"Proust Was A Neuroscientist," by Jonah Lehrer

If you're an artist or art lover, you're probably going to love this book.  If you're a scientist, you're probably going to hate this book.

I love both, so I'm torn.  Jonah Lehrer's basic premise here is that art has contributed more insight into how our brains work than science has...and in the cases presented here, art beat science by 50 or 100 years.  For instance, he looks at "Leaves of Grass," and determines that Walt Whitman had shaken off the old Cartesian mind/body divide long before scientists figured out that our thoughts and feelings were generated in our brains, with simple (grey) matter and energy, not a disembodied "mind" or "soul" pulling the strings.

Of course, it's easy to work backward from a new discovery and then find the precursors to it.   And that's what Lehrer does in each chapter.  He discusses Igor Stravinsky's "The Right of Spring" and it's impact on determining how our brains process music. Then there's Paul Cezanne's seemingly spontaneous painting and what it reveals about our vision.  He claims that Gertrude Stein discovered fundamental truths of linguistics long before that punk kid, Noam Chomsky, came on the scene.  And Proust, he claims, has much to teach us about memory.

Personally, I think Lehrer's science is lacking here.  However, the connections that he draws are often pretty insightful and the stories are interesting.  Plus, his passion is so evident and his writing style is so pleasing that I really can't just dismiss this book for failing to provide solid scientific evidence. It's value seems to lie elsewhere.

After all, the arts are in crisis right now, with major theatres, opera companies, museums, etc. having to close their doors.  We live in an age where art is seen as a luxury, and artists are devalued as dabblers and hobbyists.  What Lehrer is reminding us of in "Proust Was A Neuroscientist," is that the arts offer us insight into ourselves.  They hint at higher truths and point us to new ways of thinking so we can uncover them.  He takes Einstein's decree that "imagination is more important than knowledge," and gives us tangible examples of what artists have contributed to our knowledge and appreciation of the world.

Hopefully more people will read this book and think about the connections between art and science.  Hopefully it will serve as a wake up call that if we fail to support our artists we may also hinder the progress of our scientists.