Book Review
Nov. 8th, 2019 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariMusicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
by Oliver Sacks
Musicophilia is mostly a collection of stories about patients of Sacks' whose brain injuries or neurological issues had profound effects on their musical perceptions and abilities. While the book was certainly enjoyable to read, it fell a little flat for me. Sacks is a very good writer and storyteller - he has a great deal of warmth and compassion that combines well with his clinical knowledge and scientific assessments. However, Musicophilia lacks any strong unifying themes or arguments beyond how fascinating and complex the human brain's musical mechanisms and capacities are. Sacks does not delve terribly deep into any of the issues raised by his collection of stories, or into what they can tell us about the role of music in human development and existence. In addition, as other reviewers have noted, Sacks' stories are heavily centered on people whose experiences (pathological or otherwise) center on western classical music. Perhaps this is an artifact of when and where Sacks practiced medicine, but I would have liked more of an effort to discuss how these symptoms would play out in people whose main musical activities and tastes centered around jazz or popular music, and also how these same disorders manifest in other parts of the world where the music and musical culture is very different.
by Oliver Sacks
Musicophilia is mostly a collection of stories about patients of Sacks' whose brain injuries or neurological issues had profound effects on their musical perceptions and abilities. While the book was certainly enjoyable to read, it fell a little flat for me. Sacks is a very good writer and storyteller - he has a great deal of warmth and compassion that combines well with his clinical knowledge and scientific assessments. However, Musicophilia lacks any strong unifying themes or arguments beyond how fascinating and complex the human brain's musical mechanisms and capacities are. Sacks does not delve terribly deep into any of the issues raised by his collection of stories, or into what they can tell us about the role of music in human development and existence. In addition, as other reviewers have noted, Sacks' stories are heavily centered on people whose experiences (pathological or otherwise) center on western classical music. Perhaps this is an artifact of when and where Sacks practiced medicine, but I would have liked more of an effort to discuss how these symptoms would play out in people whose main musical activities and tastes centered around jazz or popular music, and also how these same disorders manifest in other parts of the world where the music and musical culture is very different.
