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A review by novabird
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
3.0
All of us are uniquely wired. My interest in autism stems from a philosophical bent towards how the mind perceives and filters our experiences. For me this underlines the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. There is a ‘one within the all,’ tone to this book that I find very interesting, that at once would uplift some people and repress others.
Stork presents Marcello as a verbally challenged person within the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who has an interior emotional capacity that he works very hard at continuing to develop, through a lot of go-between with analysis and this makes him capable of understanding motivations.
One of the things that I would like to avoid is imposing a neurotypical judgment on Stork’s characterization of Marcello. What I am left wondering, is the question of the link between understanding motivation and empathy.
For Stork this linkage is one with a grounding in Christianity where one listens with faith and hope for the right Stork openly acknowledges his work with people with developmental disabilities in a home that is centred around a faith-based community. However, Stork handles his faith-based bias very adeptly and does not overshadow the book with it.
The strengths of the writing I found were Marcello’s insights were particularly fresh and I also truly valued how Stork represented Marcello’s sexuality.
The ending has a ‘realness,’ to it that I wish some other books had. Not in the sense of a happy ending but rather that Beautiful and powerful ending – music to my ears! I read this just before, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and it is a far better read. 4
Stork presents Marcello as a verbally challenged person within the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who has an interior emotional capacity that he works very hard at continuing to develop, through a lot of go-between with analysis and this makes him capable of understanding motivations.
One of the things that I would like to avoid is imposing a neurotypical judgment on Stork’s characterization of Marcello. What I am left wondering, is the question of the link between understanding motivation and empathy.
For Stork this linkage is one with a grounding in Christianity where one listens with faith and hope for the right
Spoiler
‘note.’The strengths of the writing I found were Marcello’s insights were particularly fresh and I also truly valued how Stork represented Marcello’s sexuality.
The ending has a ‘realness,’ to it that I wish some other books had. Not in the sense of a happy ending but rather that