The Ceiling Outside, Noga Arikha
The Ceiling Outside, Noga Arikha
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The Ceiling Outside
The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind

Author: Noga Arikha

Narrator: Fenella Fudge

Unabridged: 8 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 05/03/2022


Synopsis

As her mother slips into the fog of dementia, a philosopher grapples with the unbreakable links between our bodies and our sense of self.  
 
A diabetic woman awakens from a coma having forgotten the last ten years of her life. A Haitian immigrant has nightmares that begin bleeding into his waking hours. A retired teacher loses the use of her right hand due to pain of no known origin. 
 
Noga Arikha began studying these patients and their confounding symptoms in order to explore how our physical experiences inform our identities. Soon after she initiated her work, the question took on unexpected urgency, as Arikha’s own mother began to show signs of Alzheimer’s disease. 
 
Weaving together stories of her subjects’ troubles and her mother’s decline, Arikha searches for some meaning in the science she has set out to study. The result is an unforgettable journey across the ever-shifting boundaries between ourselves and each other. 

About Noga Arikha

Noga Arikha is a philosopher and historian of ideas. The author of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours, she is associate fellow of the Warburg Institute and honorary fellow of the Centre for the Politics of Feelings, London, and research associate at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris. She is based in Florence, Italy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by David on January 13, 2023

Noga Arikha is no Oliver Sacks and although she tries to style this book after his writings, it is unfortunately dry and dull. It was painful going through the entire book due to the writing style. For some reason, the author loves long, convoluted sentences utilizing dashes. I have never seen so man......more

Goodreads review by Susan on March 03, 2024

This book examines many examples of the Disrupted Mind, about which I have read extensively before tackling this one. Yet I found it extremely hard going to the point that I struggled to finish it. Some claims are simply not valid, for example the association that is claimed between her Mother's TGA......more

Goodreads review by Rae on June 07, 2022

Minuteman. Skimmed. Examples of neurological problems that affect behavior, woven with reflections on mother's alzheimer's. Philosophical, not compellingly written. Could pull out examples for discussion of physical causes of "mental" illness if needed.......more

Goodreads review by Cindy.Sherban on September 05, 2022

did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would I think it is mostly a matter of inaccurate expectations......more

Goodreads review by Stefanie on June 18, 2022

Couldn’t get into. Maybe for more poetic souls but a book I much preferred on the subject is “the man who mistook his wife for a hat” by Oliver Sacks......more


Quotes

"[A] wide-ranging, engaging study that encompasses philosophy, history, medicine, memoir, and science," The Ceiling Outside is "a luminous, intellectually dense meditation on mind." —Kirkus

“Noga Arikha is a poet and a painter with the soul of a scientist. Trust her to guide you through a study of suffering and healing that will leave you humanly richer and, wonder of wonders, at peace with yourself.”—Antonio Damasio, author of Feeling and Knowing

“Noga Arikha is that rare author whose deep knowledge of philosophy, science, and the arts allows her to move deftly from the quandaries of medical diagnosis and the scientific ideas that inform them to the intimate narratives of people afflicted with illnesses that threaten the coherence of that mysterious thing we call ‘a self.’ Astute, compassionate, and brilliant, The Ceiling Outside is finally an adventure story in the bewildering drama of being.”—Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the Future

“With grace, rigour, and imagination, Arikha brings together the languages of mind, brain, and embodied human experience to give us a book that fascinates on every page.”—Lisa Appignanesi, author of Mad, Bad and Sad

"A moving journey to the roots of the self, which uniquely combines the author's deep knowledge of its neuropsychological foundations with a touching humanistic sensibility. A must read."—Vittorio Gallese, University of Parma, Italy