So, from time to time, she gives West's version of events. Ackerman is writing years after the events she describes. In the first section, The Cartography of Loss, we are plunged into the world of hospitals, strokes, aphasia, loss, panic, depression and longing for home. In an instant, the stroke takes away so many things: her husband's livelihood, the thing that defines him for himself and others (his mastery of words) and their shared bond (as a couple, Ackerman and West are obsessive in their word play). At first, he can only utter garbled nonsense and repeat the syllable "mem." His wife is devastated by his neurological catastrophe. He is left partly paralyzed and bereft of words, if not of language. It takes away his ability to make use of his magisterial command of English. He is not in the best of health, anyway, but the stroke brings aphasia. West, a somewhat experimental novelist whose prose is filled with elaborate and finically weighted sentences, is having a stroke. If you've read her most popular book,Ī Natural History of the Senses, you'll know exactly what I mean when I say the writing - and the meditations - are "very Diane Ackerman." But for those who don't know Ackerman's work, I'm going to try to define the characteristic of her writing that is "Ackermanesque."įirst, though, some words about the book. And, finally, there are her meditations on language. She writes well about married life, its intimacies and childish pleasures. Ackerman writes movingly about the effects of her husband's stroke on her and on her husband, writer Paul West. A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing - gives you a good idea of the book's contents: life-altering illness, its effect on a married couple, and language as balm and bond.
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