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On the Move: A Life was the last memoir written by Oliver Sacks and published in 2015. The book focuses on his life as a young neurologist and his many passions from motorcycles to weight-lifting to writing. The title is taken from a Thom Gunn poem, On the Move.

On the Move: A Life
AuthorOliver Sacks
Cover artistDouglas White
LanguageEnglish
SubjectBiography
Published2015
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
Publication date
2015
ISBN9780385352543

Synopsis

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On the Move

motorcycles

homosexuality and many years of celibacy

Contents

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On the Move

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The first chapter of the book describes Sacks's life as "on the move." Sacks describes his lifelong interest in motorcycles from the time as 10-year old where he would sit and identify the models as they drove by his window to his first purchases and his near fatal accidents. He describes his early interest in chemistry and athletic pursuits such as skiing. He also describes his first discussion with his father about his homosexuality and his mother's cruel's response calling him an abomination. He describes his mother as being "usually open and supportive in most ways but harsh and inflexible in this area."[1]

As Sacks moved to study at Oxford--he began to make choices and discover himself as a writer. As he moved to school at Oxford, he faced choices of what he wanted to study and he decided he wanted to understand how the human brain worked. He writes about what he found and studied at Oxford's Radcliffe Science Libraries, the Bodleian Library, and the Queen's College Library. He began to determine the kind of writing he liked--case histories influenced by Maynard Keyne's Essays in Biography. He describes finding the 17th and 18th century literature in the Queen's College Library where "I really gained a sense of history and of my own language."[2] He found in their collection Conrad Gessner's Historiae Animalium, Louis Agassiz, original editions of Charles Darwin, Sir Thomas Browne, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Hume, Edward Gibbon and Alexander Pope. After failing an anatomy exam--a drunk Sacks decided to apply for and ultimately won an essay exam for the Theodore Williams Scholarship in Human Anatomy. He used his prize money to purchase a twelve-volume copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. While at Oxford, Sacks also attended a lecture by James J. Gibson, American psychologist and author of the Perception of the Visual World.

During this time Sacks fell in love for the first time with a Rhodes scholar and Irish poet, Richard Selig. The love was unrequited--Selig married Irish harpist and singer Mary O'Hara and died a short-time later of Hodgkin's disease. [1]

After he finished his finals at Oxford, Sacks stayed on to do research. After turning down an offer from Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, Sacks decided to take a position with H.M. Sinclair, a university reader in human nutrition to study jake paralysis with chickens and earthworms.[1]

Sacks left in Oxford in 1955 and began to travel He first traveled to Israel and lived at a kibbutz where he worked in the tree nursery. After the kibbutz ended he traveled through Israel and learned how to scuba dive in the Red Sea. He then traveled to Amsterdam.[1]

In 1956 he moved back home as a medical student and rotated through various specialities and qualified as a doctor in 1958 and began work at Middlesex Hospital.[1]

Leaving the Nest

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Sacks left England at a time in the 50s when England was crowded with bright intellectuals--he wanted to seek more opportunity and he also felt there were "too many" Dr. Sackses in England (his father, mother, brother, uncle, and three first cousins all in the medical profession). Sacks moved to Canada as a volunteer for the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was given a three month "leave" before starting and he used that time to travel throughout Canada. He recorded his travels in a journal and the book contains excerpts including a section on Canada which he reworked later for a piece called Canada: Pause, 1960. By the time he had traversed Canada and then arrived in San Francisco--he made the decision to forego the RCAF. [3]

Sacks then takes a moment to discuss his brother Michael and Michael's schizophrenia and it's effect on his family as well as his own guilt for not being more supportive. Michael remained at home with their parents and worked as a messenger. After a few psychotic episodes he was placed on the tranquilizer Lagactil/Thorazine (when they were first coming onto the market in the 50s. Alarmed by the changes he witnessed in his brother due to the pharmecuticals, Sacks decided to explore schizophrenia and brain-mind disorders. [3]

San Francisco

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Sacks arrived in San Francisco to begin an internship at Mount Zion. Before the start of the internship he had time for more travel and adventures. He spent part of the time at Mount Zion evaluating patients before and after neurosurgery and working for neurosurgeons Grant Levin and Bert Feinstein. Sacks did not keep a journal during this time--but states that he did write long letters to his parents describing events such as attending a conference where Aldous Huxley and Arthur Koestler spoke, and of seeing Pierre Monteux with the San Francisco Symphony and attending a Beat festival in Monterey.[4]

Sacks formed relationships in San Francisco through work and through his love of motorcycles. It was during his internship that he befriended Carol Burnett-- a gifted black New York surgeon. Carol would become a lifelong friend. Sacks also met and became friends with the English poet Thom Gunn who was also living in San Francisco at the time. Sacks also fell in with a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who would meet every Sunday in the city and travel around the Bay Area (and he briefly met up with some Hell's Angels). Sacks continued his travels through Northern California exploring the Gold Country and up north to Oregon's Crater Lake and east to Yosemite and Death Valley.[4]

After the internship ended, Sacks decided to tour across North America on his motorbike. Thom Gunn encouraged Sacks to keep a journal of his travels and in On the Move he includes a selection of a journal from 1961 called Travel Happy.[4]

Muscle Beach

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In 1962 after a trip back to England to visit his parents, Sacks moved to Southern California to pursue his residency at UCLA. The residents had a weekly journal club to discuss neurology and Sacks suggested that the group read more 19th century medical literature. He felt that the "attitude was reflected, implicitly, in many of the journal articles we read, they made little reference to anything more than five years old. It was as if neurology had no history."[5]

Sacks began writing and taking photographs. Sacks wrote his first manuscript or book on Myoclonus--it was based on a patient at UCLA who suffered from myoclonic seizures. Unfortunately, Sacks gave the manuscript to Charles Luttrell for his opinion, the neurologist died, and Sacks never asked and never received the manuscript back. Sacks continued to explore California on his motorbike during the weekends and he began taking photographs of his journeys.[5]

Sacks also describes another patient Frank C., who suffered from Hallervorden-Spatz disease--which caused jerking movements. Right after seeing Dr. Sacks who had said, "I wish I could see your brain." Frank C., was hit by a truck and Sacks was able to dissect the man's brain.[5]

At this time Sacks joined the weight-lifting community at Muscle Beach. Sacks moved to an apartment near Muscle Beach in Venice and was given the nickname Dr. Squat by the other weight-lifters (in San Francisco he had set a new record for squats in California at 600 lbs.). He lived with a young man, Mel, who he had feelings for but was unrequited. He took photographs of the weight-lifters which he intended to publish in a book about Muscle Beach but unfortunately the suitcase containing the photographs was lost. It was during the time at Muscle Beach and with the encouragement of the community that Sacks began experimenting with hallucinogens such as Artane and amphetamine. Sacks would struggle with an addition to amphetamines for four years. After Mel left Sacks moved to a house in Topanga Canyon.[5]

His photography turned from landscapes to the inner landscapes of neuropathology. His photos along with his friend Tom Dolan were presented as an exhibit at the 1965 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).[5]

Out of Reach

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In 1965 Sacks moved to New York for his fellowship in neurochemistry and neuropathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He decided to attempt research again but because of several mishaps his bosses told him, "Sacks, you are a menace in the lab. Why don't you go and see patients--you'll do less harm." With that Sacks became a clinician.[6]

Sacks describes his overuse of amphetamines due to failed romance and failures at work and how it made him psychotic. Sacks went to see analyst Dr. Shengold who insisted he would only treat Sacks if he gave up drug use. Sacks claims that both Shengold and the satisfaction he felt from seeing patients made it easier for him to eventually give up the amphetamines. Dr. Shengold remained his analyst twice a week for almost fifty years.[6]

Sacks began seeing real patients at a headache clinic in 1966. Sacks discusses a number of patients--from the young man who suffered from migraines only on Sundays to the mathematician that Sacks almost cured of both migraines and his math problem-solving ability. In 1967 Sacks returned to England and proceeded to write his book Migraine in a two week time period. He had previously read Edward Liveling's book On Megrim and decided to write his own book on migraines for the 1960s, using examples from his own patients. When he returned to New York he shared his manuscript with his boss Arnold P. Friedman, who was became angry at Sack's presumption to write a book on migraines. When Sacks returned to England his boss fired him via telegram. Sacks rewrote his manuscript and describes how working on it made him realize how much he enjoyed the process of writing.[6]

Sacks then writes about his correspondences over the years with his beloved Aunt Lennie.[6]

Awakenings

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1966 found Sacks at Beth Abraham, a chronic disease hospital affiliated with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. It was here that he encountered the survivors of an outbreak of encephalitis lethargis or sleepy sickness. These patients and his efforts to help them with the drug L-dopa. It was early into his time there that he decided to write the book. Originally he thought of titling the book after Jack London's the People of the Abyss. He filmed the patients and he began to carry a tape recorder and a Super 8 movie camera to keep a visual record of what was happening. He volunteered to be on permanent night call and so they offered him an apartment in a house next door to the hospital. He published editorial letter to the British journal the Lancet. A colleague encouraged him to publish his findings with L-Dopa to the Journal of American Medical Association. Sacks had reported on the severe negative effects his patients were experiencing on L-Dopa. The Journal was flooded with a backlash of angry letters by other doctors successfully using L-Dopa with Parkinsonian patients. This further fueled Sacks's desire to write a book.

Sacks describes reading books by A.R. Luria, a Soviet neuropsychologist, and finding inspiration in his book Mind of Mnemonist. This book was written as an extremely detailed case history and Sacks describes how it had the feeling and structure of a novel. Sacks used the model of his book for Awakenings and all his book to follow. He describes Luria's endeavor to "combine the classical and the romantic, science and the storytelling--became my own, and his "little book," as he always called it (the Mind of a Mnemonist is only a hundred and sixty small pages), altered the focus and direction of my life, by serving as an exemplar not only for Awakenings but for everything else I was to write." In the summer of 1969 he travels back to London and spent six weeks writing the first nine case studies. His publisher, Faber & Faber turned the manuscript down. Sacks put the manuscript away and then lost it--luckily a friend had a carbon copy and took it to Colin Haycraft at the publishing firm Duckworth. Colin Haycraft encouraged Sacks by putting the original nine case studies into galley proofs.

In 1972, Sacks made the decision to return to England in order to write. Sacks describes how both of his parents were natural storytellers and their "sense of wonder at the vagaries of life, their combination of a clinical of narrative cast of mind, were transmitted with great force to all of us. My own impulse to write--not to write fiction or poems, but to chronicle and describe--seems to have come directly from them." His mother had been urging him to write Awakenings and in 1972 she told him "Now! This is the time." He spent his mornings walking and walking on the Heath, his afternoons were spent writing and dictating. In the evening he would visit with his mother and read the latest installment for her feedback. He describes this period as a "time arrested, of enchantment, a privileged time-out from the rush of daily life, a special time consecrated to creation."

During this period, Sacks also published an article about his patients for a weekly BBC paper, the Listener. He describes how dissatisfied with his first draft he wrote and submitted a total of nine different drafts. Sacks describes how the act of writing helps him to discover his own thoughts--but the process is often painful creates issues of organization as he works to prune his thoughts down.

(See also Awakenings).

Publication

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Critical Reception

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Headers

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  • Synopsis / Overview / Themes
  • There is no universal set length for a synopsis, though it should not be excessively long. While longer descriptions may appear to provide more data to the reader, a more concise summary may in fact be more informative as it highlights the most important elements.[7]
  • Awards and nominations / Popular success / Publication
  • Reviews / Commercial and critical reception / Criticism / Analysis / Reception
  • include facts (with a cited source), and the opinions of notable people that have been published in some form. The section should be reserved for critical analysis of the book by notable, published critics.
  • no personal opinions, views i.e. a subjective book review
  • Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
  • Contents / Chapters
  • an exhaustive list of contents, without any editorial commentary or significance, should not be included. Unless the list has encyclopedic value it is better to convey this in the synopsis.
  • Release details / Editions / Publication
  • {{cite book}} {{cite book |author= | title= | publisher= | year= | isbn=1234567890 | pages= }}
  • title, author, publisher , year, pages, ISBNs – The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870—1914, David McCullough, Simon & Schuster New York 1977 Octavo, pp. 698, ISBN 0671225634, ISBN 0671244094 (Pbk.) – David Hackett Fischer (2004). Washington's Crossing, p. 564, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195170342.
  • year, country, publisher (ISBN), Pub Date, edition – 1989, UK, Fontana (ISBN 0006165745), Pub Date 9 February 1989, Paperback
  • list the first editions and perhaps the most respected current editions, mention if it is a partial list. Possible order: hardcover, paperback, audio book, e-book.
  • contains XX photographs, X maps etc.
  • Adaptations
  • tv-series, films, etc.
  • See also
  • References / Sources / Footnotes / Notes
  • External link(s)
  • f.ex. full review links, for PD books full text link

Markup

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Examples

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Sacks, Oliver (2015). On the Move: A LIfe. United States: Knopf. pp. 3–41. ISBN 9780385352543.
  2. ^ Sacks, Oliver (2015). On the Move: A Life. United States: Knopf. p. 16. ISBN 9780385352543.
  3. ^ a b Sacks, Oliver (2015). On the Move: A Life. United States of America: Knopf. pp. 47–65. ISBN 9780385352543.
  4. ^ a b c Sacks, Oliver (2015). On the Move: A Life. United States of America: Knopf. pp. 67–95. ISBN 9780385352543.
  5. ^ a b c d e Sacks, Oliver (2015). On the Move: A Life. United States of America: Knopf. pp. 97–131. ISBN 9780385352543.
  6. ^ a b c d Sacks, Oliver (2015). On the Move: A Life. United States of America: Knopf. pp. 133–167. ISBN 9780385352543.
  7. ^ see Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary. Synopsis should be between 400 and 700 words (about 600 words), but should not exceed 900 words unless there is a specific reason such as being complicated.
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