The Empathy Exams: A Typewriter Book Review
Source: http://thetypewriter.org/2015/11/the-empathy-exams-a-typewriter-book-review/?utm_source=Tumblr&utm_medium=Tumblr_feed&utm_campaign=autopost
“A book of essays that questions who you are and why you think the way you do is what has been created here. This collection causes the reader to reflect tightly upon their own experiences and finding empathy with each one of the people mentioned.”
Though the outer cover of The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison elects the idea that the essays are surrounded on medical encounters, the essays bounce from topic to topic addressing various issues along the way.
The most striking essay “The Empathy Exams” starts the collection, and begins with her tales and encounters about a career as a medical actress.Then shifting into slight reveals throughout the essay of a deeper personal affliction, she touches on taboo topics such as abortion. Eventually touching on topics of inner conflict, illness, and relationships, Jamison reaches out to those readers who may have experienced the same complex emotions and afflictions.
Relating it back to how she felt, and then how the various trials would affect her we see a new yet familiar side to the human persona. She wishes to be genuinely listened to; she wishes to be genuinely heard. More importantly, she wishes to have someone want to talk to her. She desires empathy.
She desires the empathy the student-doctors are required to exhibit in every exam they complete on the actors.
Source: Sweet Briar College
Another essay focuses on the possibility of an imaginary illness, Morgelloan’s disease. Highlighting several different people with several different personalities, Jamison encourages the reader to look at these patients as if their unproven disease were real. We are forced to come to our own conclusions on whether or not we as readers feel sorry for the possibly purely mental issue.
Jamison takes the role of a challenger. However, the author does not portray herself as an ideal woman. She is not perfect. Between her drinking, abortion, and other HUMAN habits, her true desire is nothing but what everyone wants. They want to be understood. She is no perfect woman. She is not who we want to be, because she is us.
The Guardian says “As a study in vulnerability, but also in types of speech and silence that surround the ailing body, The Empathy Exams is exceptional, Jamison concluding that empathy is a matter of the hardest work, “made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse”.”
Ms. Jamison exhibits beautiful prose through her words of wisdom and experience. The entire collection is pulled together with her well-read voice and fearless voice. She confronts pain head on.
Overall, these essays focus on how a person feels, reacts to, and absorbs another human’s pain. Jamison is consistently challenging and leveling us. “I wanted someone else to feel it with me, and also I wanted it entirely for myself.” The pattern makes for a very enjoyable read making it necessary to set down between essays, take a mental note and reflect, and pick it back up again.
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