year-old man who suffers from severe short term memory loss and is permanently mentally stuck in his life at the age of nineteen due to retrograde amnesia, seems to temporarily rise above his condition when partaking in Holy Communion in church. These stories elucidate the significance of art, music, spirituality, and creativity in our lives.

Overall, these stories provide a fascinating look into a world that most of us are unfamiliar with, and Sacks is a wonderful guide. Whether or not you’re interested in neuroscience itself, I would highly recommend you give this book a shot, and hopefully you’ll come out, like I did, with a richer and wider understanding of the human experience.

Grade: A-

Notable quotes:

• “But who was more tragic, or who was more dammed – the man who knew it, or the man who did not?”
• “If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self – himself – he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.”
• “Perhaps there is a philosophical as well as a clinical lesson here: that in Korsakov’s, or dementia, or other such catastrophes, however great the organic damage and Humean dissolution, there remains the undiminished possibility of reintegration by art, by communion, by touching the human spirit: and this can be preserved in what seems at first a hopeless state of neurological devastation.”
• “If God, or the eternal order, was revealed to Dostoievski in seizures, why should not other organic conditions serve as ‘portals’ to the beyond or the unknown?”