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ddillon154's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 of 5, for me. But the writing resonated with me enough to give it that last extra half star. You can really feel Olstein's poetry background, and it makes for wonderfully lucid and beautiful prose. The whole book is like an extended poem meditating on pain, what it does to a body, what it does to a mind, how we manage, ignore, identify with it. I also appreciate the wide range of materials that she brings to bare on this meditation; television, Greek philosophy, literature, music, art. Pain is everywhere, not just all around us but within us (some of us more than others). And yet we have so little language or dialogue about pain. Not pain as pain, at least. We're so quick to ascribe meaning to pain, to try to name and tame it, that we neglect to pay attention to pain. It is not noble to suffer, but neither is it noble to ignore the obvious. And to those in pain, there can be little more obvious than the facts of their discomfort.
shiloniz's review against another edition
4.0
"One way or another, when it comes to chronic, most of us reach the outer limits of empathy's gravitational pull and then slip right on through. What, then, to do with a condition that is both: crisis and chronic, a kind of emergency set on endless, if intermittent and variable, repeat?"
snailboywonder's review against another edition
2.0
I have immense respect for anyone who endeavors to write about what it is like to live with chronic pain. However, I found that this book introduced too many new ideas without clear meaning or any kind of ultimate resolution. Olstein is a good writer and clearly does have interesting and compelling things to say about chronic pain/illness: “I learned there’s no good time to be stricken, and no preparation for being struck.” It was disappointing to see this book’s most meaningful moments buried in a sea of disjointed ideas.
ingerlouise's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
2.75
I think I would’ve liked this better if I had read the physical copy, as I don’t think I could grasp the nuance of the way that this was written by listening to the audiobook.
An interesting exploration of pain and our ideas about it, but I got lost in the various lists that the author inserts when trying to define & relate different aspects of pain.
I could also tell that this was written by someone who primarily writes poetry for all of her use of lyrical prose and flowery descriptions. Still, I didn’t dislike this book.
An interesting exploration of pain and our ideas about it, but I got lost in the various lists that the author inserts when trying to define & relate different aspects of pain.
I could also tell that this was written by someone who primarily writes poetry for all of her use of lyrical prose and flowery descriptions. Still, I didn’t dislike this book.