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Oliver Sacks

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Oaxaca Journal Kindle Edition

by Oliver Sacks (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 298 ratings

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From "the poet laureate of medicine" and national bestselling author of Awakenings comes a fascinating investigation of Southern Mexico that explores the origins of chocolate and mescal, pre-Columbian culture and hallucinogens, and the peculiar passions of botanists.

"Light and fast-moving. . . . Among the botanical and anthropological observations, one catches glimpses of Sacks's inner life: his preoccupation with dualities, his nearly Victorian sense of modesty, his fascination with the world around him." —The New Yorker

Since childhood, Oliver Sacks was fascinated by ferns: an ancient class of plants able to survive and adapt in many climates. Along with a delightful group of fellow fern aficionados—mathematicians, poets, artists, and assorted botanists and birders—he embarked on an exploration of Southern Mexico, a region that is also rich in human history and culture. Combining Sacks's enthusiasm for natural history and the richness of humanity with his sharp and observant eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a rare treat.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

The eminent neurologist is also a fern lover, and this book is his record of a ten-day "fern foray" in southern Mexico. It is light and fast-moving, unburdened by library research but filled with erudition. Some of his fellow-foragers are professional pteridologists; others are amateurs, and there is a certain romance in the sight of smitten fern hunters crawling through the Mexican dust exclaiming in Latin. Among the botanical and anthropological observations, one catches glimpses of Sacks's inner life: his preoccupation with dualities, his nearly Victorian sense of modesty, his fascination with the world around him. He could be speaking of himself when he comments on a colleague peering through a hand lens at a small mountain flower: "Is it the artist or the scientist in him which is aroused by the Lobelia? Both, clearly, and they are utterly fused."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From Booklist

Sacks is--besides a neurologist and a splendid stylist with a shelf of marvelous books to his credit, most recently Uncle Tungsten [BKL S 1 01]--a ferner. That is to say, not that he is an Englishman living in New York, but that he is an amateur pteridologist, one whose hobby is appreciating the ancient class of plants called ferns (and "the so-called fern allies"--clubmosses, horsetails, spike mosses, and whisk ferns--"my own preference," he says). In 1999, that avocation led him to spend 10 days in Oaxaca, Mexico, with other members of the American Fern Society, to whose greater pteridological erudition he modestly defers. He kept a diary, the basis for this book. Fortunately for most readers, he doesn't just describe the rare fern species he gets to see. He notes the exotic birds that two of his companions find as thrilling as the ferns; he admits, however, that he never saw any avians smaller than hawks and vultures, for he hasn't developed a birder's eyes. He lovingly relays what the group's excellent guide imparted of Oaxaca's history, its indigenes, the Zapotecs, and their ancient culture; he rhapsodizes over ruins and the technological and intellectual powers they bespeak; and he admires the people, the many exotic foods, the vistas, and the age-old industries of the towns he visits--all of this while his fellow travelers mostly keep on ferning. He says he wants to go back. Take us along, Dr. Sacks--please! Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“A delightful work.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Sacks’s boundless curiosity is always a reward.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Sacks doesn't waste a word. . . . He deftly characterizes people he meets along the way, smoothly slips facts from his wide-ranging reading into his narrative, expertly describes landscapes and raises up a hero: Boone Hallberg, a U.S.-born scientist who has lived in Oaxaca since the 1940s, working to conserve the priceless diversity of the natural world.” —San Francisco Chronicle

"Light and fast-moving. . . . Among the botanical and anthropological observations, one catches glimpses of Sacks's inner life: his preoccupation with dualities, his nearly Victorian sense of modesty, his fascination with the world around him." —The New Yorker

"Like all the best journals, it has a rich immediacy, a sense that we share the moment of the author’s perceptions. Since Sacks is such a lovely writer, and he and his fellow travelers such fonts of knowledge about everything from Mexican history to Mayan culture to chocolate making to the workings of fern evolution, the book is a rare treat. . . . It makes you want to strap on your field glasses and catch the first flight south." —The Globe and Mail

“Relaxed yet observant. . . . [Sacks’] thoughtful, sometimes wistful ruminations, no matter how expansive they may grow, are always rooted in the concrete details he has observed. . . . Those who read Oaxaca Journal will appreciate Sacks’ own diligence as an observer and his skill in translating the wonders of the material world into words.” —Los Angeles Times

"Oaxaca Journal whipped up my appetite for a visit to Mexico, as the best travel writing does." —The Providence Journal

“The combination of his insatiable curiosity and rigorous scientific observation makes him an excellent travelling companion. . . . Mexico past and present emerges from these bursts of association and digression. . . . With so much of the world made superficially familiar by tourism, Oliver Sacks’s dogged pursuit of the exotic is especially welcome. He has, moreover, succeeded in striking that elusive balance of input between traveler and culture that makes for good travel writing.” —Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Bittersweet and profound. . . . Truly a lovely book.” —The Chicago Tribune

About the Author

OLIVER SACKS was a neurologist, writer, and professor of medicine. Born in London in 1933, he moved to New York City in 1965, where he launched his medical career and began writing case studies of his patients. Called the “poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times, Sacks is the author of thirteen books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Awakenings, which inspired an Oscar-nominated film and a play by Harold Pinter. He was the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2008 for services to medicine. He died in 2015.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0064C3UIC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (March 6, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 6, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2837 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 176 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #539,881 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #37 in Mexican Travel
- #40 in Ecotourism Travel
- #73 in Ecuador & Galapagos Islands Travel (Books)

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4.4 298 ratings

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Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings.

Dr Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations, about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as 'the poet laureate of medicine', and over the years he received many awards, including honours from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Royal College of Physicians. In 2008, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire. His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015.

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Devin M

A delight

Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2024

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This book, like nearly all of Sacks' work, is a delight. I bought this in advance of a trip to Oaxaca, and while it's not exactly full of travel tips, it's a wonderful travelogue, and a peek inside the mind of Sacks and his fern-obsessed compatriots.

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Bun-Bun Baxter

The stream-of-consciousness travel diary of a genius

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2015

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I have never admired anyone as much as I do the unforgettable Dr. Sacks. I have read almost all his books but had skipped this one because, having a black thumb, botany has not been a part of my life. But I recently heard an old interview with Dr. Sacks. When asked which of his books he would most recommend for a reader who knew nothing about his works, he cited Oaxaca Journal. It does not presuppose any knowledge of the subject, and was constructed from the notebooks he kept during the trip. It is an entertaining travelogue, with "side trips" into Meso-American history, economics, and technology.

12 people found this helpful

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Katherine Schlosser

Fabulous book...

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2024

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Sacks' blend of travelogue, history, botany, friendship and humor made for a delightful, informative read.

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ealovitt

Mispickel! Orpiment! Realgar!

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2005

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Dr. Sacks accompanied a group of botanical friends on a trip to see, catalogue, draw, and take delight in the unparalleled variety of ferns in Oaxaca, Mexico. His resulting journal is a meditation on Zapotec culture, amateur naturalists, edible insects, psychedelics, and above all ferns: seemingly so fragile yet having survived, with little change, for over 300 million years.

According to the author, his "sense of a prehistoric world, of immense spans of time, was first stimulated by ferns and fossil ferns."

For someone like myself who loves both ferns and the writings of Dr. Sacks, this journal is a treasure. It was composed under the blue sky of Oaxaca and filled with an emotion that Dr. Sacks admits is usually foreign to him: joy.

The author is fond of reading natural history journals and he has created a multi-faceted gem of his own, out of observations on lost civilizations, mescal, cochineal insects, plants as rare as horsetails a hundred feet high, and others as common as the bracken fern.

Half of our property in Michigan is covered with bracken ferns and I was always curious as to why insects didn't seem to bother them. According to this author, bracken is regarded as the 'Lucrezia Borgia' of the fern world: "the young fronds release hydrogen cyanide as soon as the insect's mandible tears into them, and if this does not kill or deter the bug, a much crueler poison lies in store. Brackens, more than any other plants, are loaded with hormones called ecdysones, and when these are ingested by insects, they cause uncontrollable molting."

The Romans used bracken on their stable floors because it arrested or perverted the development of fly larvae, although Dr. Sacks doesn't specify how the ancients kept the horses from eating their bedding. Bracken also poisons mammals, and humans who eat too many fiddle-heads over a long period of time are apt to develop stomach cancer.

It is tempting to open up "Oaxaca Journal" and reread an essay equally as vivid as the riff on the 'Lucrezia Borgia of ferns.' There are so many choices. By writing a journal for the National Geographic 'Literary Travel Series,' Dr. Sacks has opened himself up to every conceivable subject under the blazing Mexican sun.

There is indeed joy in this book.

20 people found this helpful

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susan t johnson

another excellent piece of writing by Dr Sacks.

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2013

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this is a wonderful journal written by an excellent nonfiction writer. Since I have traveled to the same places I enjoyed reading about his experiences and observations of the sites and landscape he visited

2 people found this helpful

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Lara13

Easy read, good stories.

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2021

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I love every other Oliver Sacks book I have read but I am also interested in ferns. Oaxaca Journal did not disappoint.

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Joyce

Very fine intro to Oaxaca. Calm, relaxed. Like a vacation should be.

Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2015

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Not necessarily about Oaxaca as so much about a fern trip. Still there's a feeling of the city and countryside. It is a nice way to ease into vacation.

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Gretchen

Sacks never disappoints!

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2022

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Fascinating observations on just about everything he writes about.

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Emmanuel von Arx

Quirky, makes you fall in love with Oaxaca all over again

Reviewed in Mexico on July 24, 2020

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Loved this little book. Totally quirky, weird, fun, deep, and it will inspire you to return to Oaxaca and see it all with the eyes of Oliver Sacks. A wonderful read!

One person found this helpful

bresin dino

Oaxaca: il paradiso delle felci.

Reviewed in Italy on March 11, 2019

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Tra i molteplici interessi di Oliver Sacks eminente neurologo c'era anche la botanica, socio del giardino botanico di New York, ed in particolare per le felci, piante elementari sopravissute a molte ere geologiche nei luoghi piu' disparati del mondo. Con un gruppo di 18 iscritti alla AFS (societa' americana per lo studio delle felci) all'inizio del 2000 si e' recato nello stato messicano di Oaxaca, dove ne esistono centinaia di esemplari rarissimi. Il diario del viaggio ne descrive la ricerca catalogazione e descrizione anche con schizzi autografi, ma traccia anche vivide e colorite annotazioni sulla storia e civilta' precolombiane il paesaggio gli usi e costumi locali il cibo divagazioni sulla diffusione planetaria di cioccolato e gomma ...e sui caratteri somatici e psicologici dei compagni di avventura, con un annotazione che mi ha colpito quando segnala la presenza nel gruppo di una coppia lesbian ed una gay, lui non aveva ancora fatto outing e questo accenno pur molto discreto ne sottolinea a posteriori ii conflitto interiore, risolto con la pubblicazione dell'autobiografia di poco precedente la morte. Un piccolo libretto ma prezioso e arguto dietro cui si intravvede il suo sorriso bonario e la conoscenza enciclopedica, io che delle felci conosco a mala pena il filix mas e l'equisetum.

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