Adrian Woolfson
Final Frontiers
The Unmapped Mind: A Memoir of Neurology, Incurable Disease and Learning How to Live
By Christian Donlan
Viking 292pp £14.99
In this beautifully observed, lyrical and meticulously researched book, Christian Donlan details his experiences of the unpredictable anatomical ravages that multiple sclerosis (MS) inflicts upon his body and mind. His explorations of his own erratic pathology are informed by his day job as a reviewer of video games for Europe’s largest gaming website. He regards video games as a compelling point of comparison for his life. In video games, it is the player who dictates the flow of events. Donlan realises that in his case, by contrast, he has largely lost control and become a passive figure in a strange and enigmatic biological game being played out on his body. Among other things, the disease causes his hands to fizz and sputter like ‘dying sparklers’, destabilises his psychology and shatters his visual world into disconnected units.
Donlan uses the metaphor of a journey into unknown territory – a ‘wilderness of neurology’ – that he would rather never have taken. Like the early pioneers, he benefits from only the most rudimentary of maps: although the broad pattern and tempo of MS are well documented, the idiosyncratic
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm