The New Scientist Ebook Membership stepped away from science fiction for our October learn, turning to the winner of the Royal Society Trivedi Science Ebook Prize as a substitute, serendipitously introduced simply in time for us to start out on our subsequent literary journey.
Six books had been up for the award, from Daniel Levitin’s Music as Drugs to Sadiah Qureshi’s Vanished: An unnatural historical past of extinction. Judges picked Masud Husain’s Our Brains, Our Selves: What a neurologist’s sufferers taught him in regards to the mind they usually praised it effusively, calling it “a fantastic exploration of how issues within the mind could cause individuals to lose their sense of self”, and citing how these medical histories are “skilfully interwoven with Husain’s private story of transferring to the UK as an immigrant within the Sixties, the place he discovered himself grappling along with his personal sense of belonging”.
The very first thing to say is: our e-book membership members are a lot harder judges than these on the panel for the Royal Society prize! Whereas I feel we have been excited to become familiar with this e-book, and to enterprise into the world of non-fiction for a change, there have been many points that have been raised and picked over by our readers.
Let’s deal with the positives first. For me, the e-book actually acquired me considering in the direction of the tip, when Husain tackled the concept of the self, the way it has modified over the centuries and the way the mind situations mentioned within the previous chapters affected the sense of self of every of Husain’s sufferers.
Katherine Sarah agreed on this facet. “Not solely is it an attention-grabbing perception into the mind and the way it works, it additionally explores what determines ‘self’ and essential abilities that make us accepted by society,” she writes in our Fb group. Katherine has an attention-grabbing perspective on this, as somebody who moved to dwell out of the country the place she couldn’t communicate the language, which she discovered isolating.
“It actually resonated with me how a lot language represents part of your self and the way arduous it’s to painting your self with out it,” she writes. “Apparently it additionally hyperlinks to motivation which was inhibited in one other affected person the writer described. Once I couldn’t talk within the language of my new nation I additionally grew to become extraordinarily shy and it was arduous to encourage myself to do easy duties. It’s actually attention-grabbing to learn on this e-book about sufferers the place just one particular facet of their mind/persona is inhibited as a result of in actuality all the things is interconnected.”
Gosia Furmanik additionally loved this a part of the e-book. “For essentially the most half, I did get pleasure from it – I feel it was written in an enticing approach, simple to learn and the instances have been attention-grabbing. I additionally appreciated the musings on identification and migration on the finish of the e-book, perhaps this was relatable to me as a result of I migrated twice in my life,” she writes.
Judith Lazell was a fan: “That is very attention-grabbing and really readable. Nice alternative,” she says. And Jennifer Marano loved the chapter about Wahid, the bus driver who develops dementia with Lewy our bodies and begins hallucinating. “The factor it has modified most is my understanding of imaginative and prescient, together with hallucinations,” she writes. “The world has all the time appeared so stable and actual, however what I see is what my mind makes of the stimuli that enter my eyes. Makes me marvel what different individuals “see”.”
Once I spoke to Husain, one of many issues I needed to ask him about was how he slotted all the things collectively, as a result of I did discover it somewhat contrived at factors, how he’d be, say, strolling by Soho pondering a latest affected person after which discover a memorial plaque to Samuel Johnson. “The irony made me smile,” he writes. “That afternoon I had seen a person who was having problem remembering phrases and right here was the hang-out of the good lexicographer, Samuel Johnson, the person who had produced the primary English dictionary of any be aware.” Cue a raft of paragraphs about lexicography.
Husain defined in our chat how he fictionalised instances to guard sufferers, and he’s writing a story, so it is sensible that he must put a narrative collectively. However, as I mentioned, for me it felt somewhat pressured.
Niall Leighton additionally didn’t heat to this facet of the e-book, however took specific concern with the affected person discussions Husain writes about. “I rapidly grew to become conscious that a lot of the dialogue with Dr Husain’s sufferers appeared stilted, and I used to be left questioning how a lot of this, alongside along with his descriptions of different occasions, may be fictionalised to some, even a big diploma,” he writes. “This grew to become more and more irritating because the e-book progressed.”
Gosia agreed: “I’m glad I’m not the one one which seen (and was irritated by) this stuff within the e-book! Within the interview, the writer did say that he fictionalised quite a lot of issues in regards to the sufferers to make them unrecognisable, so that may clarify the dialogue, it was in all probability all invented.”
Others wrote about the way you felt irritated by Husain’s ornate language. “Typically it appeared just like the writer would actually favor to be writing the ‘nice British novel’ with florid descriptions that I discovered jarring within the context of a science e-book,” writes Jennifer.
Judith and Niall additionally discovered it jarring how Husain included definitions of phrases in brackets, resembling “vertebrates (back-boned animals)”. “I might have thought anybody studying this e-book can be cognisant of those,” says Judith.
“I don’t know why he felt he wanted to insult my intelligence by giving definitions of phrases like “atrophied”, “neuron”, and even “vertebrate” (greater than as soon as),” says Niall. “This will have been the motion of an overzealous editor, however I used to be left questioning who he thinks his viewers is.”
Personally, I feel it is a difficult one: our e-book membership members are a fairly knowledgeable bunch, and should properly know the meanings of those phrases, however it’s a difficult line to stroll between being informative and being patronising.
The actual concern for some members was Husain’s use of the phrase “regular” when speaking about mind situations. For instance, writing about assessments he ran on David, who grew to become missing in motivation after having two small strokes, he writes: “We acquired him to do the site visitors gentle take a look at once more and this time he behaved in a different way. Like regular individuals, he began to take dangers.”
“Some phrases, like… referring to wholesome individuals as “regular,” actually irked me. What even is regular? Who will get to determine that?” asks Gosia. “Unhealthy persons are nonetheless regular, sickness and illness are completely regular facets of the human situation. For such a philosophically inclined e-book, this appeared obtrusive.”
Niall agreed. “I rapidly discovered myself extraordinarily alienated… I’m neurodivergent, and using the phrase “regular” will irritate, just because the entire query of what constitutes “regular” is a vexed one,” he writes.
Jennifer might need had quibbles with Our Brains, Our Selves, however she made it to the tip and says she was glad to have executed so. “After ending, I watched a part of the New Scientist interview with the writer and it made me really feel extra tolerant of the facets of the e-book that rubbed me the unsuitable approach,” she says. “Ultimately I needed to give him credit score for being obsessed with his work, writing a e-book, and getting it printed, one thing I’ve not executed and possibly by no means will in my life.”
By no means say by no means, Jennifer: maybe in the future we’ll be studying your individual e-book within the New Scientist Ebook Membership! Within the meantime, it’s on to our November learn, one other e-book that delves into the mysteries of the mind, however this time by the medium of science fiction. Come and discover out extra about Grace Chan’s Each Model of You, set in a devastated model of our world the place a determined humanity is importing itself to a digital utopia to flee their dying actuality. However how will these digital brains examine to the selves left behind?
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