Product Description

From Oliver Sacks, distinguished neurologist and master storyteller, comes a magical account of childhood, told with the charm and power of his celebrated case histories. Not only is it a beautifully written account of an English childhood - seasoned by a childish passion for science - but it is told from the intimate and revelatory perspective of one of the most important and humane writers on psychology alive today. Oliver Sacks has the literary artistry of WH Auden and the intellectual rigour and questioning mind of Stephen Jay Gould. The world authority in his field, this is a remarkable insight into the mind and background of one of the finest and most accessible scientists today - case history as literature, in the most personal, delightful and fascinating way possible. 'If you did not think that gallium and iridium could move you, this superb book will change your mind' - "The Times". '"Uncle Tungsten" is about the raw joy of scientific understanding...Sacks perfectly captures the sheer thrill of finding intelligible patterns in nature' - "Guardian".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71627 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Oliver Sacks's luminous memoir Uncle Tungsten charts the growth of a mind. Born in 1933 into a family of formidably intelligent London Jews, he discovered the wonders of the physical sciences early from his parents and their flock of brilliant siblings, most notably "Uncle Tungsten" (real name, Dave), who "manufactured lightbulbs with filaments of fine tungsten wire". Metals were the substances that first attracted young Oliver, and his descriptions of their colours, textures and properties are as sensuous and romantic as an art lover's rhapsodies over an Old Master. Seamlessly interwoven with his personal recollections is a masterful survey of scientific history, with emphasis on the great chemists like Robert Boyle, Antoine Lavoisier and Humphry Davy (Sacks's personal hero). Yet this is not a dry intellectual autobiography; his parents in particular, both doctors, are vividly sketched. His sociable father loved house calls and "was drawn to medicine because its practice was central in human society", while his shy mother "had an intense feeling for structure... for her [medicine] was part of natural history and biology". For young Oliver, unhappy at the brutal boarding school he was sent to during the war, and afraid that he would become mentally ill like his older brother, chemistry was a refuge in an uncertain world. He would outgrow his passion for metals and become a neurologist, but as readers of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat know, he would never leave behind his conviction that science is a profoundly human endeavour. --Wendy Smith

Review
'An intensely moving and funny account of his chaotic scientific upbringing.' --Richard Holmes, Brilliant and Unusual Books about Science to inspire Non-Scientists - The Week

About the Author
Oliver Sacks was born in London in 1933 and educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and at the Middlesex Hospital, prior to further work and training in the US. Following a period of research in neurochemistry and neuropathology he returned to clinical work, interesting himself particularly in migraine and the care of post-encephalitic patients (as described in Awakenings). He is the author of A Leg to Stand On, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Seeing Voices, Migraine, An Anthropologist on Mars, Neurology of the Soul and The Island of the Colourblind.

Customer Reviews

A passion for discovery
Oliver Sacks was gifted by his parents with the greatest boon any child could receive. From the start, he writes, he was "encouraged to interrogate, to investigate". With this mandate, he spent his childhood interrogating the history of science and scientists. He investigated the nature of chemicals, learned magnetism and electricity, and, in preparation for his anticipated medical career, probed into the mysteries of the body. This exquisite and frank account traces Sacks' boyhood in London - with side pauses to the schools attended - exposing his fears and ambitions with equal fervour.

Sacks' quest for knowledge mainly focussed on chemical elements and compounds, with metals dominating his attention. "Uncle Tungsten" [his uncle Dave] owned a lamp factory and provided both advice and materials. Sacks drew heavily on his expertise, but Dave often left him to experiment on his own. With a highly inquisitive mind and a drive to learn, Oliver often duplicated the research performed by notable figures of science to achieve the same ends. This technique provided great insight into the scientific method, allowing him to manufacture chemicals that might have been purchased at a nearby shop.

He learns the scientists' techniques through the blizzard of printed paper he plowed through during those years. Biographies, autobiographies, published journals and notebooks, all were his reading fare throughout his boyhood. He reminds us of the hazards of research from the burned hands and faces from potassium to the still-radioactive notebooks of Marie Curie, today stored in lead boxes. Setting up a laboratory in a back room of the family home, he followed their reasoning, their sense of discovery, and their techniques as he made bangs, smells, brilliant lights and beautiful crystals. His biological endeavours were often less successful. He and his chums once drove the inhabitants of a house away for months until the noxious odour of rotting cuttlefish could be exorcised.

Although Sacks introduces a wealth of scientific information from a broad sweep of sources, there is not a dull page in this book. He describes the techniques to isolate elements in vivid detail, and you find yourself sharing the researcher's frustration to achieve the goal along with the exhilaration when success is achieved. You follow Sacks willingly as he plods through the museums and into shops buying chemicals. Mostly, you watch him as he begs Uncle Dave for materials or sits spellbound as "Uncle Tungsten" describes the properties of metals. Sacks' joys at "re-learning" what others have done is infectious - he leaves you longing to repeat the experiments for yourself - only to learn, of course, that today's caution has sequestered the materials away to prevent you blundering into harm. That's a sad testimony, but Sacks' journey through time and place remains for us to gain some sense of what it must be like to undertake scientific adventures. Every schoolchild should be in possession of this book as parents encourage them to "investigate and interrogate". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Marvelous but hardly an autobiography
I doubt that there is an actual neurologcal disorder that prevents Dr Sacks from revealing very much at all about himself in this entertaining book. He seldom touches on his own experiences and feelings during what was clearly a disturbing time when he was evacuated from London. Furthermore the book is named for an uncle but the cover shows young Oliver with his father who barely appears in the book. There are little or no reported conversations between Sacks and his father while there are great chunks of history devoted to the influence his uncles had and the anecdotes they shared.
Similarly his mother only truly comes to life in a conversation the older Sacks has with a former pupil of hers.
But while Sacks is begrudging with autobiographical information he is more than forthcoming with comprehensive biographies of some of the great scientists and chemical explorers of the past 400 years.
Once you put aside the idea that Uncle Tungsten is about Oliver Sacks and how he came to be a tremendous writer and explainer of neurological idiosyncrasies you have a book which entertains and amazes while revelling in the joy of scientific discovery.
Uncle Tungsten is a disappointment as an autobiography but a delight as a Sophie's World for science.

A compelling read
This book is both a popular science book (about chemistry and physics) and an autobiography of a childhood in London spanning the second world war. The two are woven together beautifully. Oliver Sacks grew up with the science that he outlines in the book with some of the boyhood wonder he must have felt at the time. Anyone interested in biography shouldn't be daunted by the science aspect of the book, which introduces the atomic elements almost as characters populating the young Oliver's world. The stories of his remarkable family are also vivid and compelling, as well as tragic at times. You'll be suprised at the connection with every day technology and Oliver Sack's ancestry---their influence is still felt in the modern world.

The only gripe I have with the book is Oliver Sack's love of footnotes---some nearly 3/4 of a page long. However, this is only midly distracting, and (in a footnote) he reveals where he believes his affair with them arose in the first place.

I sincerely hope Oliver Sacks follows up this book, which ends when he's around 15 or 16, with further adventures of his life as I'm desparate to know the details of how this budding chemical boy turned into a world famous neurologist.