DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997                 TAG: 9702200259

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review 

SOURCE: BY ROSS C. REEVES 

                                            LENGTH:   73 lines

ISOLATED WORLDS

THE ISLAND OF THE COLORBLIND

OLIVER SACKS

Alfred A. Knopf. 298 pp. $24.

A professor of neurology, and self-described ``neuroanthropologist,'' Oliver Sacks has written seven books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings and An Anthropologist on Mars. At his best, he uses case descriptions of neurological disorders - some unimaginably weird and complex - to extrapolate into the nature of mankind, intelligence and the soul itself.

The two extended essays that make up The Island of the Colorblind attempt to adhere to this format, using neurological phenomena concentrated in the isolated cluster of Pacific islands and atolls known as Micronesia. Islands by their very nature had long cast a spell of romance and adventure on him, Sacks observes. But as his own career progressed, ``the sense of the romantic, the mythical, the mysterious became subordinated to the passion of scientific curiosity'' about these ``experiments of nature, places blessed or cursed by geographic singularity to harbor unique forms of life.''

From this hopeful and alluring beginning, Sacks leaps off for Pingelap, an atoll cluster featuring a strong concentration of achromatopsia, a genetic condition that renders the victim totally colorblind from birth. His fascination with the phenomenon, not only as a neurologist but also as an amateur philosopher, is reflected in his description of his ``vision, only half fantastic, of an entire achromatopic culture with its own singular tastes, arts, cooking and clothing - a culture where the sensorium, the imagination, took quite different forms from our own, and where `color' was so totally devoid of referents or meaning that there were no color names, no color metaphors, no language to express it; but (perhaps) a heightened language for the subtlest variations of texture and tone, all that the rest of us dismiss as `gray.' ''

This is heady stuff for sure. But the unfortunate circumstance is that the Swiftian kingdom of Sacks' ``vision'' does not exist, even on Pingelap. The island's achromatopics make up less than 10 percent of the total population - a significant concentration but hardly enough to make for a ``singular'' society. The achromatopics of Pingelap are simply unfortunate individuals rather than a ``culture'' unto themselves.

The second essay, ``Cycad Island,'' suffers from the same confinement. Sacks travels to Guam, where he links up with a local doctor who has been studying the high rate of two related afflictions - lytico and bodig - that manifest themselves, together or singly, in a number of related neurological disorders akin to both Lou Gehrig's disease and Parkinson's disease. But the incidence of lytico-bodig in the general population is small and dwindling and does not have any apparent impact on the surrounding culture or provide much insight into the human condition as a whole.

Although The Island of the Colorblind suffers by comparison with past efforts, the book nevertheless offers a number of pleasures. Sacks' knack for expressing scientific notions in plain language demystifies complex and intriguing subjects. In addition, there have been few literate travelogues in recent decades, and these lyrical island-hopping essays will excite every reader's wanderlust.

And finally, in an age marked by the ``health care industry'' rather than the practice of medicine, and by the savvy of Bill Gates rather than the compassion of Albert Schweitzer, it is immensely satisfying to read about doctors who labor in obscurity to serve remote populations - and about scientists like Sacks who take time to wonder at the exotic and mysterious complexities of life. MEMO: Ross C. Reeves is a corporate attorney with Willcox & Savage in

Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by John Earle

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