Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

copyright = 2007
pages = 200
source = purchase
date completed = 06/03/09
challenges: Non-Fiction Five

This is a very thought-provoking book in which the author relates several artists to current ideas of how the brain works. The problem with this is that after the fact, an association can always be found. Some of the connections seem stretched--did the artist really "discover" the idea or was it just noticed afterwards that this is how the brain works?

Lehrer uses 8 artists to convey his point: Walt Whitman, George Eliot, Auguste Escoffier, Marcel Proust, Paul Cezanne, Igor Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. I am familiar with all of the names (except Escoffier) but not familiar in detail with their works. I'm quite sure it would have helped if I had been because Lehrer discusses the works and lives of the artists in detail. It seems most of the artists created new ways of doing things--new forms of literature, new painting styles, etc. For example, Cezanne was integral to the postimpressionist movement. He began leaving more and more canvas blank in his paintings which relates to how the brain sees--the brain fills in what isn't there. Of course, the book explains this in much more biological detail.

Overall, this book made me think--often having to put the book down to think about a sentence or two. I enjoyed it, but would have enjoyed it more if I were more familiar with the artists' actual works. Or perhaps, this book is just a jumping point for that.