John Hersey's Awareness of One's Environment "Characters," Carol and Willie
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New 'York Times Book Re'view 4/3/94 Forward From Nowhere An autistic woman resumes her tale of trying to rna,ke sense oflife. Iiams, too, participated in con terns of behavior are not inher feelings as humans do - and nected to one another ._..- a desire iOMEBODY versations by replaying scripts ent but are learned by watching that humans have feelings in a Ms. Williams did not have Just SOMEWHERE she had heard. But, as she ex others. way that objects don't. She the opposite, she writes. "I was plains, non-autistic people use When "Somebody Somewhere" stands paralyzed before a tiny allergic to words like 'we,' 'us' or 9reaking Free From the World these bits to reflect real feelings, opens, Ms. Williams is 25 years closet because she cannot bear 'together· - words depicting )fAutlsm. genuine emotions ..... at least 'in old and liVing in London. She has what she uwould have to inflict closeness" because "closeness By Donna Williams. principle. To the autistic who is given up her characters but not upon" her clothes by squeezing made earthquakes go off inside ~38 pp. New York: unaware of real feelings (for yet learned how to function in the them in. She apologizes to them of me and compelled me to run," rimes Books/ whom, in fact, emotions feel like world without them: HWillie was as she hangs them up. Realizing pnly at the end, in a special Random House. $23. death), the memorized bits are n't there to help me understand, that objects are not aware of her friendship (which she calls a all there is. depersonalize, and deny. Carol existence, are not really "compa uspecialship") with an autistic Ms. Williams's ways of coping wasn't there to make me laugh ny:' leaves her terribly alone. man na.med iall. does she discov·· By Deborah Tannen with conversations are not unlike and pretend nothing mattered." er that «'togetherJ was not a the strategies we all use: ulf I There is as yet no direct link • • • dirty word and 'we~ did not mean HEN I received Don couldn't hear with meaning. I between feeling and expression. When she could no longer 3ust 'yUl! plus my body minus me • " na Williams's book could always comment on the Returning to Australia, she en replay :memorized scr'ipts, sbe Prodigiously talented. Donna USomebody Some things around me or create my rolls in an elementary-school had to learn to hear Uwith mean WiUJa,ms paints, composes, where," my first re own topic. If I couldn't make so teaching certification program, ing:' and learn that language is sings. plays piano and guitar. W at~ action was: UShe's already told cial chitchat, I could always talk and she rents an apartment on a not a weapon with which to and writes. And oh. can she her story. What more is there to shop, flick through books, act busy farm owned by a couple who be~ tack or a shield to hide behind, write. The windows through say?" "Nobody Nowhereu was a and appear super-conscientious." come her surrogate family. but a means of communication. which she allows us to view her fascinating memoir of growing The ability to mirror others From them, and from a thera Small talk was the hardest: III experience are metaphor ("I up with a viciously abusive moth allowed Ms. Williams to move in pist specializing in autism, she knew the meanings of the words was like an appliance during a er and a brother who tormented a world where nothing made gradually learns to live in "the they used. I could even make power surge"). perfectly ren her. That book ended with her sense and people could not sus world" as her own self, and not a meaning of many of their sen.. dered details and wonderful, s~r.. awakening at 25, when she dis pect how their quotidian behav~ series of performances. tences. I could have tried to prising phrasings. One of my fa covered a name for what had ior assaulted her. She explains: The lessons are extraordinary make a match with some infor vorites is: "I sprang into order.'· isolated her - autism. How uThere are two ways to be a as they show the complexity of mation I had linked to key words The memoir ends with the could she match that extraordi nobody nowhere. One is to be our own daily sense-making. they used. But I didn't under greatest loss and the greatest nary achievement? frozen and unable to do anything When Ms. Williams writes that stand the significance." I suspect gain. The loss: Ian forces her to But I knew after the first few spontaneously for yourself. The her manuscript would ulive'· in a the reason is that the signifi accept that her reflection in the pages of USomebody Some other is to be able to do anything, tea chest in London, for her ttlis cance of small talk is not in the mirror is not anot.her person who where" that she had matched it. based on stored mirrored reper~ was not a metaphor. She had to meaning of the words but in the can keep her company. The gain: By illuminating her own unique taires without any personal self~ learn that objects did not have desire of the speakers to be con- Ian is. 0 autistic perceptions, she allows awareness." The complete shut us to understand our own percep down and the Uhigh-functioning" tions as never before. role playing were two sides of As Oliver Sacks has said, ll~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~ medicine can prOVide invaluable nowherethe same to coin: be found. her uself" was. II insight into chemical and biologi To Donna Williams, the "high cal aspects of iUness, but only functioning" that had allowed patients can tell us what their her to live independently from diseases are really like. Donna the age of 15 was not her own Williams tells us that in her ex doing but the work of two imagi~ perience autism is not a lack of nary personas she calls her John Hersey's awareness of one's environment "characters," Carol and Willie. but a heightened awareness of it. Willie was a speed. reader who The autistic individual's With accumulated facts to impress drawal into a world of her own is people. Carol cocked her head, typically a desperate attempt to filled the air with social chatter Key West Tales create a bubble of peace amid and, above all, smiled.. Willie was the sensory onslaught. strong, feared nothing, and was always in control. "As Carol," '1'he final bright gift he has given us"'" • • • Ms. Williams writes, HI never Finishing the first book, a had to understand anything that reader might assume that once happened. I just had to look *II A. • I· . she recognized her autism and good." Willie was indifferent, de 11. maglca union of old-fashioned AU the stories are set in emerged from her private world, tached: the only emotion he could writerly virtues with all the latest twists and ~KeyW~t~tH~ Ms. Williams's battles were feel was anger. Carol had a over. Her new book shows how "cheery, liVing facade" but could turns of contemporary storytelling. This is the knew intimately - the foolish that assumption would not stand up for herself. \ last of his work, and we can be sad about that, Key West of the put And be. I'Somebody Somewhere" Ms. Williams remarks that the Key West 01 tocLty. chronicles the four years after but still able to rejoice in the final bright gift he Willie learned his "rm-so-rugged And, moving against the writing of 'lNobody No toughie image ... ·from boys in -GEORCE Where," including a description secondary school" and that Car has given us." GARRETT its jumbled streets and of how she found the courage to ol, whose gestures and speech New York TImes Book Review IIbright blooming undertake pUblicity tours in Aus were modeled on a little girl Ms. greenery": artists and tralia, Europe and the United Williams encountered once as a swamp rats, profeuon States. Most of all, it shows, how child, learned her lines from sit "A wise book•.•A complete she learned to confront the world coms. Ms. Williams does not and drifters, sailors. as herself. seem to think of them as male entertainmenl...almost theatrical with swindlers, preachers, We all construct our conversa and female principles, but they its large cast of adventurers, rogues, celebrities, anglers, windsurfers tions from bits we have gathered are in fact caricatures of stereo from the talk around us. Ms. Wit- typic behavior. old families and gays, and its visual tableaux of and a President Because in her autism she was the Keys and the city at the end of the line...A of the United Statn Deborah Tannen is University dissociated from herself, Ms. I joyous sense of wonder is what I take away as a poignantl~vivldJ y, Professor of LingUistics at Williams was able to pick up and wittily, ironically dnlwn. Georgetown University and au imitate both male and female summing up of John Hersey's long career." to • thor of UYou Just Don't Under behaviors and speech, demon ! A splendid finale stand: Women and Men in Con strating, at least in her case, that -eHRlSTOPHERnLGHMAN,.Boston Globe splendid writing career. versation." sex-linked or "genderedn pat- i At all bookstores ~ Published by Knopf .