Thoughts on "Songs of the Gorilla Nation"

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Today I went to the library and borrowed this book, written by Dawn Prince-Hughes, and I finished it about an hour ago. I'm anxious to discuss the novel with anyone who either has autism/AS, or is close to someone who does.

"Songs of the Gorilla Nation" is a memoir about growing up on the autism spectrum. Technically, Ms. Prince-Hughes did not attain a formal diagnosis until she was in her thirties, but from what she recalls in great detail about her childhood, it would appear that the condition was indeed present. Parts of the novel were uplifting and encouraging; I found myself genuinely happy for Dawn when she found her "niche" in life, and moved by the death of her gorilla friend, Congo, and the book is written incredibly eloquently. I personally think that the author's prose is more poetic than the free-verse poems she includes in the autobiography.

1. Dawn talks about hearing from people she discloses her diagnosis to, "I couldn't even tell you have autism." She says that she is both encouraged and hurt by these words, since people don't know how hard she works to hide her autistic behavior. Hearing it put that way really struck a chord with me, since I tend to think that but have never actively articulated it.

2. Dawn's autobiography reads like it was not written for people with ASDs, but for NTs. She often speaks as if she is the only person on earth with AS, and I was interested by the fact that she sought out her diagnosis only after a younger relative was diagnosed with AS. She expresses in this part of her book that she was angry and emotional at the time, possibly because he was getting the support he needed at a time when she'd been without it, with devastating results (she dropped out of high school at 16 due to relentless bullying.) I feel bad, but I wonder how common it is for other family members to start "looking for answers" when a person receives a diagnosis? I do not doubt that Dawn's AS is genuine, but it seems like a manipulative, attention-seeking person could take advantage of a situation like this, especially if they have a tendency towards hypochondria.

3. Dawn refers to gorilla males and females as "men" and "women." She sees them as people and reads their behavior towards her as true connections. I once wrote a research paper about using apes for medical testing, in favor of the practice being a necessary evil to benefit mankind, but I'm not so sure after reading "Songs of the Gorilla Nation." Dawn seems to actually relate better to gorillas than she does to people; I know that people on the autism spectrum can like animals a great deal and find them therapeutic and/or soothing, but due to allergies (ASDs are more susceptible to these, for some reason) and sensory issues, they could actually have the opposite effect, couldn't they? I am allergic to cats and dogs, and I have a phobia for both the visual and auditory properties of dogs. Their unpredictability and the harsh sounds of their barking spook me to the point of panic.

4. Ms. Prince-Hughes talks about being a gifted dancer, and the time she spent as an exotic dancer. She also candidly discusses the fact that she is a lesbian, and her relationships with various partners. I'd wondered about my own lack of a distinct gender identity, and it seemed to make more sense after reading this book...but her work during this time in her life baffles me. An exotic dancer? With characteristic AS clumsiness and/or self-consciousness, this seems like an unusual thing for a person with an ASD to be good at.

Please share your ruminations on this book. I want to take as much away from this thoughtful memoir as I possibly can from people who can relate.

I haven't read the book, and I'm not really that interested in the gender related aspects of it.The title however does something for me. I wonder if many Aspies feel like anthropologists studying a tribe of apes.

This is is a depiction of five prostitutes in a Spanish brothel. Picasso painted it in 1907 . We are used to this kind of stuff now but back then it was really brutal Art.


It really sums up how I feel about living and working with NT's . I first saw this picture when I was working on construction sites, one or two were really rough with violent ex-cons and the suchlike,and I got thinking ,that in this place without the language and communication skills that allow for expression without anger and violence it was like being locked in a monkey cage full of bored, alienated primates. I'm male but I realized ( for the first time) some men could get some men got sexually excited around me,( most unwelcome) some got angry , others got violent and it seemed a completely anthropological experience, and I saw them all like some kind of apes. It was objective I don't mean to put them down but that's how it felt. It kind of put it all into perspective with the intensity of the experience.

It was also the most audacious foray into NT territory I have ever made. I didn't hate them , but NT's still seem a bit primate, even to this day. Hate that thing where it actually feels like they are rubbing themselves against when you're trying to discuss something with them.

[img][650:800]http://aliontheair.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/picasso-avignon.jpg[/img]

@Memesplice

The title is what initially attracted me to the book; I heard of it from the first informational guide to AS I ever read, and the creativity evident in the name of the novel was highly appealing. I think it's highly possible that Aspies do feel this way, adopting the attitude of "studying" NTs. I'd compare my own experiences to feeling more like an alien among earthlings, not so much studying as moving through them to get to the really interesting parts of being on this planet.

Picasso was my favorite artist as a child, and I have seen this picture before. Your story about working on construction sites draws an interesting correlation, and it's no surprise that you'd consider them savage or primitive with that type of experience. Clearly, you did not mingle with the gene pool's finest specimens, which is unfortunate... I hope that future encounters with NTs will not be so disappointing.

"Songs of the Gorilla Nation" focuses on the gentleness of gorillas, and the complexity of their "culture" as seen through the eyes of a woman with AS. Dawn seems to suggest that they are wild, but there is an order to their existence that she finds highly appealing. I highly recommend reading it, especially if your experience with NTs has been so repugnant.

I've got to go to work now. I've got a question for you . What do you think this is? You have to stand a long way back, go into the primate cage in your head and think real hard for a few years.
I'll save you the experience.

Look at this, not as a thing in itself but as a piece of code, expressed in this form, just like Picasso expressed a similar piece of coding in visual art.

"The town burns like a piece of incense
In the smoke rumbles our consciousness."

Someone says every "poet " gets two lines from god and had to construct the rest her or himself.Every artist gets a piece of the image and likewise figures the remainder.

What if these were calculations, the two lines from god were human calculation . The ones that express near perfectly have the same feeling as when a formula is right to a mathematician.


The two lines above, when they illuminated the mind of the writer and he constructed the rest, and he thought he had found "the truth", killed 100000 people and tore a European country.
apart.

This is why we need to stand back from even the most intelligent of them. They don't know what they are doing, in these respects.

After going and reading some of your other posts in different threads, I think I'm starting to understand the nature of this topical dissonance. Put simply, I don't share your views on supremacy and separatism.

What "Songs of the Gorilla Nation" is about is getting along in a world of NTs, partly because you want to and partly because you have to. If this means taking refuge in the comparative civilization and gentleness of great apes, more power to the author.

What an AS diagnosis means is being neurologically "wired differently" from the majority of the population. It's unfair to blame this, or any difficulties arising from it, on anyone; it's not an Aspie's fault, and it's not the fault of that NT majority. But just like the Deaf community can't expect everyone in the world to learn Sign Language, Aspies can't really expect the NT majority to be sensitive or informed about AS. It's nice when they are, but not many people go out of their way to learn about things that don't directly interest or involve them. It's hard to find Autism activists without affected family members, for instance.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's up to the Aspie to use their natural intelligence to navigate a world that was not built for them. It's up to the Aspie to recognize that every person with AS is unique, as is every NT; not every Aspie is innocent and blameless, and not every NT is Karadzic.

To be frank, there are lots of threads on Wrong Planet to discuss the sorts of thing you seem to want to. In this one, I'm really just interested in hearing peoples' thoughts on "Songs of the Gorilla Nation."

It's incredibly common for a person to seek diagnosis after a family member gets diagnosed. When I was diagnosed it was like a chain of understanding that both my parents had about our relatives. My father even. And uncles, granduncles, cousins of various sorts, great-grandfather, just seriously suddenly the whole family made sense either as being autistic or having traits. I know tons of people through the autistic community that got diagnosed suddenly when the child was diagnosed. Often father and son. Super common.

As for the exotic dancer bit she explained that she did it by seeing herself as set apart from her audience and just doing her own creative thing. I don't know your class or gender but to me your lack of understanding this seems like a class/gender issue. When autistic women are in dire poverty they do a lot of the same things other women in dire poverty do. I know lots who have been prostitutes, either the regular kind, or sleeping with any guy who would give them a home and food regardless of abuse. It's one of those things where if you have to survive you will make these actions work for you even if it's against your autistic nature because the alternative is worse. And seriously do you think nonautistic women don't have equally strong aversions to that kind of work that they have to get over? Because few women autistic or nonautistic seem to like that sort of thing. They have to deaden part of themselves to do it and that's how you handle it autistic or nonautistic. And when you start asking autistic women who have been homeless or that level of poor you will see that some women turn to those jobs for survival. And that's what Dawn was doing.

I have met Dawn by the way. She moves like a gorilla. She also moves like an autistic person. But honestly? That's not your place or my place to question. The fact is she has found self understanding (and her partner understands her better too) through her diagnosis. That's all that matters and whether a stranger seems autistic enough because you've read some of her writing is none of any of the rest of our business. Being in the public eye through books or otherwise makes people think they know more about you than you or your own family do. I've been there. And honestly you can't know enough from a distance to diagnose or undiagnose anyone.

Also I notice that when the diagnostic policing happens between autistic people there are two sets of people who lose out the worst: Autistic people with nonstereotypical characteristics, and autistic people with rarer variants of autism. I'm both. As a person who is both I know the huge disservice done when those in a community essentially clamp down on diversity and question anyone whose life varies from a pretty narrow standard. It does no one any good in the end. It's just another form of erasure and serves no constructive purpose. Autism is a useful label when it helps people understand ourselves or each other, or helps give people services, or helps people band together against oppression. But when it becomes another kind of "you must conform to the most common standard or people will question you" thing it's worse than useless.

Please don't misunderstand. I posted this thread because there are things I don't grasp, and I want to. I am not informed, but I'm not ignorant, either, and for that reason I greatly appreciate your post.

I found Dawn's description of her first experience of feeling a true social connection with another concious being, a male gorilla called Congo, particularly moving and similar to my own experience.

I felt friendship with someone for the first time in 1998 at 26 years old, when I felt for the first time, my individuality temporarily dissolved and replaced by a feeling of WE, as we sat side by side in silence on a park bench.

Reading Dawn's description of her feeding Congo and accidentally touching his huge hand, staring into his dark eyes and for the first time feeling her profound loneliness leave her, explained poetically and emotionally that same profound and life changing feeling I felt in 1998, but could not explain to myself for so long. The We feeling.

That is what I most fondly remember in her book.

This was one of my favorite parts of the novel, as well. I adored the way she described her own tendency towards enjoying patterns and repetitive tasks being pivotal in establishing this connection.

I had a similar experience to that, and what you describe for yourself, with a boy named Travis, that sense of WE. I changed colleges because I was being bullied by some girls at my small, christian liberal arts school, and Travis was the person who knew himself well enough to literally love others unconditionally. He died in a car accident in November, and when Congo died in "Songs of the Gorilla Nation," I was reminded of this. Dawn said that the death of something so innocent and gentle demanded devastation, and it was exactly like that.

Thank you so much for sharing. I deeply appreciate your thoughts.

I read this one - fascinating - perhaps most striking the differences between her and Temple Grandin. Temple I get and see a lot of resemblances; if I had read Dawn first I would not have caught anything.

There is a lot of variety around here!

I thought it was an AMAZING and very moving book.

Wow that description of how she felt befriending a gorilla is so cool.
As an ape fanatic I have to get this book.

Tin -- sorry I just got sensitive about that. Glad I was wrong.

Also she has written a bunch of other books. Both autism and not. And has an article in the latest Disability Studies Quarterly which is available online.

HI

I just finished the book. Its kind of cool how I found it actually; I was thinking about how i sometimes remind myself of a captive ape and the next day I saw the book at an op shop and pulled it out and bought it.

I relate to heaps in the book; im not really understanding people's need to assess levels of autism or whatever in response to it though.

I just like her through reading the book and felt that on some level she is a kindered spirit. I related to alot and felt acknowledged by reading her thoughts and feelings and experiences.

Really intelligent weaving of themes ; all of which I am interested in but had never woven together like that before. Cool.

I am so totally not interested in peoples dilemmas about whether asperger people (or whatever) can dance.....are we viewing ourselves through some arbitrary set of criteria? I find that all a bit wierd and confusing and i get angry and intellectual about it in response because its political submission to frame ourselves by those kinds of standards.

I thought that book was so great and Id love to thank Dawn personally if I ever have the chance becuase she has articulated beautifully some extremely deeply true things for me that had been out of focus. Constantly there, but it was her gentle articulation that led me to be able to articulate them for myself. Thats a good value book!

It was quite a trippy read. But I liked a lot of what she said about people in general. For example, at the zoo where she worked with the gorillas, she'd often observe visitors being unnecessarily rude to the animals.

You know... like that scene in the first Harry Potter film with the snake. I could ALWAYS relate to this scene. Because I can feel very sympathetic towards animals.

I also liked what she said about autism and language acquisition.

"I have said in the past, and I have since heard it repeated by other autistic people, that written English is my first language and spoken English is my second."

I'd say that I even feel more comfortable with written English than with spoken German. XD


"Most high-functioning autistic people, not knowing what is "wrong" with them, develop a lifetime pattern of using their intelligence to find ways to appear normal."

It was so sad to read this because I could totally relate to what she was talking about. When I hit puberty, I started to appear more normal and focussed less on my school work. ^^ Also, I could never really find a particular ability of mine that I could get into completely because I had been taught that art and literature are not absolutely necessary and that it's more of a luxury than something that makes life valuable. Of course, I always knew that this was absolute nonsense, but I always feel that culture is lost more and more these days.


What is most striking about the book is how she described that she often felt closer to animals than human beings. And I think it's because human beings have to categorize everything and this is not a... natural thing to do, I believe. Relating to human life in an abstract way.