Editorial Review:

The distinguished Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was sitting in a Budapest café, wondering whether to write a long-planned monograph on modern man or a new play, when he was disturbed by the roaring--so loud as to drown out all other noises--of a passing train. Soon it was gone, only to be succeeded by another. And another. Strange, Karinthy thought, it had been years since Budapest had streetcars. Only then did he realize he was suffering from an auditory hallucination of extraordinary intensity.
What in fact Karinthy was suffering from was a brain tumor, not cancerous but hardly benign, though it was only much later--after spells of giddiness, fainting fits, friends remarking that his handwriting had altered, and books going blank before his eyes--that he consulted a doctor and embarked on a series of examinations that would lead to brain surgery. Karinthy's description of his descent into illness and his observations of his symptoms, thoughts, and feelings, as well as of his friends' and doctors' varied responses to his predicament, are exact and engrossing and entirely free of self-pity. A Journey Round My Skull is not only an extraordinary piece of medical testimony, but a powerful work of literature--one that dances brilliantly on the edge of extinction.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Fascinating and insightful:

I purchased this book because, upon browsing it in the bookstore, it mirrored much of my experience with seizures and brain surgery. His descriptions and the unreal experience of having a brain disease hit the bulls eye. The floating, stream of conciousness-like storytelling brings home the feelings involved with such a curious experience. I'm enjoying it immensely.

Dreamlike Narration of Illness:

A Journey Round My Skull appears (based on reviews and cover blurbs) to be a classic of the 'sick patient' genre. I'm not exactly sure why. I found it to be a little challenging to stick with to the end. Part of the problem is the stilted translation from Karinthy's native language. It never flows well and reads very much like a translation inasmuch as the english phrases seem awkward, rough and not-quite-right. I almost never forgot that I was in fact reading a translation -- surely a sign of a less than... more info

The view from the outside in:

In the spring of 1936, Frigyes (Frederic) Karinthy, a popular Hungarian poet, heard locomotives rumbling, reverberating, dying away. He knew there had been no trains on the streets of Budapest for 40 years. After long, exhaustive examinations Budapest neurologists told him that an egg-sized cyst webbed with tiny blood vessels was sprouting on the right side of his brain, back of his cerebellum. Karinthy's wife took him to Stockholm and Dr. Herbert Olivecrona.
Oliver Sachks asks: "Were doctors in... more info

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