AGXStarseed
Well-Known Member
(Not written by me)
The author of the bestselling The Reason I Jump movingly addresses a range of topics from the perspective of an outsider
Naoki Higashida is, by any measure, a phenomenally successful author. His first book, The Reason I Jump, written when he was just 13, entered the bestseller charts in Britain and the US. It has now been translated into 30 languages, making him, according to his co-translator, the novelist David Mitchell, the most widely translated living Japanese author after Haruki Murakami. He has published several other books in Japan, but Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 is the second to make its way into English.
Higashida is profoundly autistic. In person he is largely non-verbal, apart from a few stock phrases (“I’m home!” “Welcome back!”). He has a number of typically autistic traits: he jumps, he has meltdowns when plans go awry, he cups his ears and finds it difficult to make eye contact. He appears to inhabit his own solitary world. Only when he and his family discovered that he could communicate using text, on an “alphabet grid” and, occasionally, a keyboard, did the richness of his inner life become apparent to others.
The Reason I Jump was a game-changer, not only for those with a special interest in autism, but for anyone interested in the sheer diversity of human brains. In short essays using crystalline prose, Higashida made a gentle but devastating case that autism had been entirely misunderstood: it was not a cognitive disability at all, but a communicative and sensory one. Although unable to behave in a normal way, he understood everything that went on around him, and had an uncanny ability to analyse his own emotions and those of other people. In fact, at 13 he had a better understanding of his place in the world than most “neurotypical” 30-year-olds.
This follow-up may not have the same surprise value, but it does something just as inspiring: it shows us how, with a little luck, plenty of support and a huge amount of determination, a “neuro-atypical” person can forge a happy and fulfilled path into adulthood. Higashida uses many of the essays to argue that people with special needs should be encouraged to grow and develop – that they should be ambitious for themselves, just like anyone else. He notes the pernicious implications of the fact that children with special needs don’t often get asked what they want to be when they grow up. We should go ahead and ask them, he says. “The answer doesn’t have to be a profession – more than any answer, it’s the act of imagining that really counts.”
These are far from empty words; Higashida is leading by example. After completing his education at a special needs junior school, he decided that he did not want to go on to high school or get a job. Instead, he would aspire to becoming a writer, and here he proves that is indeed what he is. As Mitchell, who has translated both Higashida’s books with his wife, Keiko Yoshida, writes in his introduction: “If The Reason I Jump was a text by a boy who had severe autism but happened to be able to write,” this new book is “by a writer who happens to have severe autism”.
Higashida’s observations across a whole range of topics are moving and thought-provoking – all the more so for coming from the perspective of a social outsider. Take this, in the chapter entitled “Friendlessness”: “I’d like people to stop pressuring children to make friends … having no friends is nothing to be ashamed of. Let’s all follow and be true to our singular path through life.” I’m tempted to print that on to T-shirts and distribute them outside Facebook HQ.
Higashida recalls how, as a young child, he would run away, because “I hated myself so much that I didn’t want anyone else even to see me”. These essays (the book also includes an interview and a rather beautiful short story) document his growing self-confidence and realisation that he can become an independent person, albeit one who goes about life differently: “I know I’ll never be like anyone else … but little by little, I intend to write my own story.”
It is clear that his achievements have only been possible with the help of his family, and several of the pieces are devoted to expressing his gratitude to his mother, who emerges as the book’s heroine. One of Higashida’s most striking ideas is that there is a reason why people with autism and other special needs exist. “I can’t help but feel that some imbalance in the world first caused neuro-atypical people to be needed and then brought us into being,” he writes. “Those who are determined to live with us and not give up on us are deeply compassionate people, and this kind of compassion must be a key to humanity’s long-term survival.”
• Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8: A Young Man’s Voice from the Silence of Autism is published by Random House. To order a copy for £11.24 (RRP £14.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Source: Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8 by Naoki Higashida review – why autism is misunderstood
The author of the bestselling The Reason I Jump movingly addresses a range of topics from the perspective of an outsider
Naoki Higashida is, by any measure, a phenomenally successful author. His first book, The Reason I Jump, written when he was just 13, entered the bestseller charts in Britain and the US. It has now been translated into 30 languages, making him, according to his co-translator, the novelist David Mitchell, the most widely translated living Japanese author after Haruki Murakami. He has published several other books in Japan, but Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 is the second to make its way into English.
Higashida is profoundly autistic. In person he is largely non-verbal, apart from a few stock phrases (“I’m home!” “Welcome back!”). He has a number of typically autistic traits: he jumps, he has meltdowns when plans go awry, he cups his ears and finds it difficult to make eye contact. He appears to inhabit his own solitary world. Only when he and his family discovered that he could communicate using text, on an “alphabet grid” and, occasionally, a keyboard, did the richness of his inner life become apparent to others.
The Reason I Jump was a game-changer, not only for those with a special interest in autism, but for anyone interested in the sheer diversity of human brains. In short essays using crystalline prose, Higashida made a gentle but devastating case that autism had been entirely misunderstood: it was not a cognitive disability at all, but a communicative and sensory one. Although unable to behave in a normal way, he understood everything that went on around him, and had an uncanny ability to analyse his own emotions and those of other people. In fact, at 13 he had a better understanding of his place in the world than most “neurotypical” 30-year-olds.
This follow-up may not have the same surprise value, but it does something just as inspiring: it shows us how, with a little luck, plenty of support and a huge amount of determination, a “neuro-atypical” person can forge a happy and fulfilled path into adulthood. Higashida uses many of the essays to argue that people with special needs should be encouraged to grow and develop – that they should be ambitious for themselves, just like anyone else. He notes the pernicious implications of the fact that children with special needs don’t often get asked what they want to be when they grow up. We should go ahead and ask them, he says. “The answer doesn’t have to be a profession – more than any answer, it’s the act of imagining that really counts.”
These are far from empty words; Higashida is leading by example. After completing his education at a special needs junior school, he decided that he did not want to go on to high school or get a job. Instead, he would aspire to becoming a writer, and here he proves that is indeed what he is. As Mitchell, who has translated both Higashida’s books with his wife, Keiko Yoshida, writes in his introduction: “If The Reason I Jump was a text by a boy who had severe autism but happened to be able to write,” this new book is “by a writer who happens to have severe autism”.
Higashida’s observations across a whole range of topics are moving and thought-provoking – all the more so for coming from the perspective of a social outsider. Take this, in the chapter entitled “Friendlessness”: “I’d like people to stop pressuring children to make friends … having no friends is nothing to be ashamed of. Let’s all follow and be true to our singular path through life.” I’m tempted to print that on to T-shirts and distribute them outside Facebook HQ.
Higashida recalls how, as a young child, he would run away, because “I hated myself so much that I didn’t want anyone else even to see me”. These essays (the book also includes an interview and a rather beautiful short story) document his growing self-confidence and realisation that he can become an independent person, albeit one who goes about life differently: “I know I’ll never be like anyone else … but little by little, I intend to write my own story.”
It is clear that his achievements have only been possible with the help of his family, and several of the pieces are devoted to expressing his gratitude to his mother, who emerges as the book’s heroine. One of Higashida’s most striking ideas is that there is a reason why people with autism and other special needs exist. “I can’t help but feel that some imbalance in the world first caused neuro-atypical people to be needed and then brought us into being,” he writes. “Those who are determined to live with us and not give up on us are deeply compassionate people, and this kind of compassion must be a key to humanity’s long-term survival.”
• Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8: A Young Man’s Voice from the Silence of Autism is published by Random House. To order a copy for £11.24 (RRP £14.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Source: Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8 by Naoki Higashida review – why autism is misunderstood
