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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
"In the country of the blind," the old adage asserts, "the one-eyed man is king." But in Stephen Kuusisto's superb new memoir, The Planet of the Blind, the world of a one-eyed man is a kingdom of confusion and quixotic struggle. Born with only residual vision, one eye capable of 20/200 vision and the other unseeing, Kuusisto was led by the insistence of his mother and the ignorance of the society around him to an elaborate and harrowing attempt to appear sighted. At times the effort was life-threatening, as with the bicycle he rode from the ages of 10 to 30 ("Were my years of cycling an actuarial gift?" he wonders), and at other times profoundly humiliating, as when his stumblings and collisions are assumed to be signs of habitual drunkenness. Indeed, the almost inconceivable effort of maintaining his sighted masquerade leads to all sorts of self-destructive behavior, from obesity to anorexia, from booze and cigarettes to drugs and perilous clambers up fire escapes.
"In the country of the blind," the old adage asserts, "the one-eyed man is king." But in Stephen Kuusisto's superb new memoir, The Planet of the Blind, the world of a one-eyed man is a kingdom of confusion and quixotic struggle. Born with only residual vision, one eye capable of 20/200 vision and the other unseeing, Kuusisto was led by the insistence of his mother and the ignorance of the society around him to an elaborate and harrowing attempt to appear sighted. At times the effort was life-threatening, as with the bicycle he rode from the ages of 10 to 30 ("Were my years of cycling an actuarial gift?" he wonders), and at other times profoundly humiliating, as when his stumblings and collisions are assumed to be signs of habitual drunkenness. Indeed, the almost inconceivable effort of maintaining his sighted masquerade leads to all sorts of self-destructive behavior, from obesity to anorexia, from booze and cigarettes to drugs and perilous clambers up fire escapes.
Most biography is a recounting of struggle that leads to success and achievement, but Kuusisto's story is of a lifelong struggle that leads to acceptance. For this gifted poet, the barely glimpsed visual world is an irresistible temptation, despite pain, embarrassment, and failure. When he finally submits to the white cane and a guide dog, suddenly he can envision a "Planet of the Blind," a place where those without sight live in peace with their own lives, where "everyone is free to touch faces, paintings, gardens," a place where beauty is behind the eye of the beholder. --John Longenbaugh
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YAA"I stare at the world through smeared and broken windowpanes," poet and educator Kuusisto writes in the opening pages of this powerful, literary memoir. Weighing less than five pounds at birth, he was incubated with oxygen, as many premies were in the 1950s. His life was saved, but his retinas were severely scarred, leaving him legally blind. With his parents in denial, Kuusisto stumbled through his childhood in regular classrooms, derided by classmates for telescopic glasses and a right eye that continually hopped in its socket. He grew into an angry teen who struggled first with obesity and then with anorexia. Even into adulthood, he was unable to trust or reach out for help until an accident destroyed his residual vision and he finally admitted his need for assistance. In his late 30s he is able to accept his disability and trust a guide dog. Kuusisto's story is about the regeneration of the spirit. "I've taken the slow road to blindness," he writes toward the end of the book, "resisting it like a suspicious skater who fears the river." The author finds solace in both contemporary poetry and classical literature and his journey toward the "planet of the blind" is one many young adults should find enlightening for its exploration of the physical and psychological struggles of those with disabilities.APat Bangs, Fairfax County Public Library,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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