Genie: a Scientific Tragedy | 
 enlarge | Author: Russ Rymer
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 220324
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0060924659
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.76092
EAN: 9780060924652
ASIN: 0060924659
Publication Date: January 12, 1994
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Product Description
The compelling story of a young woman's emergence into the world after spending her first 13 years strapped to a chair, and her rescue and exploitation by scientists hoping to gain new insight into language acquisition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 A human tragedy... March 29, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is not only a scientific tragedy, but a human one as well. It's not easy to read about Genie's unimaginable childhood torture, nor her early progress being shunted by being shuffled from abusive foster home to foster home.
This year, I believe next month (April), Genie turns 50. Now that her mother has died, hopefully some of the people who worked and cared so much for her (Susan Curtiss, the Riglers et al.) will finally be able to make contact again. Somehow perhaps, in middle age, Genie can finally find some peace and happiness.
 Captivating December 28, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I read this book in a day and a half. It was an unusual way to approach a book about scientific research, because it really reads like a novel. I am fascinated with this story, and I would reccommend anyone interested read it.
 Genie deserves better.....again April 22, 2005
14 out of 21 found this review helpful
What do you do when you find a girl as abused and isolated as Genie? When a girl has been locked away in solitude for so terrifyingly long - the only life she'd known since birth? When she is physically disabled as a result of her abuse? When she is disturbed beyond comprehension?......Why, make her the subject of linguistic research of course.
I'm a linguist (specialising in children's language and language acquisition) and I've been haunted by Genie since I studied her myself from film footage, Curtis' dissertation, other books, and now Rymer`s book. I will never get over seeing Genie on film. Till the day I die. She was as unfamiliar to human life as an extra terrestrial, a beautiful ghost, `there' but not really `there`.
I felt some strong emotions - I wanted to (and still do) fly to America and look after Genie myself. I wanted to take her away from the research, the tests. I was angry with Curtis for even making research a part of Genie's life - sure Lenneberg, Chomsky and Piaget's theories need exploring, but in a case as extreme as this, who really gives a **** about linguistics? I was angry with Jean Butler for putting her own interests ahead of Genie's and I was furious that Genie had been abused in the first place. As with many people at the time and since, I have been massively affected by her story, and I wasn't even born when she was rescued.
In my `struggle' to deal with my emotions on the subject of Genie, I thought Rymer's book might help me, teach me more about her, give me more detail on her since the 70s, more about her and those around her as PEOPLE.......and help me to grieve.
Sadly, as some linguists did back in the 70s, Rymer doesn't distinguish between Genie's life and linguistic study. You get 4 or 5 chapters on theories and studies which make me sick to the stomach. I'll read those elsewhere, but isn't this supposed to be Genie's story? Isn't that why it's called `Genie' - I don't need chapters on `Victor' from 1800.
You can get most of this information from other sources anyway - there was little revelation in Rymers book for me. There is just so much missing. I have read it twice now and I still have a thousand questions.
And Rymer's experiences are almost as second-hand as mine.
This is a page-turner, but Genie's story is.....
Cannot recommend this highly enough December 30, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Although this is one of the saddest books I've ever read, it's also one of the finest. Genie comes alive as an individual despite the fact that she has no language; the author portrays a unique spirit and yet does a brilliant job of demonstrating how captive that spirit is without expression. The scientific theories at work are well-described, intelligent and thorough without being difficult for the lay reader.
Very tragic June 10, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a must read for anyone interested in linguistics or child development; however, it is sufficiently interesting and readable for the general population. The tragedy the title refers to is that Genie was a child exploited by the scientific world as she was treated as a case study of language acquisition rather than an abused child desperately in need of supportive therapy. Genie never got the help she needed, and ended up with "soul sickness" in a home for mentally retarded adults. This is a very moving story that will make you think about morality in research and science.
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