Pain Studies

This nonfiction debut from poet Olstein (Late Empire), on her lifelong struggles with migraines, proves an allusive, sometimes obscure, but more often fascinating meditation. Crucial to Olstein’s endeavor is what she identifies as pain’s indescribable quality, and the impossibility of translating sensory perception directly into language. Thus, she offers relatively few descriptions of the physical experience of having a migraine, other than a mock-diagnostic list of non–pain-related symptoms, and instead explores what other writers, such as Virginia Woolf, or cultural touchstones such as Joan of Arc, reveal about chronic pain. Some of the associations she draws—such as to Joan—aren’t entirely clear, though Olstein suggests that she and the saint share in common similar experiences with “perception, hallucination, and, it seems a safe bet, great pain.” But the relevance of other associations are more readily apparent. Describing the title character on TV’s House, who suffers from chronic pain as a result of muscle death in his thigh, Olstein muses whether “his genius [as a doctor] is linked to his pain,” reflecting back to her own avocation as a writer. This extended lyric essay succeeds in delivering an intriguing look at a set of questions with wide relevance to an audience beyond migraine-sufferers: “Does our pain define us? Only if it’s bad enough? Only if we let it?” [em](Mar.) [/em]