The truth is that most deaf people do not lead lives of isolation. On the contrary, they love to associate with one another to such an extent that clannishness is a byword for them even more than for other minorities, but it is a clannishness informed by a special zest. It is this other, much more prevalent type of the deaf, the joiner, the hustler, the go-getter with his thirst for an active enjoyment of life, that is represented in No Sound, the autobiography of Julius Wiggins, which is not surprising when we consider that, unlike the other classes of the physically handicapped, unlike the lame, the halt, the blind and all the other varieties, the deaf are distinguished by a special vigor and robustness. No Sound is of additional interest in that it is an unusually authentic literary depiction of the everyday life of the deaf, of their particular concerns and pleasures. Read Wiggins and you will understand a little more how the deaf live and what they are really like. The other two sections, divided historically, contain stories that are fascinating in the way they show the feelings of hearing people toward deaf people. The fantastic variety of roles we find deaf characters playing in this book suggests that deafness inspires strong reactions in hearing people - sometimes they feel threatened (for at times many hearing people see themselves as deaf - that is, as what they imagine deaf people to be - lonely, isolated, "strange"); or sometimes they feel suspicious (it is, for some reason, hard for a hearing person to really believe that someone else can't hear); or they feel somehow that there's something "wrong" about deafness (in earlier days it was firmly believed that knowledge of God could come only through the ear).
At the end of the book is a bibliography compiled by Dr. Daniel Nascimento of the English Department at Gallaudet. Taken as a whole, then, with its selections, introductions, prefaces and bibliography, this volume is a nearly complete survey of all the important western literature relating to deafness in the last century and a half. I use the word "survey" advisedly: we have obviously had to be highly selective in our excerpts and even in the titles cited in the bibliography and in the various introductions and prefaces we have also had to ignore many titles we felt would not materially add to our awareness of the deaf experience. Back to the Book