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Top positive review
8 people found this helpful
4.0 out of 5 starsA useful addition to the collection of memoirs by acquired savants
Bytreekilleron January 12, 2017
Struck by Genius is a useful addition to the growing collection of memoirs written by acquired savants-- and I think is primarily of interest to those who have a particular interest in this topic. Some reviewers complain about the inclusion of detailed mathematical discussion of Jason Padgett's drawings. However, other reviewers wish there were actually more math, and lament the many pages devoted to descriptions of Jason's personal challenges in dealing with his accident and its consequences. Others (and I count myself in this camp) are put off by the persistent self-congratulatory remarks throughout the book, and I find myself wondering how these survived the influence of a co-writer, agent, and editor. Nevertheless, what the majority of readers seem to agree upon, is that the brain is an exquisitely complex and mysterious organ, and that Jason Padgett's account of his experience leads us to contemplate the remarkable possibilities as we progress in unlocking the brain's secrets.
Top critical review
4 people found this helpful
3.0 out of 5 starsDisappointing
ByBook Loveron May 18, 2014
I love books about the workings of the human mind, and the true story of a party boy who becomes a mathematical genius after surviving a mugging seemed like it was right up my alley. Unfortunately his newly-discovered genius did not extend to writing, and even with a co-author, the writing was labored and repetitive. What would have been a fascinating article in the New Yorker was a dull slog through the self-absorbed ramblings of a Rain Man wanna-be. Do yourself a favor and skip this in favor of Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet, a much more interesting memoir on a similar subject.
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ByJanis Joon June 4, 2014
This is such an unbelievable book that I have told everybody I know about it! I love true stories! Such happiness!
3 people found this helpful
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Byjoseph m. fiorenzoon June 9, 2014
I have a grandson at college studying chemical engineering,he in our conversations about his studies confided in me how difficult the math and physics are with his studies.I told him that i read this book and wanted him to also read the book to see if he could benefit from any part of the math and some of the people who wrote books on math. For me personaly i enjoyed the book,very informative, although some of it was over my head.Like the old saying you hope that out of something bad that happens something good will come.In Jason case we all know for sure a great deal of good came his way.All the best to you Jason in the future.
Joseph M. Fiorenzo
Joseph M. Fiorenzo
ByAndrew Brownon June 20, 2014
I could not put this book down! It was revolutionary and also told by a person who is humble and a true genius!
Byvincit veritason June 27, 2014
This story could have been told in half the pages. He might have spent a little more time educating us on other people with this condition so we might be better educated on the condition he is experiencing. A little disappointed.
My short review of this book is that it should have been a magazine article, but they padded it with completely extraneous material to make it the length of a short book and then published it like that. Supposedly "Struck by Genius" tells the story of Jason Padgett, an ordinary guy who is mugged and left with a traumatic brain injury that, when healed, leaves him with a strange new way of looking at the world. Ok great, that sounds like a pretty good story.
The problem though is that there really isn't all that much to the Padgett story. Enough to fill 75 or 100 pages, tops. So what do we get? Tons of filler along the lines of "I learned X. and that reminds me of the well known story about Einstein...." and then a page long anecdote about someone discovering something that isn't really related to anything Padgett is doing. This happens at least 15 times in a 200 page book.
Then you get filler like "and so i showed this guy at the deli my drawings, and explained to him how i see the world now, and *he* was amazed too!" about 45 times, literally. Every single person Padgett talks to is amazed at how awesome and special he is, no matter what/where/when he tells them about his new abilities. Jason works at a futon store, and instead of selling futons, he tells customers about geometry and various Discovery Channel specials he watched that week. NONE of them ever have a problem with this, which I find more amazing than anything else in this book.
Jason's co-author is a big fan of over-dramatic language, which doesn't help anything either. Jason self-diagnoses himself with PTSD and OCD, and then as a humorous aside he mentions that his step dad also had OCD, because he didn't like scuff marks on the carpet. That's not really OCD Jason, sorry.
The whole book is just full of the authors stretching, trying to make what is a pretty interesting story even more interesting or incredible by making connections that aren't really there or trying to exaggerate the importance of Jason's experiences. And tbh I just found that to be pretty tiresome after awhile. They should have just told the story the way it was and left the reader to draw his own conclusions, I think.
Anyway, google this guy or something instead of wasting money on this book, that's my advice.
The problem though is that there really isn't all that much to the Padgett story. Enough to fill 75 or 100 pages, tops. So what do we get? Tons of filler along the lines of "I learned X. and that reminds me of the well known story about Einstein...." and then a page long anecdote about someone discovering something that isn't really related to anything Padgett is doing. This happens at least 15 times in a 200 page book.
Then you get filler like "and so i showed this guy at the deli my drawings, and explained to him how i see the world now, and *he* was amazed too!" about 45 times, literally. Every single person Padgett talks to is amazed at how awesome and special he is, no matter what/where/when he tells them about his new abilities. Jason works at a futon store, and instead of selling futons, he tells customers about geometry and various Discovery Channel specials he watched that week. NONE of them ever have a problem with this, which I find more amazing than anything else in this book.
Jason's co-author is a big fan of over-dramatic language, which doesn't help anything either. Jason self-diagnoses himself with PTSD and OCD, and then as a humorous aside he mentions that his step dad also had OCD, because he didn't like scuff marks on the carpet. That's not really OCD Jason, sorry.
The whole book is just full of the authors stretching, trying to make what is a pretty interesting story even more interesting or incredible by making connections that aren't really there or trying to exaggerate the importance of Jason's experiences. And tbh I just found that to be pretty tiresome after awhile. They should have just told the story the way it was and left the reader to draw his own conclusions, I think.
Anyway, google this guy or something instead of wasting money on this book, that's my advice.
3.0 out of 5 starsHe goes on at great length about his fascination with graphics and the concept ...
Bybig nickon July 9, 2014
The main problems with this book are its title and length. Nowhere did I find any evidence that the author became a “mathematical marvel” after suffering head trauma from a mugging. Much of the book is interesting and describes how his personality was completely transformed from party animal to serious student after brain trauma which resulted from the beating he sustained on his way home from a party. However, I saw no evidence of mathematical genius. He goes on at great length about his fascination with graphics and the concept of pi. He also inserts math buzz words and drops the names of prominent mathematicians in an apparent attempt to convince the reader that his injuries gave him new insights into mathematics. He is critical of calculus because it relies on approaching infinity to obtain approximate results, yet he relies on exhaustive graphics to do the same thing. His drawings which are displayed in the book are impressive but it doesn't take a “mathematical marvel” to draw graphic designs; it takes great patience, a compass, a straight edge and time.
Still, it was interesting to read how he turned his life around after suffering his self-diagnosis of PTSD and obsessive compulsive disorder after the beating. I just wish he hadn't devoted so many pages to details about his interactions with people or with his new interest in meditation after he was mugged. I had the feeling that there wasn't enough material for a book and his publisher told him to flesh it out.
This book could have benefited from some good editing or, better, it would have made a good magazine article. An even better alternative would be to condense it substantially and offer it to Oliver Sacks for a case history in his next book. If you can't speed read, you'll spend a lot of time on this book.
Bottom line: The book is really about a young man who changed from a party boy to a serious student after he suffered brain trauma from a mugging. Worth reading but not worth buying. Check your local library.
Still, it was interesting to read how he turned his life around after suffering his self-diagnosis of PTSD and obsessive compulsive disorder after the beating. I just wish he hadn't devoted so many pages to details about his interactions with people or with his new interest in meditation after he was mugged. I had the feeling that there wasn't enough material for a book and his publisher told him to flesh it out.
This book could have benefited from some good editing or, better, it would have made a good magazine article. An even better alternative would be to condense it substantially and offer it to Oliver Sacks for a case history in his next book. If you can't speed read, you'll spend a lot of time on this book.
Bottom line: The book is really about a young man who changed from a party boy to a serious student after he suffered brain trauma from a mugging. Worth reading but not worth buying. Check your local library.
Written well and somewhat engaging, this book is more about one man's ability to turn a tragic occurrence into a gift that mirrors the synesthesia found in savants. While the story of how this all came to be and the process of how Padgett recovers to discover his newfound gift are engaging, to a degree, I'm not sure the skills he develops as a result of the accident could be considered the skills of a genius. Interesting and thought-provoking, for sure. If this had been a story told from the perspective of a man who considered himself lucky and possible the result of a miracle (a stretch, but there are those out there convoluted enough in thinking to suggest such an occurrence here), that would have been something else entirely. Synesthesia is a gift best told by those born with such a gift. As such, hearing it from individuals like Daniel Tammet, for example, might provide for a far more interesting read.
When I read the book description (that the writer acquires Savant syndrome after a brutal attack), I expected to read he came out of a weeks-long coma a sudden math genius. Surprisingly, after he was hit on the head, he got up and went home, already manifesting his new math genius and synesthesia. The lesson of Mr. Padgett's story is remarkable: we may all have this genius-level understanding of (math, music, etc.) in our brains, but it's only "unlocked" for a small few. Mr. Padgett was a self-described mulleted party boy with little focus or direction. After a hit to the head after leaving a bar, he became a reclusive, obsessive-compulsive math genius, literally overnight.
While I was fascinated by Mr. Padgett's story, I struggled to finish the book. The writing is somewhat clinical. I found descriptions of his fascination with fractal geometry, numbers, and his newly-acquired synesthesia very compelling, but I was less interested in much of the rest. For example, his telling of his pre-assault life as a shallow, unfocused life-of-the-party-boy only takes one chapter, but it seemed to go on and on (and on...). I think I would have enjoyed his story more if the telling was more concise.
Put another way, this would have made a great chapter in an Oliver Sacks anthology.
While I was fascinated by Mr. Padgett's story, I struggled to finish the book. The writing is somewhat clinical. I found descriptions of his fascination with fractal geometry, numbers, and his newly-acquired synesthesia very compelling, but I was less interested in much of the rest. For example, his telling of his pre-assault life as a shallow, unfocused life-of-the-party-boy only takes one chapter, but it seemed to go on and on (and on...). I think I would have enjoyed his story more if the telling was more concise.
Put another way, this would have made a great chapter in an Oliver Sacks anthology.
After Jason Padgett suffered a brain injury as a result of his mugging, his personality changed from a frat-boy type to a shy, studious guy who suffered from OCD, agorphobia, and PTSD. The personality change is surprising, but the rest of that description is not. But what is most amazing is that he began to perceive mathematical patterns everywhere, and became obsessed with drawing visual representations of pi and prime numbers.
This story is quite well-written, in my opinion. With the help of a co-author, Jason uses his own narrative to also fill us in on a great deal of scientific research into synesthesia (associating numbers and letters with colors, among other things), TBI (traumatic brain injury), savant syndrome, and more. The way the science is folded into the narrative is quite expert, and the book is not only a personal memoir but also a primer on many topics in neurology, told in an approachable way.
What is most intriguing to me about the changes in Jason's brain is the question of whether his altered way of perceiving the world is giving us insight into the actual structure of the physical world, or only of the human brain itself. In other words, people with savant syndrome have unique and impressive skills, the ability to correctly calculate dates on the calendar in an instant, or to perceive the prime factors in a large number, or to compose complex music or draw detailed renderings of nature. But when Jason sees the matrix that underlies reality, is that because he has some unique insight, or because all human brains are attuned to the reality of the structure of the universe, or is it just a brain artifact? How is it different (or is it different?) from psychedelic-induced visions of colored music or writhing snakes?
I also somewhat wish that he had waited longer to write this book. Apparently at the time of writing it, he is still a student at a local community college. As a community college professor myself, I respect the hard-working students that attend community colleges. But is he a genius? He is fascinated by math, but how good is he at it? If he were attending MIT and sharing his insights with his professors, I would be ready to believe that he is a genius, with profound new insights. Yes, it's amazing that a head injury made him *better* at math than he was before--but is he, as the cover claims, a "mathematical marvel"? That part is not yet clear.
Quibbles aside, this book is well worth reading, it it will challenge your ideas about how our minds function, as well as give you great respect for this guy's courage in overcoming the downsides to his injury.
This story is quite well-written, in my opinion. With the help of a co-author, Jason uses his own narrative to also fill us in on a great deal of scientific research into synesthesia (associating numbers and letters with colors, among other things), TBI (traumatic brain injury), savant syndrome, and more. The way the science is folded into the narrative is quite expert, and the book is not only a personal memoir but also a primer on many topics in neurology, told in an approachable way.
What is most intriguing to me about the changes in Jason's brain is the question of whether his altered way of perceiving the world is giving us insight into the actual structure of the physical world, or only of the human brain itself. In other words, people with savant syndrome have unique and impressive skills, the ability to correctly calculate dates on the calendar in an instant, or to perceive the prime factors in a large number, or to compose complex music or draw detailed renderings of nature. But when Jason sees the matrix that underlies reality, is that because he has some unique insight, or because all human brains are attuned to the reality of the structure of the universe, or is it just a brain artifact? How is it different (or is it different?) from psychedelic-induced visions of colored music or writhing snakes?
I also somewhat wish that he had waited longer to write this book. Apparently at the time of writing it, he is still a student at a local community college. As a community college professor myself, I respect the hard-working students that attend community colleges. But is he a genius? He is fascinated by math, but how good is he at it? If he were attending MIT and sharing his insights with his professors, I would be ready to believe that he is a genius, with profound new insights. Yes, it's amazing that a head injury made him *better* at math than he was before--but is he, as the cover claims, a "mathematical marvel"? That part is not yet clear.
Quibbles aside, this book is well worth reading, it it will challenge your ideas about how our minds function, as well as give you great respect for this guy's courage in overcoming the downsides to his injury.
This is the story of how Jason Padgett a thirty-one year old college dropout living in Tacoma, Washington went from party animal to math genius. After a night at a karaoke bar Jason who worked managing his father's futon store was brutally mugged by thieves trying to steal his leather jacket and as a result suffered a traumatic brain injury. He recovered but emerged as a new person. He went from extrovert to introverted math nerd with a unique way of looking at mathematical problems and the ability to draw amazing fractals. He was classified as having the rare condition of acquired savant syndrome caused by certain areas of the brain overcompensating for other parts that were damaged.
The story is well told. Interestingly his co - author Maureen Seaberg herself has a rare neurological condition that of synesthesia. The book includes a four page bibliography for those who want to do more reading on this fascinating subject. This is a great book for fans of the works of Oliver Sacks or other stories of unusual but true medical phenomena.
The story is well told. Interestingly his co - author Maureen Seaberg herself has a rare neurological condition that of synesthesia. The book includes a four page bibliography for those who want to do more reading on this fascinating subject. This is a great book for fans of the works of Oliver Sacks or other stories of unusual but true medical phenomena.
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