Letters, p.80
Letters, page 80
I’ve been writing a piece (“Sabbath”), of which I enclose an uncorrected copy—I hope that with some revision it will be acceptable to the Times this week; and, as you see, this has memories of Friday evenings, Erev Shabbat, and their peacefulness and specialness during my growing up days, and then I shift to how special it was to see all of you celebrate the Shabbat in Sydney, and how this actually “converted” Ralph Siegel.
I feel now that I have done my work, at least done what I can, and that the time that remains to me should be a sort of peaceful, end-of-life Sabbath, and I do have a sense of serenity and acquiescence, as I think Marcus did in his final days.
I know that my illness has been especially painful for you, for all of you, to see, because it so resembles Marcus’s illness in a way, as I myself resemble him in many ways. So it will be a sort of double bereavement for you all. I am sorry, Elliot,[*13] that I did not answer your lovely letter of some months ago.
Coming to Australia [thirty] years ago, returning when I could, and now staying in close touch with you, has been an important part of my family life—perhaps the most important part.
There are so many good memories, Gay, of us exploring together—going to Tasmania, going to the Barrier Reef, going to the Daintree Forest, and not least going up to Hamelin Pond and Shark Bay, in the North West, and seeing the stromatolites growing there as they have been doing for three billion years. I don’t have the strength to write separately to Carla and John or to Elliot and Katya or India (who sounds like a very remarkable young woman), and must just send my farewell, gratitude, and deepest love to all of you,
Oliver
To Dan-Eric Nilsson
Zoologist
August 10, 2015
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Dr. Nilsson,
I am a clinical neurologist with some background in marine biology—and a special interest in animal eyes. I have vivid memories of seeing the amazing eyes (rhopalia) of Charybdaea marsupialis in the Natural History Museum (in London) when I was a boy, dissecting cephalopod eyes, etc.
For some reason this early interest has come back to my mind, strongly, and I want to tell you how much pleasure your many papers (over the last 35 years) have given me—as has your book Animal Eyes. It excited me to think of the creative energy and enthusiasm you have poured into your work, its adventurousness—and how tenaciously you have stayed with (this wonderful) subject. I tried to write a little myself, but I am mortally ill now, and have to put such projects aside. But I want to say “THANK YOU” before I go.
Oliver Sacks
To Robert B. Silvers
August 15, 2015
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Bob,
My cancer is advancing at great speed, and I do not know if I will last the month.
I would like to put together a (shortish) book to be called The River of Consciousness and other essays. Most of these—the two “Darwin” essays (flowers, and earthworms); the fallibility of memory; and “Scotoma”—were edited and published by you (the only others are “Speed” and my three “final” NY Times pieces).
I would like to dedicate this book of essays to you, in gratitude for all you have meant to me over the years.
I hope this will be agreeable with you.
With my love,
Oliver
To Dan Frank
August 15, 2015
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Dan,
I am going down fast, and do not know how long I can hope to retain consciousness and coherence.
Of my many scattered works—clinical, personal, essays etc, some published some not—I would like, first, to put together (they are all published, and in pretty good shape) a modest (c 40,000 word) book to be entitled The River of Consciousness and other Essays. The others being the two “Darwin” pieces “Flowering Plants” and “Earthworms etc,” “The Fallibility of Memory” and “Scotoma,” all of which were published by Bob Silvers—and to dedicate the book to him. The other “major” essay is “Speed” (which was published in the New Yorker); and my three 2015 Op-Ed pieces for the NY Times (c another 4000 words in all); “Scotoma” (maybe just use its subtitle “Forgetting and Neglect in Science”) is ?12–15,000 words, including many footnotes—a bit meandering, but the only general essay I have written on the history of Science.
I have drafted a brief (still rough) Preface about the writing of these pieces, along with Acknowledgements and Dedication (I have also written to Bob Silvers tonight, asking if my dedicating the book to him would be acceptable/agreeable).
Let us talk—soon—because time is running out.
Love,
Oliver
* * *
—
OS continued to work on other essays during his last two weeks, and to make notes about books to be published posthumously. He died at home on August 30, 2015.
Skip Notes
*1 This project quickly became much more than a reading of selections from the book, expanding to many hours of OS reminiscing on camera to the documentary filmmaker Ric Burns. Burns’s film, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, was released in 2019.
*2 OS first met Naylor-Leyland on a trip to Curaçao organized by their swimming coach, Doug Stern. OS returned almost every year after that, often with Naylor-Leyland or another friend.
*3 Twice a day.
*4 OS routinely attended the monthly meetings of the New York chapter of the American Fern Society, a group of amateur fern lovers. In Oaxaca Journal, he chronicled a trip to Mexico with some members of the group.
*5 Aldrich, a professor of international security, hosted OS during his visits to the University of Warwick, in England, where OS was a visiting professor during the last few years of his life.
*6 Homosexuality.
*7 A few days earlier, on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges upheld the right of two people of the same sex to marry.
*8 “My Periodic Table.”
*9 Gawande had written a note appreciating the connection between OS’s love for the chemical elements in his childhood and a New York Times essay he had just published about turning eighty (in 2013) and mercury, element 80.
*10 OS was working on an essay about Forster’s piece, “Life Continues,” which would be published posthumously.
*11 A medical term for the condition that occurs when excess fluid collects in the abdomen, usually as a result of liver failure.
*12 Gay and Marcus’s daughter and son-in-law. In February, as soon as they heard of OS’s diagnosis, Gay, Carla, and John had flown to New York to visit for a week.
*13 Gay and Marcus’s son.
OS, ca. early 1960s.
Sidney’s Cafe, Santa Monica. Photo by OS.
California Highway Patrol officer ticketing a motorcyclist. Photo by OS.
OS with friend outside his Topanga Canyon house, ca. 1963.
An official UCLA portrait of OS as a medical resident, ca. 1962.
Lifting weights in the early 1960s.
With colleagues at Mount Zion Hospital, ca. 1961.
With his poster exhibit at an American Academy of Neurology meeting, 1964.
Thom Gunn in Hyde Park, London, 1959.
W. H. Auden, in a portrait that hung over OS’s desk for many years.
Jenö Vinzce, early 1960s.
OS on his BMW, ca. 1970.
OS presenting some of his thoughts about the Awakenings patients, ca. 1970.
Aunt Len (left), polar bear, and friend.
Sam and Elsie Sacks in the garden at 37 Mapesbury, at their 1972 golden wedding celebration.
OS and his three brothers. From left: Oliver, David, Marcus, and Michael Sacks.
Bob Rodman, around the time he met OS at UCLA in the early 1960s.
Typing on the deck of a friend’s house (note the dictionary atop the bench).
Publishers and writers at the tenth anniversary of Picador Books in 1982. Left to right: Tim Binding (editor), Michael Herr, Salman Rushdie, Bruce Chatwin, Clive James, Adam Mars Jones, Mike Petty (editor), Russell Hoban, Hugo Williams, Tom Maschler (publisher), and OS. Seated are Sonny Mehta (publisher) and Emma Tennant.
OS with an unidentified visitor in front of his house on City Island, late 1980s.
Drawing side by side with Stephen Wiltshire, savant artist, in Moscow, 1990.
Marsha Ivins, a NASA astronaut and veteran of five space flights.
A few hours after returning to Earth following her 1994 shuttle mission, Ivins and OS discuss her sense of proprioception and orientation in microgravity.
OS, holding his back cushion, briefcase, and umbrella, near Jonathan Miller’s home in London, ca. 1990s.
With Jonathan Miller at a Fourteenth Street subway entrance, New York City, ca. 1990s.
Cousins. OS with Abba Eban in 1993.
Cousins. With Robert John Aumann in 2013.
Typing in his office, wearing a favorite periodic table shirt, ca. 1999.
With patients at Beth Abraham Hospital, ca. 2009.
With Bill Hayes at Jonathan Miller’s house in London, 2015.
Dan Frank, OS’s editor at Knopf for twenty years.
OS and Jonathan Miller in London, 2015.
With Kate Edgar, visiting Peru in 2006.
Revising an essay, 2015.
The first page of a 1982 letter to Bob Rodman.
Acknowledgments
Life with Oliver Sacks was never boring, and simply to keep up with his thoughts and output occupied far more than a forty-hour week. I am immensely grateful to the talented and devoted people who joined me in the effort to keep his affairs running smoothly, acted as wise sounding boards, cheerfully pursued all manner of strange research requests, vetted his incoming and outgoing correspondence (lest he unwittingly commit himself to a series of lectures or mistakenly consign a royalty check to the wastebin), copied and filed said correspondence, and did much, much more. As only they will fully appreciate, the job of assisting Oliver was endless, and might entail driving him to see patients, driving him to see his own doctors, listening to stories, making patients and “subjects” feel at home, taking him to the pool, swimming with him, ordering various fishy delights from Russ & Daughters, chocolate typewriters from Li-Lac, or books from Three Lives, Googling some topic on the smartphones that Oliver liked to call “answer boxes” (his own phone was rudimentary), or explaining why he might like to meet with someone called “Björk”—to say nothing of traveling with him, organizing his lectures, soothing his nerves, ordering swimming goggles, microwaving a bagel for exactly thirty-three seconds, and fetching endless cups of very hot tea (Lapsang souchong with a hint of Darjeeling, specially blended by McNulty’s). We laughed a great deal, ate tons of sushi, drank genever or Belgian beer with Oliver, and made sure he got where he needed to go, both literally and metaphorically. We forayed to shuttle launches, mineral mines, and chemical factories. This present book, like so many of his works, would have been impossible without the unflagging labors of Sheryl Carter, Hailey Wojcik, and Hallie Parker—all of whom Oliver adored. Yolanda Rueda, similarly adored, ensured for many years that Oliver’s home and bookshelves would be kept sparkling, that his fridge was always full of Jell-O, fish, tabouli, and other delicacies. She kept us all smiling, and many of the correspondents represented in this book partook of her tea and digestive biscuits.
Diana Beck and Juan Martinez also contributed to the daily running of our lives, as did a cadre of others, from Oliver’s swim coach to his piano teacher to the many health care professionals who looked after him. He appreciated each of them.
To the multitude of readers who have been inspired to pick up a pen or open a computer to write to Oliver, much gratitude. Your reactions (both positive and negative), suggestions, ideas, and stories continue to make a very real difference to us and to other readers.
Bill Hayes, Oliver’s partner in later life, has been a source of inspiration, wisdom, and sanity from the day he walked into Oliver’s world. Bill kindly read several drafts of this book and provided crucial support and feedback to me in too many ways to count.
My own deepest gratitude and appreciation go to my husband, Allen Furbeck, and our son, Kai Furbeck, who shared their lives and minds (and me) with Oliver, and accompanied us on many travels both literary and actual. To have two such extraordinary humans in my life amazes me every day.
* * *
—
I could not have begun to approach this volume of letters without the time and talents of two people. Bill Morgan, archivist extraordinaire, devoted several years during the late 1990s and early 2000s to organizing the vast jumble of Oliver’s archive and creating a massive and detailed catalog. This enabled Oliver to retrieve letters and sources to remind himself of his early life as he wrote his 2015 memoir, On the Move. It also yielded nearly seventy bankers boxes of correspondence.
To boil down this enormous collection of letters to and from Oliver, I was supremely lucky to have Ben Kravitz, a talented writer and editor who spent several years helping me shape this book. Ben organized and reorganized material over and over again; he made a first selection and subsequent ones; he learned to decipher Oliver’s handwriting and transcribed hundreds of handwritten letters. He read and reread many drafts and added thoughtful suggestions, corrections, and opinions ranging from grammatical subjects to philosophical observations. Without Ben, this book could never have been completed. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
The people who work at Alfred A. Knopf and its Vintage Books imprint are legendary for their passion and talents (including the best sales reps in the business, as I found in my first job as a bookseller long ago). Deb Garrison, my editor, provided wisdom and enthusiasm and stunned me with her ability to recall the smallest details after repeated readings of unreasonably large drafts. Bonnie Thompson, who copyedited this book (as well as Musicophilia and Hallucinations), has clarified and focused infelicitous words and saved me from numerous gaffes and errors, whether factual, grammatical, logical, or moral. Kathy Hourigan helmed Knopf’s production of this book and many of its predecessors; working with her over the past quarter century has been a joy. Thanks also to Ellen Feldman, Zuleima Ugalde, and the Knopf and Vintage design, promotion, and marketing teams, and to Chip Kidd for yet another perfect jacket design.
Laura J. Snyder generously shared her knowledge of Oliver’s early life to clarify certain details (I hope I have gotten them right). John McCaskey generously lent his talents to designing a custom database for the Sacks correspondence.
Melvin Erpelding graciously spent time with me reminiscing about his friendship with Oliver.
Mackenzie Kristofco made excellent suggestions to the final draft, and chased down many reference materials along the way. His contributions to organizing the Oliver Sacks archive continue.
Many others helped point me in the right direction, clarifying time lines, facts, and ideas. From the extended Sacks family, Gay Sacks, Anna Horovitz, Alexa Gardner, Tony Gardner, and Joan Caplin reminded me of family history and relationships. Many others I called upon were great friends or colleagues of Oliver’s, among them Orrin Devinsky, Jacqui Graham, Mark Homonoff, Andrew Lees, Keith McNally, Edward Mendelson, Rachel Miller, Tom Miller, William Miller, Walter Parkes, Tobias Picker, Nick Rodman, Ingrid Rodman-Holmes, Steve Silberman, Paul Theroux, Concetta Tomaino, and Jeff Towns. Uwe Naumann helped me chase down obsolete German words. I also thank Catherine Barnett, Douglas Braaten at the New York Academy of Sciences, Sarah Chalfant, Marie Cyprien, Molly Friedrich, Michael Hackenberg, Charles Harris at Natural History magazine, Jonathan Kurtis, Lance Lee, Michael Nott, and Jim Poyser for their help.
Dan Frank, Oliver’s editor at Knopf for two decades, guided me in this project, as he had with so many of Oliver’s earlier books. He generously devoted precious hours, when he had few remaining, to meticulously reviewing letters and sharing his thoughts, giving me a framework for moving forward. Though he did not live to see the finished manuscript, Dan’s spirit, his keen sense of humor, and his love of words hover over this book, which is dedicated to his memory.
