December 2024 – …
This is book # XXXX in the no-longer-very-aptly named Essays Project. Though perhaps, having detoured into the wilds of Shakespeare, a tour of the letters of Sacks, who is a formidable essayist, is steering us back towards the main track. Of course, letters are not essays, but their relative brevity and personal cast, as well as the wide-ranging nature of Sack’s epistles, give them a familial resemblance.
The book is edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks’ assistant and editor of several decades; she also contributes a brief preface which offers her perspective on Sacks’ compulsive writing process. Alas for her brevity; I believe she could offer a lot of insight on Sacks. But perhaps his letters will serve. Onward!
Preface and Editor’s Introduction
Sacks loved correspondence. He felt one ought to reply to letters, immediately if possible. He corresponded with, literally, thousands of people, from school children to Nobel laureates. Sacks took pains to preserve his letters with carbon sets, drafts, or later, photocopies, though by no means does all his correspondence survive. But that part which does runs to about 200,000 pages, or about 70 bankers’ boxes.
Letters were an important way for Sacks to connect to the larger world, possibly a way to do an end-run around what he described as his ‘crippling shyness.’ Certainly they opened him to a vast range of ideas and stimulation; as Edgar says: “Often a serendipitous letter, totally unexpected, would launch him on a new essay or even a book. (p xiii) The letters are also important for understanding Sack’s development, both personally and intellectually.
Edgar offers interesting insights on Sacks’ approach to writing. “[Sacks] had difficulty […] editing his own work. Thus, when one editor or another asked him to clarify something or boil it down, he would simply crank a new piece of paper into his typewriter and start over. Voilà, a new draft. Eventually, the editor would have a pile of drafts, to say nothing of a sheaf of follow-up letters with new footnotes and addenda. It was difficult to choose the best among these, since most versions contained wonderful passages, but each headed in a different direction.” Edgar dealt with this by cutting and pasting among the many draftsand stitching together his various trains of thought.
In the longer term, they developed a more interactive way of working : “Oliver, on the other hand, wanted me actually sitting by his side as he tore each finished page out of the typewriter: “Here! What do you think?” I began referring to this as “combat editing.” I would arrive home after a day with Oliver, exhausted from the nonstop effort of trying to keep up with his restless intellect for eight hours. But it was also exhilarating work, and when he phoned me an hour or two later with new thoughts, I was ready to dive back in. What started for me as a freelance job, occupying a day or two a week, soon became a full-time vocation-and then some.”
1. A New World: 1960-1962
The letters begin with Sacks’ arrival in North America at the age of 27. He had finished four years of medical school and two years of internship, and left England in part to escape the draft, and in part to re-invent himself at a more comfortable distance from his large and opinionated extended family. It is easy to imagine that a significant motivation was his family’s non-acceptance of his homosexuality, but a first-hand assessment is not part of the record. It is clear that, in addition to continuing in medicine and specializing in neurology, Sacks pursued other interests including motorcycling, weight-lifting, and clandestine sexual encounters.
2 August 1960: To ] parents & Aunt Len: Arrival and travels in Canada.
24 August 1960: To parents: Arrival in San Francisco
29 September 1960: To parents: First days at Mt Zion
3 October 1960: To parents: More on Mt Zion, SF, and friends
11 October 1960: To Jonathan Miller: Job, plans, impressions
15 October 1960: To parents: Recreation, social life
28 November 1960: To parents and Aunt Len: Work at hospital; motorcycling
2 February 1961: To parents: Family news; neurology conference
22 April 1961: To parents and Aunt Len: Account of his motorcycle trip around US
24 June 1961: To parents: Complaints about intern work at Mt Zion
6 July 1961: To parents. More complaints; speculation about what he will become
16 October 1961: To parents: Visit to new UCLA medical school / conference
4 February 1962: To parents: Brief letter about depression & upcoming Mexico trip
23 February 1962: To parents: Account of his Mexico trip (and ref to truckers essay)
25 March 1962: To parents: Weight lifting and work, which he still dislikes
2. Los Angeles: 1962 – 1965
Sacks is now 29. So far, most of the correspondence — at least that covered in the book — has been with his parents.
…reading break…
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