Customer Reviews

American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As an adult Aspie, I found Osborne's portrayal of Asperger's Syndrome to be tedious and tendentious. Even though the condition may be somewhat amorphous, there is a clear distinction between Aspies and non-Aspies. The otherness is what defines Asperger's Syndrome. Osborne attempts to raise the question regarding our very conception of normalcy and the long running theme of the book is the idea that perhaps everyone is on the spectrum in some way or another. That is, despite all its weirdness, there is nothing all that abnormal about Asperger's Syndrome. The message is hopeful in that it opens the gates to social acceptance, but I do think that he tends to underplay the severe problems that autistic individuals have in integrating into society.

However often it gets told, the story of the Aspie getting humiliated and then fired from a job, drifting downwards as he claws at any available opportunity, getting fired again, and again, before finally reaching a dead end, is perhaps THE story about Asperger's Syndrome. Geniuses have always been exceptions. Whilst it is heartwarming to think that men like Glenn Gould and Thomas Jefferson may have been autistic too, such trivia provides only a false sense of comfort to the 99.999% of Aspies who do not possess those extreme talents. What hope is there for the Aspie who does not possess the savant like skills in music? How many of us will ever turn out to be like Einstein?

Parts of the book had been published in the New York Times Magazine and as befits anything that is published in that august newspaper, the writing is of a high standard. However, Osborne writes as a man who is a professional writer. It is apparent that he has honed his craft and has learned how to reach for the metaphors and the similes. But the style feels a little too commercial, and the words often a little contrived.

Of the many and growing publications on Asperger's Syndrome, I would say that "American Normal" is perhaps one of the better offerings. Books written by Aspies tend to be wooden and excessively direct. Books written by parents of Aspies are usually too homely and thoughtlessly hopeful. Books written by the researchers are typically too specialized to be of any use to the lay reader. While I do sincerely believe that "American Normal" fails to shed any real insight into the lives and tribulations of an Aspie, it is useful for those who are beginning to apprehend the mysteries of the autistic mind. One should probably not be too critical of those who write of enigmas.

While I was reading American Normal, I kept asking myself, why is he writing this book. Someone finally asks the author the same question, and his answer is, "I don't know." I have a theory. Osborne started out to write a book showing that AS is an imaginary problem coined to put labels on eccentrics. When halfway through the book his research shows him that it's quite a lot more than that, in fact a real syndrome completely different from just "a little eccentricity", he is lost. He no longer knows why he is writing. He keeps mentioning drugs. There are no drugs in the treatment of AS itself. He keeps metioning psychiatrists. It's a neurological disorder, not a psychiatric disorder. He meets, casually, a few Aspies, and suddenly he's an expert. This book mostly made me angry, as it would anyone who knows someone with AS. He seems often to think the whole this is a joke. After all, he's eccentric, and he doesn't have it... Worst book I've read on autism yet. Pity

I think Osborne made a strategic error in the way he wrote this book. I believe his intent was to identify and empathize with those who suffer from Asperger's Syndrome. To this end he showed us how he, a "neurotypical," does things that might be considered Aspergerish, such as giving in to an obsessive need to circle lamp posts or to watch every episode of the Japanese TV show "Iron Chef" or to only feel comfortable at Red Roof Inns, etc. In his interviews with Aspies he took a sometimes playful tone, and in his retrospective of people who may (or may not) have had AS, he emphasized the eccentric nature of their lives, not their suffering. The effect of this approach on Aspies themselves was to make them feel that he was trivializing AS. Some even felt he was making fun of them.

Furthermore, in his effort to suggest that AS can be seen as an alternative approach to life (or at least an attempt at one) he ran into those who want to make it clear that Asperger's is a neurological disease and that most (if not all) who suffer from it are not curious "little professors." They and their friends and relatives (and the therapeutic community administering to them) do not want to read anything that in any way might mislead the general public into thinking that Aspies are just weird eccentrics.

In other words, he missed the psychology of the larger AS community. People who are distinct minorities in a larger community, as Aspies are, and who feel discriminated against because they are different (and the larger society surely does discriminate against them)--such people are not likely to welcome a satirical or playful approach to their situation. They tend to be serious and understandably intolerant of anything that might threaten their dignity. And they are right in feeling this way because throughout human history it is only one step from making fun of people to ostracizing them.

Also one gets the sense that more than anything Osborne was satisfying his curiosity. He became the journalist who travels around interviewing AS people to find out what they are like. He reported what he saw and heard. For readers who know little or nothing about AS, this approach has its merit. For those who have AS or are friends or relatives of people with AS, this approach is not only not interesting, it is of little value.

The AS people also feel that such an approach does not best serve the general public. What they want are books that inform the larger community about AS in a factual manner complete with an understanding of the problems that Aspies have to deal with vis-a-vis governmental bureaucracies, school administrators, daily life, etc. They are not going to be pleased with a book about AS that is largely an entertainment. Osborne missed all of this. I am sure he was absolutely shocked and dismayed at the reception his book received from the AS community.

On a more positive note, like me say that Osborne is a very good writer. He worked hard to make his book accessible to the reader, and, yes, entertaining and very readable. He balanced the interviews with Aspies with information about historical figures like famed pianist Glenn Gould and our second president Thomas Jefferson and others who might have suffered from AS. He did this in an attempt to give as broad a picture as possible. He even compares AS to other neurological diseases such as latah and koro in an attempt to show how such disorders are affected by cultural norms in different countries.

What I think Osborne was trying to do is follow the ideas of Dr. Mel Levine, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whom he quotes as saying that "American psychiatry embodies a deeply pessimistic, gloomily simplistic view of the world" and is "Unable to conceive of a healthy eccentricity..." And so it resorts to "reductionist labeling." In particular, the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders is replete with "dubious disorders" which "children are shoehorned into." (pp. xiv-xv)

He further observes (still relying on Levine) that "the codes [from DSM-IV] are quick and convenient, especially for the purposes of filling out insurance forms and getting reimbursed, but they bear little relation to the complexity of people's lives." In other words, the whole idea of syndromes as defined by the DSM-IV is a convenience for the administrating and "therapeutic" community, and not for the patients or those with neurological differences.

In the long run I think we are going to find that Osborne is on the side of the angels, and that his approach which emphasizes the similarities between those with AS and those they label "neurotypical" is better than an approach that stigmatizes people whose behavior is different.

Don't misunderstand me, please. I have seen people with autism and other mental disorders and they are very real and in some cases terribly disabling. However, I think whenever possible we ought to tolerate individual differences and not put depreciating labels on them.

Finally Osborne asks the telling question, "What would it mean to 'cure' a personality disorder?" "We might ask whether a personality disorder should be cured at all...Do we even really know what a personality is in the first place, and by what impertinence do we affect to lay down its laws?" (p. 185) The truth is in most cases we don't understand either the etiology of these so-called disorders or have any idea of what we can or should do about them. In some cases we might ask should we "fix" the individual or the society?

I think Osborne has made some important points here, and that an open-minded reading of his book would reveal the author as a person who has thought long and hard on the subject of AS and one who appreciates individual differences.

I agree with many of the reviewers who have expressed their thoughts below. Lawrence Osbourne is a brilliant writer and I totally enjoyed reading this book. Like other reviewers, I often wondered if the book was really just an excuse for a rather self indulgent exploration of his own Aspie symptoms, but I was willing to put that aside and enjoy his wonderful, descriptive prose and his engaging profiles of son many unique and gifted individuals.

I picked up the book because as the mother of an Aspie (and yes, I have a lot of the traits myself), I have always wondered if autism might represent the next step in the evolution of our minds. As we move into this computerized age, so many of our guides seem to be imbued with noticible Aspie traits - I've even heard that everyone in Silicon Valley for example is somewhere "on the spectrum".

I appreciated Osborne's humourous but respectful portrayal of Asperger's Syndrome and as I finished the book I felt more positive than I have in a while about my son's future and the incredible potential that he has.

This book seems to reduce Asperger's syndrome to a bunck of quirks oddities and compulsions. As a parent of a child with Asperger's, I worry that this book could create a dangerous misunderstanding of a very serious condition.

I am a professional psychologist and also the mother of a 19-year-old son with Asperger's Syndrome. I found the interviews in this book with individuals diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome interesting, which is why I gave it two stars. However, the book is ultimately infuriating because I can't figure out what the author's ultimate point about Asperger's is. He seems to say: (1) this is a real disorder; (2) it is a neurological disorder; (3) these people are really just harmless eccentrics; (3) the disorder exists partly, and maybe primarily, because of American notions of what is and isn't normal. Interestingly, those he interviews or discusses who fit closest to his view of harmless eccentrics who should be left alone, such as pianist Glenn Gould, are those with either remarkable and marketable talents or independent incomes. Those who would have to cope with life unbuffered by either talent or income fare much less well.

This book is not meant as a thorough investigation of autism, including different treatment methods and exploration of what may or may not cause it. Instead it takes a rather idiosyncratic approach to the disease, exploring mostly people who have Asperger's Disorder, a "less severe" form of the disease. I mean less severe as in being more able to "pass" for normal. People with Asperger's generally have high IQs and excellent verbal skills. Well, some do and some don't.

If there's anything this book shows, is that the line between Asperger's and normal is fluid. The author interviews many families whose children have the disease (or are believed to have it). Although at times, he does seem to imply that people with Aspergers are just harmless eccentrics, I don't think he is actually trying to make a case that Asperger's doesn't exist. But with the kind of approach the book takes it is hard to tell.

What is enjoyable is the subjects themselves, some of whom seem too impaired for everyday living, and others who that isn't true of at all. It is also interesting to see how the parents cope with their Asperger's child, many of whom here seemed to have learned to take the behavior in stride. Look for clinical information elsewhere.

Excellent book that really puts things in perspective. It makes the reader realize that just because one has certain strange qualities that are "out of the norm," does not mean they have a disorder. The pharmaceutical companies capitalize on illnesses and we need a more objective perspective.

I do not believe that anyone should make light of real illnesses. Asperger's is an illness. People with Asperger's have trouble in many areas of their lives. But we must also realize that not everyone who has certain traits should jump to the conclusion that they have a disease. We need to be aware that our society may be the cause of many symptoms people seem to be experiencing, such as isolation, loneliness, not fitting in... The cause of some of these feelings may not necessarily lie in any illness, but in the way we are socialized. People today seem to be more isolated. They don't know their neighbors, they are fake at work, they smile when they feel sad because it is not acceptable to show any "negative" feelings. The focus has become on work, money, achievements, and less on friendships and community. All of this, no doubt, contributes to an increase in people feeling like outsiders in their own lives. So we need to distinguish a real illness from a cultural "illness" and not jump to quick conclusions. I did enjoy this book and it is well written and shows the other side of these "symptoms."

One of the syndromes medical students learn about is Medical Student's Disease: one thinks one has the particular malady being taught about. Symptoms are diverse, as all of us have some sort of ache or pain now and then; and certainly all of us have mental symptoms, too, whether these be just ups and downs, occasionally hearing ourselves being called when no one is calling, obsessive interest in an oddity that turns into a hobby, bursts of energy or self-esteem, and so on. Lawrence Osborne has taken on the task of reporting about Asperger Syndrome in _American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome_ (Copernicus Books) and has filled it with his own symptoms tending toward the condition: he is fixated on the television program _Iron Chef_, for instance, and he is fond of lingering in airports, and as a child he was nuts about playing the lute. He is willing to call these "Aspergerish" (and he has met people with the diagnosis that share this sort of trait), but he wisely withholds the diagnosis from himself. He gets along far too well; like so many other diagnoses, Asperger's can't apply if one is unimpaired socially or occupationally, and Osborne shows he can get along socially even with some very peculiar people, and he can write with wonderful clarity and vigor. His book goes a long way to illustrating the condition, even if the illness, and the philosophy behind diagnosing it, remain largely unexplained.

The illness is specific, with a definition of check-off symptoms in psychiatry's standard diagnostic manual. It is probably a high-functioning form of autism, but not as crippling. People with Asperger's are often highly intelligent, and although they are frequently preoccupied with one area of restricted interest in which they have sometimes astounding intellectual capacity, they can blend into society with bumbling facility. However, they can't do things that the rest of us take for granted, like looking at a human face and knowing what emotions are being shown. Osborne gets to interview or research patients who have, for instance, memorized all of _Babylon 5_, or every fact about hotels in their state, or about vacuum cleaners. It might be that Thomas Jefferson had the illness, and maybe Albert Einstein and Béla Bartók. The main Asperger poster boy is the famous pianist Glenn Gould, who gets a chapter here. Gould certainly had the concentration on a limited sphere of interest; his recordings, especially of Bach, are among the most famous of any classical records. Gould displayed (or perhaps harnessed) the social inability of Asperger patients in an unusual way; retiring from the concert hall, he tirelessly argued for the virtues of electronically recorded performances.

This is not a book of firsthand experience with the illness, although Osborne wisely lets us in on enough of his own idiosyncrasies to show how close to normal Asperger people are. And it is not a book by a medical expert or specialist. Osborne is simply a curious person and a gifted writer who had an opportunity to investigate something that took his fancy, an interesting illness, and was able to interview some interesting people who suffer, or who thrive, from it. (One of them told him, "Normalcy is highly overrated, you know.") _American Normal_ is mostly his personal observations, and it is very entertaining, as well as sympathetic and informative.

Though this definitely isn't an advice book for parents of children with Aspergers, I loved it anyway. Lawrence Osborne writes beautifully, and the book really shows you what the lives of adult Aspergers sufferers are like. It IS a mostly sad story. Maybe he's a little short on therapeutic sympathy, but he's an incredibly observant and witty writer. I keep thinking about the lives of the kids and especially the adults who appear in the book.