September 2009: Musicophilia (Sacks)

Post date: Jan 07, 2010 11:42:42 PM

Five of us gathered at my house last Thursday, September 17, 2009, to discuss Oliver Sack's Musicophilia. (Hopefully the smallish turnout was not due to my lack of a specific email announcement of the September book. I included it with the August play announcement, and had meant to send out a separate mailing after the play, but did not get to it. Apologies to those who missed the information.)

We started off with a few minutes discussion of the play (Samuel Beckett's Happy Days), since Catherine, Jane and I had all attended. Jane said she and her family had generally disliked the play, finding it too lacking in action and plot for them. But they had a great time at the event anyway, especially enjoying the discussions they had during the picnic. Catherine connected with the play somewhat more, as she found the main character brought to mind her mother, who always presented a happy outlook, and avoided expressing dissatisfaction or unhappiness.

As we turned to Musicophilia, it was lovely to welcome back Kathy Orsini, who has been too busy with grad school to come to book club lately. She was particularly interested in this topic, having spent time working with the elderly, and thinking and reading about the use of music in managing dementia. We all found many parts of this book fascinating, and the conversation ranged widely, from deeply personal reactions to the Alzheimer's and Parkinson's stories, to musings about whether poetry's form and focus on rhythm would make it have similar powers to music. This book illustrated things about the power of music that we wished we had known about earlier, and would want to draw upon in the future. (Or sooner: Catherine went right out and enrolled her son in piano lessons.)

~ Sherrill