neuravinci's review
4.0
Being a neuroscience major, I'm a sucker for anything to do with the brain, even pop science books.
This is the second time I'm reading Proust was a Neuroscientist, the first time being when I was in college. Yet again, Jonah Lehrer had me hooked.
Beautiful poetic prose coupled with what is clearly a ton of literature research on his end, Proust was a Neuroscientist is the perfect merger of art and science.
What I loved is that Jonah Lehrer so clearly believes in the marriage of art and science, how one fuels the other, and neither can live without the other. In Proust was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer forges the connection between what writers, artists, painters, musicians, and chefs intuited through their art, and how science is figuring out that they were right. What these 'creatives' understood and felt through their art about the mind, the brain, and what it means to be human, science is now understanding in a lab with controlled experiments and methodologies.
I loved most all the chapters, even the ones I didn't think I would care about because I know nothing about painting or postimpressionism, for example. But Lehrer's writing makes it clear the creatives contribution to neuroscience, and gives a background on their personal and professional context. The book ends up reading less like history and science, and more like art itself.
Though Jonah tends to have some strong opinions on certain subjects, like epigenetics and how we're not genetically predetermined, I still enjoyed his views based on the research literature. He makes strong cases for much of what he says, and has clearly done his readings, providing in-depth bibliography and notes at the back of the book.
Regardless of his current status as writer renegade (based on some plagiarism and misquoting), I think Jonah Lehrer is a talented writer. He writes as smoothly as an orator would speak, and I learned much from Proust was a Neuroscientist. I plan on reading more of his other books, including How we Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works.
I don't think I could possibly read Virginia Woolf or George Eliot the same way again. And I may never eat a madeleine without thinking of Proust and his contribution to our understanding of human memory.
This is the second time I'm reading Proust was a Neuroscientist, the first time being when I was in college. Yet again, Jonah Lehrer had me hooked.
Beautiful poetic prose coupled with what is clearly a ton of literature research on his end, Proust was a Neuroscientist is the perfect merger of art and science.
What I loved is that Jonah Lehrer so clearly believes in the marriage of art and science, how one fuels the other, and neither can live without the other. In Proust was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer forges the connection between what writers, artists, painters, musicians, and chefs intuited through their art, and how science is figuring out that they were right. What these 'creatives' understood and felt through their art about the mind, the brain, and what it means to be human, science is now understanding in a lab with controlled experiments and methodologies.
I loved most all the chapters, even the ones I didn't think I would care about because I know nothing about painting or postimpressionism, for example. But Lehrer's writing makes it clear the creatives contribution to neuroscience, and gives a background on their personal and professional context. The book ends up reading less like history and science, and more like art itself.
Though Jonah tends to have some strong opinions on certain subjects, like epigenetics and how we're not genetically predetermined, I still enjoyed his views based on the research literature. He makes strong cases for much of what he says, and has clearly done his readings, providing in-depth bibliography and notes at the back of the book.
Regardless of his current status as writer renegade (based on some plagiarism and misquoting), I think Jonah Lehrer is a talented writer. He writes as smoothly as an orator would speak, and I learned much from Proust was a Neuroscientist. I plan on reading more of his other books, including How we Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works.
I don't think I could possibly read Virginia Woolf or George Eliot the same way again. And I may never eat a madeleine without thinking of Proust and his contribution to our understanding of human memory.
hsaggau's review
2.0
While at times hard to follow and not entirely coherent, I nevertheless found this book a delightful collection of art and science history with a dash of modern neuroscience. It raised some interesting epistemic questions across the humanities' vs. science's ability to uncover truth, between science's reductionist limits and art's difficulty confirming its own hypotheses. The thesis I found convincing was not that art "discovered an essential truth about the mind that neuroscience is only now rediscovering" (from the blurb), but rather that we need both the humanities and science to reach a more cohesive understanding of the human experience.
mgeryk's review against another edition
4.0
Let me just say this: I always enjoy reading books by people who quite plainly have a good deal more intellectual curiosity than I'll ever be blessed with, and yet manage to provoke me instead of making me feel bad about the fact that I will never in a million years be that clever.
A wonderful balance between art and science, written in such a way that even chumps like me can enjoy it. Even after discovering that the reason I had to take such a long pause in reading was because it was buried under a pile of Goodnight Moon and whatnot in my two-year-old's room.
A wonderful balance between art and science, written in such a way that even chumps like me can enjoy it. Even after discovering that the reason I had to take such a long pause in reading was because it was buried under a pile of Goodnight Moon and whatnot in my two-year-old's room.
raerei's review against another edition
4.0
In this collection of artists and scientific explorations, Lehrer attempts to show how art can explain what science cannot. Cezanne painted swatches of color that show how our eyes really do see - not as pixels but as swatches. Virginia Wolfe knew the mind was a fragmented collection of sensations held together by a self that arose from that and science has still not been able to find if there is a where for that greater self.
Very enjoyable book and unlike How We Decide, not filled with scientific stories that I had already heard. Made me much more interested in some of the classic writers and artists of our day. Although I probably won't read Gertrude Stein, I have a greater appreciation for George Elliot, Virginia Wolfe, Cezanne, and many others in that when/if I ever read/see/hear them, I will have a new perspective to enjoy them from.
Very enjoyable book and unlike How We Decide, not filled with scientific stories that I had already heard. Made me much more interested in some of the classic writers and artists of our day. Although I probably won't read Gertrude Stein, I have a greater appreciation for George Elliot, Virginia Wolfe, Cezanne, and many others in that when/if I ever read/see/hear them, I will have a new perspective to enjoy them from.
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