On the Move by Oliver Sacks ****

On the Move by Oliver Sacks is a memoir distilled from a thousand journals kept by this prolific author throughout his 75 years. Dr. Sacks was a neurologist, but his memoir treats this as a secondary activity, a background activity for his curiosity and empathy for his patients, himself, and others. Much of his writing harkens back to nineteenth-century medical cases, where the patient’s history was holistic, everything was relevant, compared to today’s scientific papers. This is what made him such a popular author.

Dr. Sacks came from a privileged family of Jewish doctors. He took full advantage of his position. When England was castrating gay men, he moved to North America. His connections allowed him to pursue whatever he desired. This included trans-continental motorcycle adventures, serious weightlifting (he held the California squat record at 600 pounds), exotic international travels, and, most importantly, he could see only the patients that interested him without regard to financial considerations.

Once he discovered the joy of writing best-sellers, this became his primary occupation/avocation, but even here he felt no pressure. Some books came quickly, some took many years, and others were simply abandoned.

This book, reflecting his life, jumps around. Some events are repeated, and the timeline is ignored as he free-associates from one event to another, free borrowing from his journals and published works. In other cases, this might scream for a strong editor, but here it seems to truly represent the author’s life.

When a scholarly, scientific friend told Dr. Sacks, “You’re no theoretician,” he replied, “I know but I am a field-worker, and you need the sort of fieldwork I do for the sort of theory making you do.” Dr. Sacks lead an interesting life, and his fieldwork makes for interesting reading.

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