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The Body Silent: The Different World of the Disabled
"The most powerful book of its kind I've ever read.... Extraordinary powers of observation, generalization, and depth."―Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat Winner of the Columbia University Lionel Trilling Award. Robert Murphy was in the prime of his career as an anthropologist when he felt the first symptom of a malady that would ultimately take him on an odyssey stranger than any field trip to the Amazon: a tumor of the spinal cord that progressed slowly and irreversibly into quadriplegia. In this gripping account, Murphy explores society's fears, myths, and misunderstandings about disability, and the damage they inflict. He reports how paralysis―like all disabilities―assaults people's identity, social standing, and ties with others, while at the same time making the love of life burn even more fiercely.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
September 15, 2020
The language is definitely dated and there are many times when it's clear that Murphy is speaking from a very MALE perspective; but that's what makes it largely a memoir with social anthropological investigation leanings (rather than the inverse: a study with some nuggets of life anecdotes).
Overall, though, this was very interesting and fairly nuanced look into the world of people with disabilities.
He does, near the final 3rd of the book, realize that his attempts to distance himself from the community in which he suddenly found himself a part were flawed and that, for me, is when the information got more interesting. "The truth is that our perceptions in ethnographic research are deeply affected by our personalities, by the language categories into which we sort out reality, by our education, by all the overburden of our own culture."
His musings on the tendency of folks with disabilities to turn inwards combined with the alienation from others experienced was, for me, the most compelling part which will have me thinking for a while.
Highly recommend for anyone looking to explore some personal experience memoir combined with a deeper social anthropological exploration of the way in which (large Western-focused) society views and responds to people with disabilities.
Overall, though, this was very interesting and fairly nuanced look into the world of people with disabilities.
He does, near the final 3rd of the book, realize that his attempts to distance himself from the community in which he suddenly found himself a part were flawed and that, for me, is when the information got more interesting. "The truth is that our perceptions in ethnographic research are deeply affected by our personalities, by the language categories into which we sort out reality, by our education, by all the overburden of our own culture."
His musings on the tendency of folks with disabilities to turn inwards combined with the alienation from others experienced was, for me, the most compelling part which will have me thinking for a while.
Highly recommend for anyone looking to explore some personal experience memoir combined with a deeper social anthropological exploration of the way in which (large Western-focused) society views and responds to people with disabilities.
January 26, 2021
Great book. Very informative. Strongly recommend it. It is a short book, slightly more than a couple hundred pages. I wish the book would be more publicized.
November 11, 2010
i know this was somewhat historically important, and supposedly radical at the time, but i can't get past his white anthropologist "expert" self stigmatizing everyone and using horrible language (talks about alcoholics as if their addiction is their fault, talks about 'primitive' cultures and traditions, 'Oriental' people, etc). for this reason, it was extremely difficult to get through- i didn't finish it, don't plan to.
May 12, 2020
Winner of the Columbia University Lionel Trilling Award. Robert Murphy was in the prime of his career as an anthropologist when he felt the first symptom of a malady that would ultimately take him on an odyssey stranger than any field trip to the Amazon: a tumor of the spinal cord that progressed slowly and irreversibly into quadriplegia. In this gripping account, Murphy explores society's fears, myths, and misunderstandings about disability, and the damage they inflict. He reports how paralysis—like all disabilities—assaults people's identity, social standing, and ties with others, while at the same time making the love of life burn even more fiercely.
January 27, 2023
Read for one of my uni courses. There are some interesting insights in this book but also a lot of outdated language and too much focus on psychoanalysis
January 14, 2017
"The Body Silent" is one of the most insightful and prescient books I've ever read. Part memoir, part anthropological study of American culture, part philosophical treatise, the pages of this book analyze what it means to transform from an able-bodied adult into a disabled person. In the case of Dr. Murphy, he analyzed his own transformation into an adult male with quadriplegia.
First published in 1987, "The Body Silent" is as potent to read thirty years later as when Dr. Murphy's memoir made its debut.
This is a book I'll need to own, and read more than once. "The Body Silent" has so much to say about culture, the shaping of identity, the stripping away of humanity from the disabled, and the fierce desire to live in whatever body we have, that I could never absorb the totality of Dr. Murphy's arguments in only one reading. This book illuminated so many unconscious layers of my own ingrained ableism that the prose often split my heart open with profundity. I was completely gripped by this book, which challenged my thinking, my identity, and my worldview, with every page.
For readers who don't want to be challenged, or grapple with any of Murphy's insights and arguments, it's easy to take cheap shots at the prose, and use that as an excuse to give up on the book. Like any writer, Murphy is bound by the semantics and understandings of a specific time and place. Modern readers don't appreciate people of Asian or Middle Eastern heritage being referred to as "Orientals." Sweeping statements about women and gender can also hit a nerve, as can some of Murphy's general comments about race relations between black and white Americans. In Murphy's defense -- and I do defend him, absolutely -- he informs the reader in the very beginning of his book that his text will likely have problems, and he makes it clear to the reader that he understands he is writing from a particular vantage point: that of a middle-class, white, American male, penning his memoir in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Dr. Robert Murphy was a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, a well-loved teacher who continued his work even after he began suffering terrible pain, lost the use of his legs from paralysis, and began using a wheelchair. Eventually, he lost the use of his arms as well, and this memoir takes the reader along with him on his journey of change. For whatever flaws the prose contains, given the time period it was written in, this book is a monumental achievement, and an incredibly powerful treatise on the role of ability and autonomy in American society. "The Body Silent" analyzes the impact of disability on a personal level, in relation to the family, to one's peers and to work, and within the culture at large. I could never praise this book enough for the powerful insights this author delivers.
This is the kind of book that can change a reader's life, and it's definitely changed mine. "The Body Silent" is a book that takes ableist assumptions about the meaning of disability and subverts them all. Dr. Murphy shines an unflinching light upon the unconscious thoughts people inherit about the role disability plays in our lives, and probes the dark recesses of our minds.
Five full life-changing stars.
First published in 1987, "The Body Silent" is as potent to read thirty years later as when Dr. Murphy's memoir made its debut.
This is a book I'll need to own, and read more than once. "The Body Silent" has so much to say about culture, the shaping of identity, the stripping away of humanity from the disabled, and the fierce desire to live in whatever body we have, that I could never absorb the totality of Dr. Murphy's arguments in only one reading. This book illuminated so many unconscious layers of my own ingrained ableism that the prose often split my heart open with profundity. I was completely gripped by this book, which challenged my thinking, my identity, and my worldview, with every page.
For readers who don't want to be challenged, or grapple with any of Murphy's insights and arguments, it's easy to take cheap shots at the prose, and use that as an excuse to give up on the book. Like any writer, Murphy is bound by the semantics and understandings of a specific time and place. Modern readers don't appreciate people of Asian or Middle Eastern heritage being referred to as "Orientals." Sweeping statements about women and gender can also hit a nerve, as can some of Murphy's general comments about race relations between black and white Americans. In Murphy's defense -- and I do defend him, absolutely -- he informs the reader in the very beginning of his book that his text will likely have problems, and he makes it clear to the reader that he understands he is writing from a particular vantage point: that of a middle-class, white, American male, penning his memoir in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Dr. Robert Murphy was a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, a well-loved teacher who continued his work even after he began suffering terrible pain, lost the use of his legs from paralysis, and began using a wheelchair. Eventually, he lost the use of his arms as well, and this memoir takes the reader along with him on his journey of change. For whatever flaws the prose contains, given the time period it was written in, this book is a monumental achievement, and an incredibly powerful treatise on the role of ability and autonomy in American society. "The Body Silent" analyzes the impact of disability on a personal level, in relation to the family, to one's peers and to work, and within the culture at large. I could never praise this book enough for the powerful insights this author delivers.
This is the kind of book that can change a reader's life, and it's definitely changed mine. "The Body Silent" is a book that takes ableist assumptions about the meaning of disability and subverts them all. Dr. Murphy shines an unflinching light upon the unconscious thoughts people inherit about the role disability plays in our lives, and probes the dark recesses of our minds.
Five full life-changing stars.
December 13, 2025
“Unfortunately, a lingering suspicion often remains among family and friends that the patient was responsible, somehow or other, for what happened.”
“The hospital requires that the inmate think of himself primarily as a patient, for this is a condition of conformity and subservience. This allows the medical staff to treat the patient with a degree of distance and dispassion, to view him or her as a case rather than as a person.”
“Nothing is quite so isolating as the knowledge that when one is hurt, nobody else feels the pain. The malaise is a private affair.”
“There is a sort of symbolic castration in impotence that creates a kind of existential anxiety among all men. It is no accident that impotence is a major problem in those lands where masculine values are strongest.”
“People in wheelchairs are prone to decubiti on the buttocks directly below the ischium, the bony protuberance in the back-side, and under the coccyx, or base of the spine. Paraplegics can prevent them by pushing down on the wheels with their arms, thus lifting the buttocks off the chair, every twenty minutes or so. This allows the blood to recirculate into the compressed area, thus reviving the cells. But this technique is usable only by paraplegics or quadriplegics with good residual arm strength. Pressure-relieving cushions and automated reminders can help.”
“Paraplegic women claim to derive psychological gratification from the sex act itself, as well as from the stimulation of other parts of their bodies and the knowledge that they are still able to give pleasure to others. Males have far more circumscribed anatomical limits. The paraplegic male always takes a passive role.”
“The despoilment of identity is the common fallout of the damaged self.”
“Sickness sets in motion a process of estrangement from others, from one’s own body, and ultimately from one’s self. It is a metaphor of death and a commentary on life.”
“The notion that one is better off dead than disabled is nothing less than the ultimate aspersion against the physically impaired, for it questions the value of their lives and their very right to exist. If all meanings and values are arbitrary and culturally relative, then the only transcendent value is life itself.”
“We live within walls of our own making, staring out at life through bars thrown up by culture and annealed by our fears. This kind of thralldom to culture turned rigidified and fetishized is more onerous than my own somatic straightjacket, for it induces a mental paralysis, a stilling of thought. The captive mind misses the great opportunity given to us by the chaos of today’s rapid social change. This is to free oneself of the restraints of culture, to stand somewhat aloof from our milieu, and to re-find a sense of what and where we are. It is in this way that the paralytic - and all of us - will find freedom within the contours of the mind and in the transports of the imagination.”
“The hospital requires that the inmate think of himself primarily as a patient, for this is a condition of conformity and subservience. This allows the medical staff to treat the patient with a degree of distance and dispassion, to view him or her as a case rather than as a person.”
“Nothing is quite so isolating as the knowledge that when one is hurt, nobody else feels the pain. The malaise is a private affair.”
“There is a sort of symbolic castration in impotence that creates a kind of existential anxiety among all men. It is no accident that impotence is a major problem in those lands where masculine values are strongest.”
“People in wheelchairs are prone to decubiti on the buttocks directly below the ischium, the bony protuberance in the back-side, and under the coccyx, or base of the spine. Paraplegics can prevent them by pushing down on the wheels with their arms, thus lifting the buttocks off the chair, every twenty minutes or so. This allows the blood to recirculate into the compressed area, thus reviving the cells. But this technique is usable only by paraplegics or quadriplegics with good residual arm strength. Pressure-relieving cushions and automated reminders can help.”
“Paraplegic women claim to derive psychological gratification from the sex act itself, as well as from the stimulation of other parts of their bodies and the knowledge that they are still able to give pleasure to others. Males have far more circumscribed anatomical limits. The paraplegic male always takes a passive role.”
“The despoilment of identity is the common fallout of the damaged self.”
“Sickness sets in motion a process of estrangement from others, from one’s own body, and ultimately from one’s self. It is a metaphor of death and a commentary on life.”
“The notion that one is better off dead than disabled is nothing less than the ultimate aspersion against the physically impaired, for it questions the value of their lives and their very right to exist. If all meanings and values are arbitrary and culturally relative, then the only transcendent value is life itself.”
“We live within walls of our own making, staring out at life through bars thrown up by culture and annealed by our fears. This kind of thralldom to culture turned rigidified and fetishized is more onerous than my own somatic straightjacket, for it induces a mental paralysis, a stilling of thought. The captive mind misses the great opportunity given to us by the chaos of today’s rapid social change. This is to free oneself of the restraints of culture, to stand somewhat aloof from our milieu, and to re-find a sense of what and where we are. It is in this way that the paralytic - and all of us - will find freedom within the contours of the mind and in the transports of the imagination.”
June 10, 2008
wow . . . wow . . . growing up with a mother who suffered, and eventually died, from multiple sclerosis afforded me unique learning opportunities -- yet, in our culture we do not truly understand how we construct disability and the experience of those labeled as such. the author is brilliant and honest. I will read this book again and again -- to learn about my self, my experiences, and my culture. this is why I will be an anthropologist!!
February 6, 2014
As though relying on his loss of able-bodied privilege, Murphy occasionally and unabashedly wields his unchecked white, male, class, and intellectual privilege as though his disability disqualifies him from critique. These off putting moments jar the reader from an otherwise eloquent and engaging text. In this way Murphy has failed to be "both subject and object" of his published study, failed to be "both ethnographer and informant" (3).
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October 4, 2021In this book, the author attempts to study, through participant observation, the disability culture which he has recently found himself a part of. While the book is painful as it is written from a very white male "expert" perspective, it provides insight of his own coming to terms with his disability and the shifting in his identity as a result. I found it useful for that reason and would recommend it as long it is read with a critical perspective.
December 18, 2009
Robert Murphy writes like he's a real jerk... and I'm pretty sure he was a jerk before he began living with a disability.
January 18, 2025
I found his philosophical musings much more interesting than the book's primary function: an ethnography of the motor disabled.
It is his condition of being increasingly motor disabled, however, which grants him particular insight into the nature of life, as he experiences social and personal changes much faster and to greater magnitudes than the most of use.
One quote that I like:
“Life itself seems to consist of a balance between giving oneself to the world and withdrawing from it, of reaching outward toward others and retreating inward to oneself.”
It is his condition of being increasingly motor disabled, however, which grants him particular insight into the nature of life, as he experiences social and personal changes much faster and to greater magnitudes than the most of use.
One quote that I like:
“Life itself seems to consist of a balance between giving oneself to the world and withdrawing from it, of reaching outward toward others and retreating inward to oneself.”
January 28, 2025
It really is almost a perfect book on the experience of disability. It encapsulates what it feels like to have this new reality denied by yourself and others. It has...also helped me come to terms with associating myself with disability. I have been denying this for years. I hate labels and boxes, but I think in this case I also have to understand that disability, like other labels, are subjective in a social sense.
November 29, 2021
I would say this book is ok. I like that the author discussed many topics where his life was affected. However, the book sounds whiny, drown out, and depressing. I just think I do not enjoy his writing style but is a quality read.
June 19, 2021
3.5. There were some slow parts, and I would have organized it differently for flow, but interesting ethnography.
May 19, 2024
A well written book filled with felt hardships and pain, mixed with fragments of hope. A good reminder of how fragile life is and how we are God’s beloved children.
July 10, 2024
2.5 ⭐️
July 16, 2024
Very academic language but offers great insight into the lives of the disabled which evokes compassion
September 4, 2025
For class
January 3, 2014
I don't spend a great deal of time thinking about or researching disability. This book was good mainly because it was sociological, written by a disabled sociologist. As I read about how able-bodied people in upper economic classes tend to belittle the disabled, in order to distance themselves from the possibility of such a fate, I experienced it firsthand at Tivoli Village when a woman, leaving the elevator I was entering, said, "I'll push the button for you." Seriously? Do I truly look like I can't PRESS THE BUTTON MYSELF??? How denigrating. And how clearly observed by the author of this book when his own dentist patted him on the head. Apparently Americans can embrace gay marriage, but they can't accept the disabled as complete human beings. Some things just won't change.
However, the book does end on a positive note, and I appreciated the author's dignified view of the struggles of our cultural minority. Nice quote: "Life is at once both its own means and its end, a gift that should neither be refused nor cast off, except in utmost extremity. Life is less a state than a process, a drama with an inevitable denouement, for quiescence and dissolution are the fate of everything. But the essence of the well-lived life is the defiance of negativity, inertia, and death. Life...is a feast whose sacrament is consummated in the paralytic's breaking out from his prison of flesh and bone, and in his quest for autonomy."
The book was written in a scholarly style, with great vocabulary and structure. It can be dry in places, but all in all, worthwhile.
However, the book does end on a positive note, and I appreciated the author's dignified view of the struggles of our cultural minority. Nice quote: "Life is at once both its own means and its end, a gift that should neither be refused nor cast off, except in utmost extremity. Life is less a state than a process, a drama with an inevitable denouement, for quiescence and dissolution are the fate of everything. But the essence of the well-lived life is the defiance of negativity, inertia, and death. Life...is a feast whose sacrament is consummated in the paralytic's breaking out from his prison of flesh and bone, and in his quest for autonomy."
The book was written in a scholarly style, with great vocabulary and structure. It can be dry in places, but all in all, worthwhile.
September 7, 2022
Giáo sư cao học của mình recommend cuốn này. Nhìn thoáng qua mình sẽ nghĩ nó là sách hồi ký cuộc đời hay là sách kể về hành trình vượt lên số phận gì đó, đại để là thể loại mình không bao giờ đọc. May là không phải thế. Sách miêu tả thế giới của những người khuyết tật dưới góc nhìn nhân chủng học, bao gồm cả lịch sử, tâm lý, xã hội học... (bản thân nhân chủng học là ngành nghiên cứu rất rộng). Nhiều lý giải về "khiếm khuyết" của cơ thể con người và những quan sát về nhận thức, hành vi của người khuyết tật cũng như phản ứng của những "người bình thường" xung quanh rất thú vị, dù rằng trước đó mình đã được học trên lớp khá nhiều nên không còn cảm giác bất ngờ hay lạ lẫm. Quyển này mình xếp vào thể loại sách khoa học, đọc để biết là chính nhưng vì nội dung có đan xen những trải nghiệm của bản thân tác giả, một nhà khoa học và là một người khuyết tật nên cũng khá là inspiring. Giọng văn không quá học thuật nên tương đối dễ đọc, thỉnh thoảng có mấy chỗ còn buồn cười nữa cơ.
November 6, 2013
It took me a while to finish this book, not because it’s bad or boring. It’s a book you read just like that, while TV is on in the background. I needed to do notes and know what I’m reading, so I can later use in my work. It’s a good book and I was often very much identifying with author. It makes very good and strong points for most the book. I wish I could talk to Mr. Murphy, but it’s impossible. So I have this book and I’m sure it will help me many times. I wish it was written nowadays, as much has changed from Murphy’s times, but many things are still actual. Unfortunately.
January 22, 2013
Very interesting perspective from an anthropologist who becomes disabled. He touches upon the theme of death, self-realization, the creation of a new identity when he transitions, so to speak, from a non-disabled body to disabled one,self-esteem issues, and battling with the topic of what makes each person a unique individual. Very easy read, and introspective. A good read in my book!
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July 27, 2011The man is disturbingly Freudian for a modern reader, but unfailingly insightful. His tone is intelligent with a bitter edge. You can hardly blame him.
January 7, 2015
well written book examining the social constructive implications of being disabled.
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October 30, 2009humbling
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews