Seeing Voices | 
 enlarge | Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 29728
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0375704078
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.908162
EAN: 9780375704079
ASIN: 0375704078
Publication Date: November 28, 2000
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Condition: SPINE CREASED-A GOOD READING COPY.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"This book will shake your preconceptions about the deaf, about language and about thought--. Sacks [is] one of the finest and most thoughtful writers of our time."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture.In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect--a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Struggling to read! June 14, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is extremely difficult to wade through as there are an endless amount of footnotes and one feels as if they will never get to the "real" story. There is, however, a lot of valuable historical information about deafness and the obstacles the deaf population has had to endure. Many times during the reading of this book, I was struck with the awareness that I hadn't even considered certain aspects of living in a hearing world as a deaf person that seemed obvious upon reading them. The book is enlightening but a struggle to read.
 Life-affirming, life-changing, must-read! April 16, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Stop whatever you're doing and read this right now. More than any of Sachs' wonderful books, it changes the way you perceive. A feast of ideas, a beautiful tribute to the genius of sign language, and a slap in the face for the hearing majority, who for so long have assumed that to hear is to fully understand. Not just a book; Seeing Voices is an essential experience.
"...the deaf have something to teach us." February 5, 2005
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
In this extraordinary study, Dr. Sacks gives the general reader a penetrating insight into the world of the deaf. In his acclaimed "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat", as a practicing neurologist, he brought his readers into the bizarre world of terrible brain related illnesses, presenting twenty-four cases of individuals afflicted with such diseases as agnosia or prosopagnosia, where "normal" reality is turned inside out, and how some of these diseases are treated and how the patients cope with their condition. In "Seeing Voices", he permits us entry into the silent, at times strange, though culturally rich world of the congenitally and pre-lingually deaf.
As someone who has had no previous experience or knowledge in this area, for me this text opened a whole new area of culture and history that is continually growing and developing.
Sacks' explores the nature of language, touching upon Noam Chomsky's paradigm-shifting studies, "Syntactic Structures", "Cartesian Linguistics" and Language of Mind", where he proposes his theory that language is innate, lying dormant until it is made active through human interaction and culture. Sacks connects these theories to the pre-lingual deaf and its implications and manifestations.
We are also given a history lesson on the language of SIGN, how it has developed, why it was jettisoned, out of ignorant prejudice, in the late nineteenth century, and its miraculous come back in the twentieth century. Through Sacks' concise and straightforward prose, he connects us to the foreign world of another language not depended on speech, its intricacies and its wonder, and how those of us who have the ability to hear and to verbalize, all too often take language for granted. He also makes clear the sophistication of Sign as a form of legitimate communication, its grammatical foundations and its many nuances, and how, in some ways, it is a superior form of active exchange between people.
In chapter three, Sacks tells us about the cultural breakthrough at Gallaudet University in March 1988, where after massive student protest, the school literally closed down, the first ever deaf president of the university was appointed. Sacks witnessed this social changing event first hand, which in the end affected him more than he realized,
"I had to see this all for myself before I could be moved from my previous "medical" view of deafness (as a condition, a deficit, that had to be "treated") to a "cultural" view of the deaf as forming a community with a complete language and culture of its own." (P.129-30)
Indeed this entire text has changed my view that deafness is not simply a condition or human deficit, but another way of being in the world. In fact the deaf, with their shared language are forming a world community and culture crossing all barriers. And as Dr. Sacks points out, in this way, "...the deaf have something to teach us." (P. 167)
Incomplete August 31, 2003
26 out of 40 found this review helpful
Being a Deaf person, I enjoy reading about the culture, the history, the outlook of others. That's why I was particulary excited when I got my hands on this book. And while I was interested throughout the book, I found my blood pressure frequently rising as I read the author's biased and one-track-mind approach. He speaks as if all deaf people are the same and that one language is right for all. I, personally, use the language he speaks of, however, it is simply not healthy to presume all deaf people do as well. The largest thing he fails to even mention once is the fact that the large majority of deaf people became deaf after the age of 18. That being said, if you're interested in learning nothing more than what this man thinks and his delight in learning a handful of signs and communicating with us less fortunate people (sarcasm), read away. If, on the other hand, you want to truly learn more about the culture and not only what Oliver Sacks believes, click on the back arrow at the top of your screen and continue your search. :o(
Parent who used cueing method very successfully March 14, 2003
23 out of 33 found this review helpful
Seeing Voices is a useful source of information on the history of sign, the Deaf community, and the development of language in children. At times, however, I found myself in a love-hate relationship with it, because for all Sacks has done, he has left much undone. The book is composed of three long essays describing, in turn: the history of deaf people, the power of sign language, and the Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University. The middle essay examines the beautiful, expressive language of Sign, which was described by Dr. William Strokes as a true language only in the 1960s. Sacks calls this essay "the heart of the book" -- his most personal yet comprehensive examination of the deaf world. As I read it, I began to mark passages that were unsupported by references or were in direct disagreement with my own experience and study. At first the marks were seldom, but by the end of the essay, they were frequent.
My problems with the book seemed to have a common theme: Having guided us this far and identified ASL as a language for people who are deaf, he veers off into the flawed conclusion that it is THE ONLY language for them.
For example, Sacks describes seperate encounters with two children, a five-year-old who cues and a six-year-old who signs. He uses different standards to evaluate their different methods of communication. In doing so, he is guilty of the same misperception he accuses much of the hearing world of having about people who are deaf -- he judges what the two youngsters know by the ease with which he can communicate with them. He evaluates the cueing child by the quality of her speech, but evaluates the signing child by his language.
It is curious that someone so experienced and perceptive could be so cavalier in his appraival of deaf communication.
Seeing Voices is an important book that makes much of the deaf culture visible to the general public. It argues convincingly that ASL is the language of that culture. But it is ultimately a love story. Sacks has fallen in love with sign language, and in his case, love is blind.
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