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I've watched the film AWAKENINGS many times and heard that there were significant differences between it and the book upon which it was based. Curious to see what these differences were, I downloaded the book and thus discovered the true story of the effect of L-DOPA on seriously disabled people.
Indeed, the movie bears little resemblance to the book, which is an intriguing but often morbid tale of neurologist Oliver Sacks' obsessive attempts to cure chronic patients at Mount Carmel Hospital, New York. In this autobiographical discussion, he sometimes appears not to know when to stop experimenting on his vulnerable human patients. Unlike the cinematic version, in which all the patients are generally immobile and unable to communicate, several of Sacks' real patients were able to walk, talk, and express themselves, although they were severely or partially affected by Parkinson's disease or post-encephalitic syndrome.
Dr. Sacks (renamed Dr. Sayer in the movie) is a meticulous, verbose scientist who liberally quotes metaphysical writers such as John Donne, and records case histories with a combination of careful analysis, fascination and revulsion. It surprised me to learn that Leonard, the star patient of the book and movie, in real life graduated from Harvard University with honors prior to his physical deterioration and institutionalization. Once in the hospital, he read books voraciously, and communicated all the while by tapping letters on a spelling-board (not a Ouija board). The administration of L-DOPA allowed him more motion and the ability to speak, just as the film depicted, but the drug's effects were transitory and, for Leonard as well as for most of the other patients, eventually did him more harm than good, physically and psychologically.Read more ›
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does one write a review after 40 years of publication of a book? yes, one doeṣ, if the book has taught you many things about parkinsonṣ. i am well read and quite knowledgeable on this heinous disease. being a care giver for the past 22 years for a patient in an advanced stage of parkinsons, it was immensely interesting to know about so many more thingṣ. the mood changes, the gait changes, changes in appetite, the changes in body flexibility, unpredictability to medicines, reaction to outside influence etc etc. this book is amazing in the presentation of so many heroic persons who fight their afflictions with so much courage and conviction and the commitment of dr sackṣ. and mostly the understanding of the attending staff and relativeṣ. no one character is more important than any other - so i am not mentioning any nameṣ. each of the sufferer has presented an unique phenomenon of struggle against a destructive disease. the appendix to the book is amazingly instructive and i simply loved iṭ. i thank dr sacks for making a difficult science like neurology so simple that even a common man could understand iṭ. when he finished the book stem cell treatment was in the inception giving a new hope of cure. later on has come the deep brain surgery. but even today we are still awaiting that miracle cure for parkinsons, just as it looked like L dopa was the miracle cure 50 years ago.
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Not until I got the the very end of the book (the chapter dealing with stage/film/radio adaptations) did I became aware of the nearly 'Klein bottle' structure Dr. Sacks writes with and tries to explore in his patients here. The book, and the patients, begin with the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica, they survive, however, become severely Parkinsonian and are prisoners in their own bodies, yet to a person still retain their own uniqueness and can't actually be defined by their disease. When they are 'awakened', each person is effected differently and often profoundly, sometimes uniquely each time they are given L-Dopa, and some even get better. Then the strange happens when the actors who portray these people, especially Robert DeNiro, almost become Parkinsonian themselves, to the point that Sacks can't actually tell what's going on. Just like many of the patients could almost 'choose' to get better or not, so too could the actors choose their own methods and the levels of profundity.
When these actors mirror back what Sacks studied, we get a strange picture of illness and health, of a sound mind and a hallucinatory mind, of the reality that the patients invented to survive and the imaginary the actors invented to achieve a great performance. I almost felt like Sacks wanted to hook up the actors to lab equipment and run a battery of tests on them to see if what some of his patients went through would mirror the test results of what the actors put themselves through.
And at the heart of all this is identity. Most profoundly, and the point Sacks truly wanted to make (and still makes) is that patients are, in fact, human beings who are not defined by a disease but are wholly just human beings who need the treatment from a doctor who treats them as a human being.Read more ›
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Absolutely fascinating. I could not put this book down, and was sorry when it was over. Dr. Sacks' ability to see his patients as human beings, to recognize their souls and see them as so much more than just clinical subjects, was beautiful to witness.
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