Customer Reviews

Waist-High in the World

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reviewer: robert dorroh from Sonora, CA United States Nancy Mairs, with devastating honesty, chronicles life as a cripple (her choice of word) in poignant essays in "Waist High in the World."

Beset with multiple sclerosis and bouts with clinical and situational depression, she offsets these stumbling blocks with joy, candor, eloquence, and cultural and political insights. It is a book for everybody, not just the disabled, for it challenges our fears, cultural hangups and citizenship: "The more perspectives that can be brought to bear on human experience, even from the slant of a wheelchair or a hospital bed, or through the ears of a blind person or the fingers of someone who is deaf, the richer that experience becomes." She attacks the stereotype that cripples must be passive and unfailingly polite in a culture that doesn't want to deal with them: "Beyond cheerfulness and patience, people don't expect much of a cripple's character."

Pondering her husband and caretaker George's battle with cancer, she offers a balanced look at suicide in the face of his death. Though she has attempted suicide "more than once," she questions the right-to-die movement, which extolls "rational" suicide: "Since hopelessness is a distinctive symptom of depression, which is an emotional disorder, actions carried out in a despairing state seem to me intrinsically irrational. This last time I clung to shreds of reason, which saved me." Still, she sees suicide as a possibility: "I want to be the one in charge of my life, including its end."

Why should society pay for the misfortunes of others? people ask. Because it's what human beings do: take care of one another, Mairs says, adding that it's the government's role to ensure that its citizens are entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Mairs notes that the abled-bodied should aim to preserve the dignity of the disabled. This takes in seeing them as sexual beings: ... "The general assumption, even among those who might be expected to know better, is that people with disabilities are out of the sexual running."

As a paraplegic, I admire her advocacy on my behalf. I admire her more, however, for her willingness to work toward the betterment of our society through a rare and gifted intelligence.

Nancy Mairs writes about the human condition with humor, compassion, and ruthless honesty. This is a book of personal reflections about disability, embodiment, marriage, religion, and lots of other things, but fundamentally about the possibility of honestly acknowledging all the pain and confusion in our lives and at the same time--within that pain and confusion--living fully, gratefully, joyously.

Wow. What a gift. Thank you, Nancy Mairs.

This book and "Ordinary Time" are my favorites by Mairs.

Facing chronic disease myself, I've turned to books like this for information, comfort, challenge and ideas. Nancy Mairs is the best I've found for writing honestly about what it means for people (women in particular) to face chronic, degenerative illness. She writes from her personal experience, but I see myself in her struggles. A book to read and re-read.

Nancy Mairs writes that there is a "tangle of reasons" why readers might want to read this book. She writes for readers who crave to know more about life with multiple sclerosis and depression (her own diseases) or life with disability in general -- although she says she can't offer generalizations. I found the essays the most compelling when they were the most personal and unflinching. Mairs also does a good job of teasing out the issues in "right to die" and quality of life controversies. Altogether, a satisfying and thought-provoking read for anyone who would like to encounter a fiercely independent and often joyous woman who declares herself a "cripple."

I had to read this book for one of my women's study's classes nearly 7 years ago. It has been too long to remember much of the detail but what I do remember is the depth of the impression that was left upon me. It is a very difficult task to look at someone's life, through their eyes, and experience their total destruction of being...slow....poignant...and startlingly real.

As we discussed this book in class, one of the girls ran out in tears, later coming back and disclosing that she, too, suffered from MS, making the book that much real and impressionable for me.

Nancy Mairs is painfully, startlingly brave. Her book is something I recommend, not just for people with MS but people, period. She reminds me of just how powerful telling the truth can really be. We all need this book!

I never had the 29 years of abled bodiness the author speaks about before she contacted MS - I've been severly crippled for five plus decades......she writes a good book, but again like most highly educated authors, people found in the in the communications arts, she overwhelms us with "dictionary words."

Dear author, in your next book, or a revised edition of this book, please allow us to put our thesaurus' away. Common literates would get more out of your books if you wrote without the imposing words.

I've accused other authors, who it is obvious, to have written like they wish to impress their peers at the university level. But you need not impress anyone but yourself, because your teaching the handicapped along with the "ables" that our world has meaning and purpose, is impressive enough.

Pardon my grammatical errors.........but it takes me a long time to type........and so I normally say forget it to rewriting.

The book is well worth the money.

Nancy Mairs writes of her life from a wheelchair and gives voice to the disabled. Afflicted with multiple sclerosis, she has also battled depression, but still finds joy in life. The book gives one insights into the world of the disabled and the challenges they face. In our culture where little is expected of the disabled and where they are often ignored, she calls herself a cripple and speaks out against passiveness in the handicapped. She examines the right-to-die for those for whom live/pain has become unbearable and draws the conclusions that she, the type who needs to be in charge,wants to continue to do so at the end of her life. Her husband, George, a cancer survivor, is her caregiver and a blessed one at that.

She advocates that through our government and as individuals we should take care of each other because that is what makes us human. The first chapter is difficult to stay with, but hang in there, it gets better as it goes along. In the end you will see that it was well worth your time and attention. It was interesting to me her view of England vs the U.S. She finds the English more accommodating and credits their having lived through a war on their own grounds. Eunice Boeve author of Ride a Shadowed Trail

Having lived with MS for nearly 10 years and some of the disabling symptoms Ms. Mairs experiences I found her insights and perspective very helpful and enlightening. I think anyone with a disability, caretaker, or loved one of a person with a disabulity can get something out of this book. It articulates what life can be like for us, from the inside and with a superiorly articulate voice and perspective.

This is a beautifully written book and one from which I learned a lot! It actually changed my world view. I wish it were required reading for everyone. I'm so glad I read it.