In-depth Review: Sacks' 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' Book

This report is a book review of Oliver Sacks' 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat', focusing on the case history of a patient with visual agnosia. It covers the book's context, the author's background, methodology, and key themes, including losses, excesses, transports, and the world of the simple. The review highlights the book's legacy as a groundbreaking work in psychology, influencing the understanding of neurological disorders and providing insights into the human mind. The report concludes that the book is a significant non-fictional work with the potential to positively influence readers.

Module Title: Reading Modern Society
Assignment title: Book review of The Man
who mistook his wife as a hat

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
The context of the book...................................................................................................................1
The author........................................................................................................................................1
The background and perspective.....................................................................................................2
Methodology and methods..............................................................................................................2
The book itself.................................................................................................................................2
The legacy of the Book....................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Review of a book is provision of through description of, critical analysis, and evaluation
of quality, meaning and significance of book in order to explain its readers about base of the
book (Krpan and O’Connor, 2017). This report will focus upon review of book “The Man Who
Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks”. In this book Oliver had discussed some of his case
histories of his patients. In this book he had focused upon one of a case of his patent who had
visual agnosia which is neurological condition that makes it difficult for person to recognize
objects and faces. This essay has focused upon review of this book and for this following
structure was followed by the author: introduction of essay, context of the book, about author of
book, background and perspective, methodology and methods, book itself, legacy of the book
and conclusion.
The context of the book
‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ book was written by Oliver Sacks in 1985.
In this book a case study of one of his patients was described. At that time social and cultural
standards of people were increasing (Couser, 2018). Dramatic rise among thinking of people and
living standard of individuals were increasing. Slowly, people were becoming aware of
psychological and neurological disorders and issues and came forward to support such people.
The main genre of this book was case history and was based upon subject of neurology and
psychology. In this bookcase history of one of the patients of Oliver Sacks was explained. The
context of this book is a part of social condition at that time because people were slowly
becoming aware of different kinds of neurological and psychological disorders that were faced
by people.
The author
Oliver Sacks was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science and a writer. He
was born in Britain and dis his medical degree from The Queens and after doing his medica
degree he went to United States for developing his career. He started his career as a neurologist
at Beth Abraham hospital. There he worked with a group of sleeping sickness survivors who
were unable to move on their own for decades (Arts, 2017). This treatment of his patients
became base of his first book. This book was a huge success and was included in academy
awards nominated film in 1190. He had worked on various other cases throughout his career and
used those case studies of people as a base for his books. Some of his books were a bit unique
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and focused upon different type of patients with different problems one of his books with title
‘The man who mistook his wife for a hat’ as this book focused upon describing a man with
visual agnosia. He had used all his experience of his career as neurologist for writing his books.
His main vision was to increase awareness about different kinds of problems that can be faced by
people.
The background and perspective
The book was not commissioned because this book was written by Oliver on the basis of
his experience with his patient and way in which he developed this visual agnosia problem. He
basically wanted to share his unusual case study experiences with the world and with complete
case study of patient. The main purpose behind writing this book was to explain reason because
of which patient suffered from it, ways in which their personal life was affected. This did not
affect reliability of the book as this case study was his own patient’s case study.
Methodology and methods
Approach adopted by Oliver Sacks for writing “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a
Hat” book was narrative approach on qualitative social research. Using this approach, he
narrated case history of his patient for producing qualitative data (textural data).
This selected method has its own pros and cons. One of the main advantages of this
method is that author can clearly help in explaining character, setting, plot and background of
book clearly in an appropriate manner (Waller and et. al., 2021). One of the main cons of this
approach is that the line between reality and fantasy is not quite clear which makes it difficult to
understand what reality is and what is fantasy or fictional. Another one of the main cons of this
method is that this method can be used more appropriately with only qualitative data or
qualitative research.
But it also has an ethical issue associated with it i.e., many times twisted or false story
might be represented instead of representing actual thing (George and Selimos, 2018). Many
times, authors of book can twist the results in order to make took more interesting and for
grabbing attention of their readers. But these ethical issues did not arise in this book because all
the information provided by author was of his own patient and based upon his person experience.
The book itself
Brief overview of the book
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“The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” is a book by neurologist Oliver Sacks in
which he had described his case history of one of his patients with visual agnosia which is a
neurological condition. This book is about Dr. P (patient of neutralist Oliver Sacks) who was a
musician who sang for many years and then became a teacher at local school of music. Problems
with his vision initially started when he failed to recognize face of one of his students but
recognized him by his voice. These problems multiplied when he started seeing faces in things
where no faces were there such as in mango etc. then when things started getting worse he
consulted a doctor and eventually came to know about this problem of visual agnosia.
Themes of the book
This book was divided into 24 chapters but all the chapters were categorised into 4 main
sections and each of these sections dealt with some particular aspect of brain function and ways
in which it affected patient. Four main sections in which this book was divided are: losses,
excesses, transports and the world of the simple.
Losses: in this section a short introduction of evolution of neuroscience was given by the author
(Krpan and O’Connor, 2017). Then further in this, ways in which his patients start losing their
vision and capability of identifying different objectives and person and differentiating within
different persons. How they felt that they are loosing everything and had nothing to do at all.
Excesses: in this section first of all discussion of where neurological disorder of excess stands in
field of neuroscience was explained ways in which neurological effect of the disease was slowly
catching them
Transports: In this these or section author has explained ways in which neuroscience accounts
vision and memories and if it gets affected it can cheapen overall experience of patient. It this
author further explained ways in which the neurological disorder patient is suffering from can be
transported unconsciously to others and effect their personal life.
The world of the Simples: in this author explains that his patients feared that they would live a
life of mentally handicapped people, in this author explains that he thinks that his work would be
dismal due to which he writes a letter about the same but receives in rezones that his work is
rewarding in fact with his writing readers think that patient is sitting in front of them (Krpan and
O’Connor, 2017.
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The legacy of the Book
Most of the books of Oliver Sacks were successful and best seller books that left behind
strong legacy. “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” was one of the most successful
books of Oliver Sacks and has left a strong and powerful legacy behind. In fact, it was a million
copy best seller book of Oliver that left a strong legacy behind. It is considered as one of the best
non-fictional books published till now. It has a significant role and help in providing a path to
patients who have lost their memories and are no longer able to recognize people. It can further
help in influencing others as others can help them in gaining insight of human mind. In fact, this
book is known as a classic work of psychology because of which it has been best seller that
provides ground-breaking insight into human mind. This book helps in providing a gist of ways
in which a human mind work. For example: if a person loses his eye or leg, they are well aware
of it but if they loses their self- themselves then they can never know or become aware of it. This
explanation provided by author in book has helped in leaving a legacy behind.
Conclusion
From the above report it has been concluded that in order to review a book it is extremely
important to understand background of author, main themes of book, context of book, methods
used by author for writing the book and whether it is significant and can influence others or not.
On the basis of these points it can be said that “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” is
one of the best non-fictional books and is one of the best selling books that can positively
influence others.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arts, N.J., 2017. Oliver Sacks (1933–2015): A belated obituary.
Couser, G.T., 2018. 5. Beyond the Clinic: Oliver Sacks and the Ethics of Neuroanthropology.
In Vulnerable Subjects (pp. 74-122). Cornell University Press.
George, G.R. and Selimos, E., 2018, March. Using narrative research to explore the welcoming
of newcomer immigrants: A methodological reflection on a community-based research
project. In Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol.
19, No. 2).
Krpan, D. and O’Connor, A.J., 2017. An Analysis of Oliver Sacks’s: The Man Who Mistook His
Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. Macat Library.
Waller, M.R., and et. al., 2021. Using a narrative approach to analyze longitudinal mixed
methods data. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 15(2), pp.261-283.
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