Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 13 Number 2, August 2012
___________________________________________________________________
Brown, Julie, Writers on the Spectrum. How Autism and Asperger Syndrome Have Influenced Literary Writing. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2010. 240 pp. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-84310-913-6. £34.99 / $55.95
Reviewed by
University of Granada
In a time when innovative theories and findings are constantly illuminating the origin and characteristics of Asperger Syndrome and different strategies are emerging to help both those affected with the syndrome and their families, Brown’s book comes out to shed new light on the field. We nowadays know many famous people are or have been speculated to have certain autistic disorders, including actors and actresses, such as Robin Williams and Marilyn Monroe, film director Alfred Hitchcock, presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, and even scientists and inventors, like Henry Cavendish or Thomas A. Edison.
Yet, while it is always surprising to know many famous – and often successful – people are affected by certain features of autism, Writers on the Spectrum comes as a groundbreaking study on literary authors suffering in varying degrees from autism and Asperger Syndrome in that it forces us to see these writers and their oeuvre from a different angle. A noteworthy predecessor had come with Phyllis F. Bottomer’s So Odd a Mixture. Along the Autistic Spectrum in Pride and Prejudice (see review in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 9:1, 2008). Thus, through the analysis proposed by Julie Brown, we rediscover Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland as a story reflecting its author’s difficulties to endow his narrative with a coherently sequential structure. In a likewise manner, Sherwood Anderson’s Winifred Owen – created as a set of stories linked by a central character – would solve a very similar problem connected with the construction of a novelistic plot. In Emily Dickinson’s poetic innovations we find the feelings of alienation and, at the same time, the necessity of being different of the poet. Herman Melville’s Bartleby arises as a faithful reflection of the troubles to socialize experienced by his creator. In W. B. Yeats’ poetry, we read – and hear – the effects of the echolalia that is typical in those affected by auditive problems derived from autism. Under Brown’s new light, Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen or Ugly Duckling come to illustrate some of the Asperger’s traits – “a reflection of [Andersen’s] own life” – as Brown notes (53, cf. Andersen 2005: 156). Also interestingly, in Thoreau’s passion for nature we discover as well the author’s shelter from a humanity he perceives as a terrible threat, much like Opal Whiteley, whose childhood diary becomes a testimony, among other aspects, of her search for companionship in animals and her constant escape from human contact.
It is necessary to add that Brown herself is a surgeon and a mother of an Asperger child, which makes her closely familiar with the physical particularities of the syndrome, but also – and perhaps most important – wholeheartedly involved in the emotional and psychological necessities of those affected by Asperger. Hence, the fascinating analyses of the literary authors examined in this volume are wonderfully rounded by a final chapter on autistic autobiography – a genre which frequently meets the prejudices of those who consider it as a minor type or the creation of an editor, rather than of the author themselves. Through the example of several authors of this genre, as presented by Brown, we discover not only the myth beneath such prejudices, but also the claim of autistic writers for them to be understood in a reality which very often makes them transcend the conventional to become absolutely extraordinary.
Works cited
Andersen, H. C. The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen, tr. Diana Crone Frank & Jeffrey Frank. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.
Andres, I. M. Book review. Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 9:1 (2008); last viewed on August 2nd 2012,
http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/users/dmeyerdinkgrafe/archive/bottomer.html
Bottomer, P. F. So Odd a Mixture. Along the Autistic Spectrum in Pride and Prejudice. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007.
Fattig, M. Disabled World. Towards Tomorrow, 2007; last viewed on August 2nd 2012,
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/article_2086.shtml