Proust Was a Neuroscientist

By: Jonah Lehrer

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

In this technology-driven age, it's tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first.

Taking a group of artists - a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists - Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering.

We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain's malleability; how the French chef Escoffier identified umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language - a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. It's the ultimate tale of art trumping science.

More broadly, Lehrer shows that there's a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and this is what art knows better than science.

An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect.

©2008 Jonah Lehrer (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

So delightful. I re-listened

Would you listen to Proust Was a Neuroscientist again? Why?

Well, I love Jonah Lehrer, and he has a great way of telling a story.

What did you like best about this story?

It is packed with thought provoking ideas that lead to further reading [listening too].

Have you listened to any of Dan John Miller’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, I only wish the author had been reading, as he did for Imagine. That was terrific. This is fine, just not as good as Lehrer.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me have a 180 on my opinion of Gertrude Stein, for one thing. It made me tell people stories from it, as Imagine did, and recommend it avidly.

Any additional comments?

I do not care a fig about the supposition about Lehrer's Dylan quotes, although I am sure that he does. I think he is a remarkable story-teller and I am very sorry he resigned from the New Yorker. These little details do not matter in the service of the high-level thinking that he conveys in such plain English in his books. I am still recommending this book to everyone.

Art & Science

Lehrer's premise that the arts have anticipated many of neuroscience's recent discoveries about the workings of human perception are explored in this book through an examination of the works of a number of artists, composers and authors. It offers some fascinating insights into both science and works of art but unfortunately it becomes redundant and tedious as the author repeats many of his points again and again throughout the book. Even though the book is relatively short, it would have benefited from more editing.

Excellent Book

Not sure what the others are griping about in regards to the narrator.

The book is completely fascinating, connecting some dots that I had already thought about. Amazing how it dovetails nicely with the book "On Intelligence". If you are fascinated by the mind, by how we think and perceive then this is definitely a book you want to listen to.

Audio Evolution

This new production of Proust Was a Neuroscientist published by Brilliance Audio is an able replacement to the previously published edition by the now on-haitus publishing venture, Audio Evolution. Surely the franco-philes who savaged the first edition will give this new recording, narrated by Dan John Miller, a fairer hearing than the first.

Really Makes You Think

I listen to this novel while hiking through the hills in Southern Idaho. at this point in history I believe that everyone who's pondering existence or the universe itself should read or listen to this book.

Art intersects science

Where art meets its application in the sinewy sinapses. Why do we hate the avante garde, learn to like it, then get bored by it and thirst for something new. Why does music move us, stock smell so good and art that approximates beat the exactitude of photography? I'm absoltely enthralled by every chapter, I think I'll just have to listen to the whole thing through at least one more time. Lehrer is surely a genius for bringing together so many disparate topics and explaining them using the latest knowledge of how our brains function.

Jarring narration

This fascinating book is almost ruined by a jarring narration that demonstrates a serious lack of awareness of syntax.

Innovative Perspective

This perspective comes from a literary angle with science as the background. While I didn't' find every interpretation as valid as most, this inventive way to look at scientific understanding from non scientist or lay scientist description is inspiring. How we see science when we lack the details of the yet undiscovered truths comes together in retrospect. I really enjoyed this book.

Great book, unpleasant narration

I don't know, is it me? I found this book fascinating but could never get used to the narrator's annoying singsong and stopped with about 2/5 of the book to go. I will look for it in paperback so I can finish it.

Interesting links between artists and the science

I really enjoyed this book - kind of a different look at what some of our most famous artists (cuisine, music, literature) were attempting in their work - and how they were coming close to uncovering, consciously or not, some of the mysteries of the brain and human perception. I first heard about this book while listening to back episodes of Radiolab – Specifically the show entitled Musical Language.