{"id":38674,"date":"2021-03-14T01:21:56","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T05:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38674"},"modified":"2021-03-14T01:21:56","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T05:21:56","slug":"review-of-pain-studies-by-lisa-olstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38674","title":{"rendered":"Review of Pain Studies, by Lisa Olstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Pain Studies<\/em><\/p>\n

by Lisa Olstein<\/p>\n

Bellevue Literary Press, 2020. 191 pages.
\nReview written December 2, 2020, from a library book<\/p>\n

Pain Studies<\/em> is a book of musings about living with migraines. I\u2019ve gotten migraines since I was a child, so I was ready for a book like this. Though it also made me thankful for how very much better they\u2019ve gotten since menopause.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure I approached this book in the best way, just a short chapter every day or two. Using that approach, I didn\u2019t really catch her train of thought too well, so it felt like scattered musings about living with pain. When I look back, I see a few more themes than I remembered. Joan of Arc, for example, is mentioned in the last chapter, and I\u2019d almost forgotten how much attention she\u2019d gotten earlier in the book, as someone who experienced voices and visions other people didn\u2019t understand \u2013 a little bit like how migraine sufferers experience things other people don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t try to pull meaning out of migraine, doesn\u2019t try to make the reader see a higher purpose. I appreciated that, even if the result felt a little bit scattershot. But my own thoughts about migraines, when I have them, take on that same wide-ranging aspect. And I found many nuggets I appreciated. There\u2019s a fellowship of migraineurs that none of us actually wants to be part of, but I recognized this voice speaking from that group.<\/p>\n

Let me give you a couple of the nuggets I liked. This is in a chapter about the difficulty of describing pain:<\/p>\n

The trouble with standard pain scales, it seems to me, is that they weren\u2019t written by the right people \u2013 the people in pain. Often misheard as language that does not communicate, it turns out that the seemingly chaotic fragments of description people in pain manage to offer in fact cohere into meaningful systems of categorization. Researchers, Scarry tells us, have gathered up the shards and found logic in their arrangement, mapping dimensions relevant not only to diagnosis but also to treatment and sometimes even cure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This one\u2019s at the start when she\u2019s introducing the topic of pain:<\/p>\n

Drowning<\/em> is one of the words we use to describe pain when we\u2019re desperately in it, though often it\u2019s used for other things, too: heartbreak, overwhelm. I\u2019ve never experienced anything close to drowning, but I imagine that, like pain, it has a way of flooding you with the present. Yes, it makes you hazy, it fogs up memory\u2019s edges, but in the moment, it is the moment and you are nowhere else except and only exactly where it puts you.<\/p>\n

In some ways like any acute pain and in some ways possibly unlike any other, migraine is a particular version of the present. What happens when its present becomes yours for extended periods of time, for a significant portion of your life? This is the pain, or the present, I wish to discuss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s a chapter toward the end that reminded me of all the times people asked me what caused my migraines.<\/p>\n

Sometimes chance is cause, but is it ever what we mean by causality? Chance is cause stripped of meaning, an origin story or fated end without moral or lesson. (\u201cPeople get what they get; it has nothing to do with what they deserve.\u201d [House M.D.<\/em>]) But any cause as yet unknown glows luminous. Answerless, we search for answers, because questions call and press. Somewhere out there, we feel sure, is the information that means, but, beyond our reach, it can\u2019t matter yet. And when causality\u2019s riddle turns out to be procedural or a purely chance operation, can it ever?<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s a question of meaning versus meaningfulness. Chance may not teach us anything, but chance identified is a kind of answer and therefore a kind of balm, a version of no blame. I mean, in a way it\u2019s reassuring how clearly the migraines come and go of their own volition, according to their own logic. One way of translating the void, the reams of unilluminating data, the typically atypical patterns: there\u2019s nothing you did; there\u2019s nothing you can do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So this isn\u2019t exactly a book I\u2019m going to recommend to all my friends who get migraines. Because it\u2019s not exactly comforting or inspiring. But on the other hand, it\u2019s validating to read someone else\u2019s musings on pain you\u2019ve experienced. And if you\u2019ve never experienced pain like this, perhaps reading this book will bring you a step closer to understanding.<\/p>\n

blpress.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/pain_studies.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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