Rebuilt
I'm reading Michael Chorost's new book Rebuilt : How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human, which in a moment of weakness I agreed to review for a newspaper. It's a quick read, but a very stimulating one.
Chorost is a Bay Area technical writer who, in 2001, lost his hearing. The book is about his experience with a cochlear implant, and learning to hear again.
Though the book is just "about" those things in the same way that Ellen Ullman's Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents is about programming: it's really a set of essays on the relationships between technology, humanity, and identity. And it deals with a set of experiences-- implants, endless tests, learning how to hear (or read, speak, walk, etc.)-- that will become increasingly common in the future. Two major demographic trends-- growing life expectancy, often involving recovery from a major illness or crisis that would have killed you in the past; and the increasing ability of doctors to save children with disabilities that in an earlier age would have kept them from living through childhood-- suggest that more and more of us are going to go through this kind of experience.
More on the book later.
I was skeptical at first when I was given a copy of Rebuilt but once I started the book I was amazed. I went in thinking what's the big deal about getting a cochlear implant and left trying to figure out "what is reality". Chorost does a great job infusing the book with his wit. He does seem to be uniquely qualified to write about this topic (with his background in technology). The book shines when he writes about his personal experiences. Two Thumbs Up.
Posted by: S. Kolbe | June 22, 2005 at 01:11 PM