Caricamento
Still Alice
Sintesi
In Lisa Genova’s extraordinary New York Times bestselling novel, an accomplished woman slowly loses her thoughts and memories to Alzheimer’s disease—only to discover that each day brings a new way of living and loving. Now a major motion picture starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth, and Kristen Stewart!
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring, and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what it’s like to literally lose your mind...
Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, Ordinary People, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Still Alice packs a powerful emotional punch and marks the arrival of a strong new voice in fiction.
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Recensioni
This is a heart-wrenching, poignant story of one woman's struggle with the early onset of Alzheimer's disease. Told in the third person, the story focuses on Alice's point of view as she tries to come to terms with the diagnosis and her rapid loss of cognitive skills. It is impossible not to feel deep, sincere sympathy for Alice. She is such a wonderful character - courageous, intelligent, warm-hearted and, at all times, dignified. The speech she gives at the Dementia Care Conference had me in tears. Beautifully written, Alice's journey is a hard one to follow as she grapples with feelings of confusion, fear, anger, hopelessness and frustration, but I'm so very glad I travelled with her even though in the end, it was hard to let her go.
Told from Alice's point of view, we learn about her symptoms leading up to a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. This is a tragic diagnosis for anyone, and for a linguistics professor at Harvard, not being able to find the right words, or eventually even to read, is brutal. We see what happens to Alice over two years, and learn what a devastating disease this is.
Alice Howland is a fifty-year-old Harvard professor who is starting to forget things. She chalks it up to being really busy, swamped with giving lectures and traveling to conferences. The memory infractions keep getting more bothersome, so Alice's doctor puts her through various tests before diagnosing her with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. This, of course, throws Alice's life off course and turns everything upside down. I absolutely love that, despite becoming more and more unreliable, Alice is the first person narrator throughout the whole story. It's so interesting to be inside her head as her brain deteriorates. My maternal grandmother had Alzheimer's and hallucinated towards the end of her life, and I wanted so badly to know exactly what was going through her mind. Since she has a PhD in neuroscience herself, and did extensive research on Alzheimer's, I feel like Genova's book is the closest I will come to understanding what went on in my grandmother's mind.
The main character has early onset Alzheimer's. I don't know much about the disease, but I found this book to be very interesting. If it's accurate, it gives good insight to what a person goes through as well as the family.
A movie about Alz, Away from Her, was amazing. It seemed to be a much better view of the disease. I found it leaving a more lasting impression of alzheimer's --the actor's performances were moving.
A movie about Alz, Away from Her, was amazing. It seemed to be a much better view of the disease. I found it leaving a more lasting impression of alzheimer's --the actor's performances were moving.
I found this story profoundly sad, disturbing and thought-provoking when I read it soon after it was first published. When I was faced with reading it for a second time (as a reading group choice) I wondered whether it would have less of an emotional impact. However, I felt as inexorably drawn into the author’s descriptions of how the diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease affected not only Alice, but also her husband, John, and their three adult children. The effects on their lives were profound and disturbing for each of them. I thought that she charted, in a very sensitive and moving way, the gradual disintegration of Alice’s ability to do anything for herself, as well as her continuing demand to be seen for who she had been, not just who she was becoming. She realistically and evocatively captured the ways in which each member of the family developed different, and changing, coping strategies as they struggled to deal both with new realities, and an uncertain future. Everyone hoped for a miracle cure but, as there wasn’t one, they could only watch as the disease unrelentingly destroyed every aspect of Alice’s life, from her memories, to her ability to do anything for herself. There were moments when her descriptions of Alice’s continuing awareness of what was happening to her were so evocative that they felt almost too painful to read: I could almost viscerally feel her frustrations and her fear.There were times when I felt angry with John’s apparent detachment, his constant search for alternative diagnoses or treatments and, finally, with a decision he makes when Alice’s hold on reality has deteriorated considerably. However, the author did such a good job of portraying his point of view, and his need to look forward, that I ended up feeling some empathy with him!Any form of dementia is something no individual or family wants to think about, but when it strikes someone in their fifties the shock must be greater, particularly as this form of the disease has such a strong genetic component, with a fifty percent chance that any children may go on to develop it. I thought that the author dealt well, and very credibly, with the dilemma of whether or not people would choose to take advantage of genetic testing. It seems to me that, whatever the decision, it must be very difficult to either live the rest of your life knowing that you have inherited that gene, or to go through life wondering. Not all forgetful moments are a precursor to dementia, but if there is that history in your family, I can only begin to imagine how stressful such moments must be. This is not an easy story to read but I think that Lisa Genova’s well-informed, compassionate writing has created characters who are unforgettable (if that isn’t too ironic) and through them has conveyed a powerful message that we should continue to “see” the essence of who sufferers are, rather than, through ignorance and fear, ignore them. I’m sure we all ask the question “what if ….? and I think this book goes some way to addressing some of the answers.
When I read this book it really stayed with me and now to see it's going to be a movie with Julianne Moore, I can't wait to see it. She will be wonderful in it. It is a very hard story to read and will break your heart.
“I miss myself.”Dr. Alice Howland is a 50-year-old psychology professor at Harvard with a specialty in linguistics. Her decline started with forgetting words, getting lost while jogging on a regular route, forgetting appointments, and even a trip. After her diagnosis, her relationship with herself, her husband, and her three children evolved. She finds tools to compensate her declining memory. Her husband who had loved her for her mind struggles to know the new her and to learn and fight this disease that is stealing her away. Her children, who may inherit the mutation gene, must decide what to do for themselves as well as how to be a bigger part of Alice’s life especially while she still knows them. ‘Still Alice’ delivers quite a punch. The idea of having early on-set Alzheimer is incredibly scary. Being an EON patient, the progression of the disease is faster than a typical elderly. Furthermore, because the main character is highly intelligent and a high-functioning individual, it’s possible her Alzheimer’s started sooner but she’s been able to compensate, making the progression appear to be even more extraordinary. The depictions of her decline, the gaps, the repeats, the mistakes, the moments of lucidity, are absolutely heart-breaking. The brilliance of Genova’s writing is its sparseness. She doesn’t outright point out Alice’s mistakes. She lets the readers come to the realization that an “episode” had occurred. In the last months, when her family members are described instead of using their names, the words read like a gut-wrenching blow when I realized she longer knows who they are. Damn…Quote:On the loss of language:“But to tell the truth, she was very far from okay. She could still read and comprehend small amounts of text, but the computer keyboard had become an undecipherable jumble of letters. In truth, she’d lost the ability to compose words out of the alphabet letters on the keys. Her ability to use language, that thing that most separates humans from animals, was leaving her, and she was feeling less and less human as it departed. She’d said a tearful good-bye to okay some time ago.”
Although this book brought out my hypochondria (yes, I forget words/names/appointments....) I found the writing a bit tiresome and the narrative really predictable.
I liked this book more than I thought I would. The beginning was a bit too plain, unrealistic (Articles published only in Nature and Science?), however, the more Alice's illness progressed the more human the story became. You could tell the author did her research, both in terms of science and human emotions.
An incredible book detailing the struggles of the main character as she declines with Alzheimer's Disease. Thought provoking and very in depth, I found this book to be a profound look at such a terrible disease. It shows how so many people around the patient are affected and how the person truly feels as they slip away. Heartwrenching and beautifully written.
I probably would have given it four stars, except for a few minor things that rang as untrue to me. Overall, I really enjoyed it and especially enjoyed that the voice was that of the character with Alzheimer's.
As highly recommended as this book is and as much as I wanted to read it, it took me a good while to muster the courage to actually do it. I was intimidated by the subject because I lived for a year with a family where the elderly grandmother had Alzheimer's, and even though there was much I didn't understand I witnessed first-hand how traumatic her condition was for the entire family. Finally I decided to just go for it, and when the novel was over I sat there for a while, heartbroken, not knowing where to begin thinking back on it like I usually do after finishing a book. There was so much there. There was Alice's love for her family, her bitter-sweet feelings for her husband, her fear of losing herself, of losing all the time she thought she had. There was her husband's pain and the decisions he had to make, her children's fear and strength, the relationships between them all, and the impact of Alice's diagnosis. All this tore at me and demanded attention, all the questions that stemmed from the story being told by a person with Alzheimer's begged to be answered, and I couldn't begin anything else for several days because I was still living in Alice's world, trying to come to terms with a question that resonated with me because reading, books and words are an enormously important part of my life, just like they were for Alice - how does one cope with the knowledge that meaningful reading is no longer possible? How does the author do this in a volume of less than 300 pages? It's simple, really. Lisa Genova has a gift. She does it with writing like this:"She sat in the passenger seat and waited for John to say something. But he didn't. He cried the whole way home."What else does the reader need to understand the depth of feelings, the gravity of the situation? Nothing at all, it's all there in three short sentences. Another aspect that made the book work is the authenticity of everyday feelings and surroundings. I don't know this for a fact but I think that Ms. Genova is a runner, and I think she has a house somewhere at the beach in New England. I think that she has a passion for the world of academia and a complicated parent-child relationship in her life in one way or another. I think she drew on all those parts of her own life and experiences in crafting Alice's story and through her own familiarity she made the story even more personal than it already is. I cried while I read this novel. I cried for Alice, for her husband and for their children. I cried for the losses of memories, dignity, conversations and truly meaningful time together. I also laughed through tears because of Alice's irrepressible spirit, intellect and sense of humor that shone through till the very end. This book may not affect you as it did me, there is a lot to be said about timing after all. I thought it was excellent, heartbreaking but truly excellent, and I highly recommend it. P.S. I have not been able to use the word "thingie" without immediately looking for a more articulate alternative for weeks now. Thought you should know.
Moving but sad story - written in beautiful prose, story of 50 something Alice Howland, esteemed Harvard professor of linguistics, wife of scientist husband John, mother of three grown children, soon to be grandma... is diagnosised with early onset Alzheimer's disease. "Of all the people who have Alzheimer's disease, about 5 percent develop symptoms before age 65." Alice knows this but, at first-like anyone in her age bracket and superior intelligence, ambition, etc, she guesses it merely may be the side effects of menopause, overwork or stress. Compelling because we experience the entire story through Alice's point of view, not in third person narrative - a challenge to do this well as Alice moves from full cognition, to hiccups of memory lapses to obvious, growing Alzheimer's "fog." Has a readers guide for book groups at end, and interesting interview with author.
This was an amazing book!!! I had looked at it so many times in the bookshop and thought about the concept of writing about someone with Alzheimer's, especially early onset, and make it from their point of view, to be really interesting. I cannot begin to describe how well this book has been written, and is one of the best books that I have read. I have also now found out that she has written a second book, and am counting down til I can read it as well!
Professor's documentation of her decent into Alzheimer's disease - Ann
Genova's debut novel gives readers a stark and somewhat frightening view of an illness that has affected so many families. Until I read "Still Alice," I knew nothing about early-onset Alzheimers. The book will make many of us think twice every time we misplace our car keys or forget the name of that second cousin's daughter. Toward the end, I lost interest in the story. I'm not sure why.
Narrated by the author. Powerful and informative. I didn't know much about the trajectory of Alzheimer's disease but after listening to this novel, I have a greater understanding and empathy for those with the disease and the loved ones it affects. It's sad to witness Alice's spiral but there is a sense of hope in her story, too. Genova wasn't the best person to record her own book however. Alice's story needs a mature voice and Genova sounds much more suited to narrating a young adult novel. Her delivery is also emotionally flat, at odds with the varied and strong emotions expressed. But it's a testament to the richness of the story that I kept listening, compelled to accompany Alice on her lonely journey.
What happened to me is quite ironic given the subject of this novel, which is written from the point of view of a 50-something Harvard professor who is slowly developing early-onset Alzheimers. I was sure I had read it, entered it here, couldn't remember a thing about it, read ALL the reviews and descriptions both here and on Amazon; still couldn't remember a thing about it; and finally went to my pile of library books and there it was, unread.This book was just amazing. Wonderful, poignant writing - you felt like you were inside her head experiencing the tragic, profound decline. All her little strategies to remain in control of her life, including her set of test questions were just heartbreaking. I have two friends with early-onset Alzheimers, and Genova got it exactly right. My only tiny tiny little quibble, which I wrote about on the Still Alice site, is about the scene where Alice and her daughter watch the sun setting over the Atlantic on Cape Cod. I've been on the Cape a lot, and maybe there's a twisted around place where this could happen, but I can't figure out how.
Dr. Genova's STILL ALICE is extraordinary. It reads like non-fiction. Very moving informative and -for those of us of a certain age- frightening. Highly recommended.
Touching story. I finished it in a day!
I hard book - after watching my mother struggle and lose to this slow death, this book was so familiar and so revealing. I saw my mother in Alice - a strong, independent, intelligent woman who loses herself. A must read for anyone dealing with this horrible disease.
This book scares me for my future...I often forget things and need to make lists. My grandmother had Alzheimer's and I fear that I will also get this. It think this is a great book for anyone who has a family memeber dealing with this issue right now.
This is a wonderful account of Alzheimer's Disease through the patient's eyes. My family and I watched as both of my grandmothers suffered silently from this horrible disease. Still Alice gives the reader insight into the thoughts and mind of the victim and shows that, yes, there is still a person inside. Lisa Genova has crafted a beautiful novel that will touch your heart. Even after watching two of the strongest women I will ever know succumb to the same fate as Alice, I am comforted to know that the demon that is Alzheimer's can never take away their beautiful spirit that burns on the inside.
As a lot of us are approaching or are in the baby boomer era, Alzheimer’s is a real subject which we cannot run or hide from. We worry for our parents as well as ourselves. Genova does a great job in tackling real subjects and dives into telling the real facts. It is hard to comprehend what actually goes on in the lives of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, especially when they have been so independent and intelligent most of their lives.
You can feel the frustration and forgetfulness and being shut out in the book. I agree with some of the other reviews, it was taking on a bit of a medical journal feel instead of fiction; however, assume some of this was needed in order to tell the story realistically. John definitely avoided the disease; however, I have a sister who cares for an Alzheimer’s patients so get all the low down (which they can be funny) sometimes, and really hard with personal hygiene, and especially the struggles with their spouses and family.
You can feel the frustration and forgetfulness and being shut out in the book. I agree with some of the other reviews, it was taking on a bit of a medical journal feel instead of fiction; however, assume some of this was needed in order to tell the story realistically. John definitely avoided the disease; however, I have a sister who cares for an Alzheimer’s patients so get all the low down (which they can be funny) sometimes, and really hard with personal hygiene, and especially the struggles with their spouses and family.
The topic is certainly timely. Mental disease and illness is so prominent yet considered so negatively in society. The book touches on the difficulty of identifying workplace incompetence and personal destruction through substance abuse vs the development of incapacitating illness. This book dealt with early onset and a rapidly progressing disease. Alice had the funds and support system to function to her maximum. I would like to have seen the book offer some deeper perspective on those families without the funds and training to deal with long term care. I would recommend anyone interested in the topic to read the book.
WOW what a novel! Two major things that exeplify the affect this book had on me... 1) It normally takes me about a week to read a book, especially at school. I read this in three days! 2) I normally do not cry in books; I'm just not emotional in that way. This book definitely had me tearing up, though. It was mesmerizing and heart-wrenching, fascinating and sobering.We all know how terrible Alzheimer's disease is. We have probably all known someone affected by it; I know I have. It's scary and very sad to think about. Author Lisa Genova tells the story from a different perspective - from the viewpoint of the patient, the one experiencing the progressive cognitive decline. The way she conveyed the progression of the disease broke my heart little by little. Seeing the way Alice's family suffered and learned to cope was painful as well. Something about the book made me keep reading despite the difficult subject matter. I wanted to see Alice's life play out. I was cheering for her from the sideline hoping for a breakthrough, grasping onto each moment of lucidity.My advice to you: read this book. It is the kind of novel that will stay with you and alter how you see life and the world around you.
This was one of my favorite books that I've read in a while. I was astonished to learn that the first-time novelist self-published it originally, and disagree with critics who think her writing is amateurish or "too technical." I found the story completely absorbing and empathized with Alice a great deal.
Even though the story is written in the third person, the author skillfully takes us inside the mind of a fictional Alzheimer's patient, from the early slips of memory to full-blown dementia. The portrayal of Alice's family's reaction to her illness is realistic and heartbreaking.
I recommend this book to everyone.
Even though the story is written in the third person, the author skillfully takes us inside the mind of a fictional Alzheimer's patient, from the early slips of memory to full-blown dementia. The portrayal of Alice's family's reaction to her illness is realistic and heartbreaking.
I recommend this book to everyone.
Story OverviewAlice Howland is 50-years-old and has achieved great personal and professional success. She is a tenured professor at Harvard in the field of cognitive psychology and a world-renowned expert in linguistics. Her husband John is also a respected Harvard professor and researcher in biology. She has three grown children, Lydia, Anna and Tom. Although she's had some tragedy in her life (her alcoholic father killed her mother and sister in a drunken car crash that only he survived), Alice has a satisfying and full life. Although her marriage has operated on cruise control for several years as she and John have pursued their separate careers and she and her daughter Lydia disagree about Lydia's decision to pursue an acting career instead of college, Alice has a satisfying life—filled with travel, teaching and family events.But lately, Alice seems to be forgetting things more often—losing her train of thought in the middle of a lecture she's given hundreds of times, leaving her BlackBerry in a restaurant, mixing up times for appointments. But one day while out running, Alice finds herself completely disoriented and lost—in the town where she's lived for more than 25 years and on a route she's run countless times. Flushed and panicked, Alice wanders around her home town until her world suddenly rights itself and she knows where she is. But the experience shakes her to the core, and more lapses cause her to visit her long-time family doctor. Is it menopause? Stress? Depression?After several tests, her physician sends her to a neurologist, who conducts more extensive tests and gives Alice shocking news: she has early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Initially reluctant to share the diagnosis with her husband, Alice finally shares her secret with him. Like Alice, he is unwilling to believe it and pushes for more tests. But the worst proves to be true, and they face a future that seems bleak and hopeless—a future where Alice will slowly disappear until the faces of those she loves are the faces of strangers and her ability to communicate (the linchpin of her professional life) disappears as her brain is ravaged by the disease.My ThoughtsThis book is heart-breaking. I struggled to read the last 65 pages or so because I was crying so hard I could barely see the words. I've always known Alzheimer's is a cruel disease, but reading Alice's story—and "experiencing" Alzheimer's from the patient's point of view—brings to life the horror and the tragedy of the disease in a way that makes it all too real. Lisa Genova has done something special with this book; she has given a voice to people who are slowly and irrevocably losing their voice. She's managed to bring her readers inside the mind of an Alzheimer's patient and take them on the journey from momentary lapses in memory to a world where the man you've been married to for years becomes "the man who owns the house" and your daughters become "the mother" and "the actress."In many ways, the book reminded me of Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. In that book, a young man named Charlie with an IQ of 68 undergoes a special experimental procedure to increase intelligence, which seems to have worked successfully on a mouse named Algernon. The experiment works, and Charlie's IQ increases dramatically. However, the improvement is only temporary and he reverts back to his initial mental capacity. In the story, which is written as letters and notes in Charlie's journal, you can track Charlie's progress by the way he writes. Initially his writing is very simple and full of spelling errors. Then as his intelligence increases, the writing gets more sophisticated and the spelling errors disappear. Then, as he declines, the writing reverts back to how it was in the beginning. That book also made me cry; you mourn the loss of Charlie as you see him beginning to crumble mentally after achieving a "normal" life.In Still Alice, you experience the progression of Alzheimer's as Alice does—repetitive conversations, leaving a room after talking to a long-time acquaintance and coming back moments later and introducing yourself to them as if you've never met before, losing vocabulary. As Alice deteriorates, you experience her losses and gaps in memory as if it is happening to you, and this makes for heart-breaking reading. At the end of the book, when she wonders why she can't go to her home and wonders why she is with the "man who owns the house," my heart was full of sadness. One device Lisa Genova uses to chart the disease's progression is a series of questions that Alice devises to "test" herself before her dementia gets too bad. The idea is that if she can no longer answer the questions, she should open a specific file on her computer and follow the directions there for committing suicide. As the book progresses, the answers get shorter and more inaccurate—charting her deterioration. It was a brilliant device, and I was sobbing when Alice finds her letter to herself and struggles to carry out its instructions.As tragic as this story is and as horrible as the disease is, Genova is also able to present some beautiful moments as well. As the disease progresses, Alice lets go of many of the things that kept her separated from her family—healing her relationship with her estranged daughter and allowing her to realize what is truly important to her. Although I wouldn't wish Alzheimer's disease on anyone, I thought Genova offered some slight reassurances that the disease itself may possibly protect the people suffering from it at the end—giving them a simplified and almost childlike existence. The ending scene between Alice and Lydia offered a kind of bittersweet ending—reminding the reader that love can still be alive despite the ravages of the disease.My version of the book included an interview with Lisa Genova about her research and motivations for the book. The book itself was given the "stamp of approval" by the National Alzheimer's Association, and Ms. Genova writes for the organization in a professional capacity. In addition, she holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University. I think this is worth mentioning because this isn't a writer who imagines what Alzheimer's might be like. She studied and researched it and worked hard to accurately capture the diagnosis process, symptoms, treatment options and progression accurately. I, for one, applaud her hard work and decision to write this book.My RecommendationI think this book is a must read for anyone affected by Alzheimer's disease. I pray that this disease never touches me or anyone I know. I cannot imagine anyone being unaffected by this book. It will rip your heart out, and I suggest you do not read it without having many tissues nearby. I haven't been this emotionally affected by a book in a long time, and, for this reason, I must give it 5 stars.
I loved this book. Read it in a day.
This book was told from the patients perspective. Throughout the story you feel and experience the frustration and the heartache of losing the word of an item that you are holding in yourhand or the face of one of your children. The author did plenty of research and while this book is fiction it seems to be what some Alzheimer's patients experience. They KNOW when they have forgotten, they KNOW when they can't find there way down their own hallway. The minnd just won't let retreive the much desired information.
I am definitely going to look at Alzheimer's sufferer's in a different way, now.
I am definitely going to look at Alzheimer's sufferer's in a different way, now.