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A review by rachelhelps
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
4.0
The main thesis of Proust was a Neuroscientist is that artists can predict principles of neuroscience, and that their art is better because of it. I like this idea, and I agree with it, but I found that the most interesting chapters were about artists and neuroscientists I hadn't already heard about. Knowing that smell is closely connected to memory (probably from Lehrer's blog, which I read and recommend), I wasn't surprised with anything in the Proust chapter. However, I wasn't familiar with the research on umami ("fullness" sensation of a food of MSG infame), so the chapter on Escoffier was the most exciting.
Lehrer's writing style is different from most other psychology books I've read: he uses technical language to explain an idea, and then simplifies the idea to an easily remembered phrase (which strongly reminds me of Isaiah: parallelism, alliteration, and paradoxes are all friends here). Example: "Subjects repeatedly exposed to androstenone [steroid in human sweat/urine:] become more sensitive to it, thanks to feedback from the brain. This feedback causes the stem cells in the nasal passages to create more androstenone-sensitive odor receptors. The new abundance of cells alters the sensory experience. What was once a perfume becomes piss." And again: "The Rite started a riot"; "Stein showed us what we put into language by leaving it out." Lehrer uses this technique all over the place, and sometimes I can't decide if I think it's cool or annoying.
Lehrer's writing style is different from most other psychology books I've read: he uses technical language to explain an idea, and then simplifies the idea to an easily remembered phrase (which strongly reminds me of Isaiah: parallelism, alliteration, and paradoxes are all friends here). Example: "Subjects repeatedly exposed to androstenone [steroid in human sweat/urine:] become more sensitive to it, thanks to feedback from the brain. This feedback causes the stem cells in the nasal passages to create more androstenone-sensitive odor receptors. The new abundance of cells alters the sensory experience. What was once a perfume becomes piss." And again: "The Rite started a riot"; "Stein showed us what we put into language by leaving it out." Lehrer uses this technique all over the place, and sometimes I can't decide if I think it's cool or annoying.