Intoxicated by My Illness: And Other Writings on Life and Death

by Anatole Broyard

Book Overview

Anatole Broyard, long-time book critic, book review editor, and essayist for the New York Times, wants to be remembered. He will be, with this collection of irreverent, humorous essays he wrote concerning the ordeals of life and death--many of which were written during the battle with cancer that led to his death in 1990.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"A heartbreakingly eloquent and unsentimental...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0449908348
• ISBN13: 9780449908341
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"Inside every patient there's a poet trying to get out."

To be sure, Anatole Broyard was no shrinking violet. When diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in 1989 he did not "go gentle into that good night," cowed by fear and anger, but rose up and fought to be heard as he struggled to come to terms with the end of his life. "Intoxicated by My Illness" is the result of that fight, a stunningly eloquent and well-reasoned treatise about how to die, how to treat the dying, and, indirectly, how to live. Broyard takes his sharp critic's eye and trains it on the process of dying, examining with careful precision what others have said on the subject and how it relates to his actual experience of the situation (Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, for example, is admirable for her "single-minded dedication," but said devotion often leads her to be "a bit grotesque"). In his final weeks, Broyard seeks to improve our `literature of death,' so that people will have a greater understanding of the process and, perhaps, will be better equipped when life throws a little curveball their way and they find themselves in a similar situation. While Broyard's observations are clear-sighted and deeply profound, to be honest I would have liked to hear more of his own personal reflections. The high points of "Intoxicated by My Illness" are its most confessional moments, when Broyard ponders his own circumstance, how he got to this point, and how he feels about it. His critical studies of death are fascinating and insightful, to be sure, but they almost feel like a shield, a crutch - something to help him avoid the reality of his situation rather than embrace it, as he set out to do. He essentially admits to this when he says that he has turned to what he understands and what he is best at (literature and being a critic, respectively) in order to make the un-knowable abyss he faces more palatable, so in the end you cannot fault him for this minor complaint, and instead you must continue to marvel at his remarkable self-awareness. "It may not be dying we fear so much, but the diminished self," Broyard ponders at one point, and if this is the case then Broyard needn't have feared at all; in the decline of his life Broyard blossomed and thrived. "I'm going to say something brilliant when I die," he promises to himself early on, and with "Intoxicated by My Illness" he certainly achieves this lofty goal. Grade: A-

narrative medicina

As a doctor woriking in narrative medicine, I think that this book is one of the best reflections I know on disease and illness. It is a very precious tool to enhance the comprehension of the patient world. Absolutely recommended to every narrative and relation centered physician. prof Giorgio Bert Torino (Italy)

To be alive when I die

These are Anatole Broyard's words and his final wish.I have never read a book about death that was so uplifting. There is a complete lack of morbidity, self pity, or self indulgence in this writing. I would strongly recommend it for anyone with a life threatening illness. The author's courage in the face of serious illness is daunting. He commits to living the last of his life with even more awareness...a thought that each of us, regardless of health, could employ.

Dear Doctor

To my doctor . . . and the doctors to whom I will bring my children; who may treat my loved ones in their last illness . . . please read this book. If you don't want to commit to the whole book read the title essay. And then read "The Patient Examines the Doctor." Your response to these essays will be a kind of test I am giving you - an interview technique, as it were, to find out if you are the one I want to be my "familiar in a foreign country."

WITH ILLNESS, IT'S EITHER FIGHT OR FLIGHT

I have AIDS, and during the past 10 years I've found that there are really only two ways to approach serious illness: You fight it, or you give in to it. There are times for both. When I want to fight, I re-read Emmanuel Dreuihle's brilliant but out-of-print book "Mortal Embrace," which relentlessly uses the metaphors of war to describe the battle against the enemy unseen. How it energizes me for the battles ahead! But when I am forced to give in, I read "Intoxicated By My Illness" by Anatole Broyard, which offers me a whole new perspective on how to cope with serious illness: Enjoy it! Well, perhaps "enjoy" is to strong a word to describe what Broyard tries to communicate. He calls illness a journey, and he delights in the fact that it brought him back into intimate contact with his otherwise taken-for-granted body. He is fascinated -- even as he is pained -- by what is going on inside of him. He uses the changes in his body to illuminate and strengthen the best parts of his soul. He proves the adage that suffering ennobles, without being self-pitying. He exults in the journey -- he "enjoys" it! -- and that was an entirely new way (for me) to look at illness. He is a kind and gentle and wise writer, and his loss from prostate cancer was a loss to us all ... except for the wisdom he shares in this little book.