Just read two fascinating books that were merging in my mind at times, although one was autobiography and the other was fiction. Born on a Blue Day is the story of Daniel Tammet's life. Tammet is autistic - he has Asperger's syndrome, which means that while he is extremely intelligent, he has great trouble with social skills and interactions - and he also has synesthesia, which causes him to see numbers as shapes, colors, and textures. And he is a savant - a mind-boggling genius - in the field of numbers. Think Dustin Hoffman in The Rain Man. Marcelo in the Real World (Stork) is a fictionalized account of a teenager with Asperger's, who has been sheltered in a special school for years, but whose father now thinks that it is time for Marcelo to face "the real world." Who he meets, how he copes, and what he learns about himself and others is told in a moving and powerful story. Read them together, and then for good measure, if you haven't already, pick up Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which was a best seller a few years ago. They will give you an amazing persepective and understanding of this illness.
I'm fascinated by the synesthesia - the way numbers have colors and shapes and feelings attached to them. One one level, I think it might add amazing richness to a person's perception of the world; on another level, it must interfere with life - how can you focus if, say, the number 6 always depresses you?
ReplyDeleteNo matter what, the potential of the human brain is mind-blowing. We only use a tiny fraction of ours - imagine evolving into something stronger.
How did you react to the middle of the book - when he's just recounting his experiences abroad, etc.? I have to admit that I found it boring. His style is kind of rigid - but that is because of the autism. In Marcelo in the Real World, you see a fictional version of this very ordered, linear style. That I found interesting.
One person mentioned to me that he wasn't crazy about the emphasis on Daniel's homosexuality. Did that bother anyone else? In the Marcelo novel, one of the focuses is the very slow development of the character's emotional/romantic feelings.
Any thoughts on what it's like to be so different? Can you relate to Daniel at all? See yourself in him in little ways? (And how scary is that?)
Talk to me! I'm getting lonely here...
born on a blue day was a facinating book. i especially love the chapter where it explains how he got struck by lightning. I was so facinated by Daniel Tammet, that i did some extra research and found out that he actually does see colors in shapes and sizes. Scientists say this is a rare disease and if you diagnosed with it you are special. I also saw that one day daniel read through his mind and found what pi is to the 22nd power, which to me is facinating since i saw him read aloud so manny numbers which is unique. manny people around him listening said they love the sound of numbers and i thought that this litle event was so facinating to share with everyone.
ReplyDeleteThe pi recitation was amazing, I agree. How many numbers in a row can you memorize? Even for phone numbers I need some kind of mnemomic (spelling?). One of my daughters, who is studying psychology, told me about a woman (now in her 50's) who remembers EVERYTHING. If you ask her what she ate for breakfast five years ago, or the details of a phone conversation, she can retrieve it. This sounds horrible to me! Imagine not being able to forget some humiliating or frightening experience....I'm all for forgetting (since I do it anyway...)
ReplyDeleteMrs. M.
I thought it was very interesting how people have these types of abilities to see and think beyond what is normaly expected of people. I also agree with you mrs. mittleman, even though it may seem like a very cool thing to know all these things it could also be very hard to go through life with this because like you said if they ever experience anything that gives them pain, it would not help if they can remember EVERYTHING that happened on that day or moment.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably one of the only ones who didn't finish the book. Well I'm also working on reading "War is...", which by the way is pretty fascinating. Its pretty cool how the soldiers tell their lives about war. Anyway, back on topic. I have read up till about the fourth chapter (I haven't had much time to read). I find it amazing that that special person with autistic mental powers can do that. I wonder if there are others like him, who can do that as well. Amazingly, I wonder how those others function, maybe the way Daniel thinks? With pictures and colors? Or maybe... something else we haven't seen yet? These things open up new doors to peoples minds, such as mine. I thank you for this wonderful book to read, so far.
ReplyDelete-Tristen Terracciano Class 722
PS - I'm sorry if this confuses you, people on other websites have been confused over my fanfiction that I am working on.
Tristen (and everyone else) - Autism is an amazingly broad spectrum - some kids on the low functioning end are totally withdrawn and isolated, and others on the high functioning end have Asperger's Syndrome - these guys are extraordinarily intelligent, but their people skills are very poor. Like Daniel, they might have trouble looking at you when they talk to you, or have to pace constantly. But then, many of us who are not (technically!) autistic do the same - so where do you draw the line? Among people suffering from autism, you also have these geniuses - savants - like Daniel, who can calculate in their mind like a computer. So, I wonder - are they a preview of what we can become in the far future? And should we even want to? What do you think?
ReplyDeleteYaniv Bronshtein-
ReplyDeleteAt first, I loved this book. It was so interesting to read how a person actually solves huge division and multiplication problems with imagination. These people probably use like 90 percent of their brains!!! It was very interesting to learn how these people think, and even though they are mental, they think very logically. By the middle of the book, I slowly became very, very dissapointed. I don't want to critisize or anything, but gayness ruined this extrodinary human. Plus, why the hell is he describing it in a book that the whole world might read? It would have been fine if he had just said that men appealed to him and move on, but actually writing about it- that is just stupid.
Yaniv - I can see how much this upset you. I think that Daniel Tammet was trying to explain who he was, and his sexual orientation is part of his self image.
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