The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars
A Neuropsychologist's Odyssey
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
'[A] beautifully written investigation of grief ... As an exploration of love and loss, as a portrait of a person and of the nature of personhood, this book is about as true as any I have read' James McConnachie, Sunday Times
An audacious and beautiful account of grief and who we are. Memoir, neuroscience and myth interweave to create a book unlike any other
When celebrated neuropsychologist Paul Broks' wife died of cancer, he found himself plunged into the world of the bereaved. As he experienced the pain, alienation and suffering that make us human, his clinician-self seemed to watch on with keen interest. He embarked upon a voyage of experience: a journey through grief, philosophy, consciousness, humanity and magical thinking - seen through the prism of a lifetime's work in neuroscience. Fusing an account of living with and recovering from loss with thought-provoking meditations on the nature of the mind and the self, The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars is an audacious and beautiful work by a writer of astonishing wisdom and compassion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Broks (Into the Silent Land) reflects on the idea of death and what it means to be human in this collection of musings centered loosely on his personal struggle to cope with his wife's cancer diagnosis and her death some years later. He mingles memories, dreams, and his deepest thoughts with teaching experiences and clinical observations drawn from a career as a neuropsychologist. More than a compilation of case studies, Broks's book is a digressive journey through the subject of human consciousness. He mixes pub banter, philosophy, Greek myths, the "deathbed" music of Estonian composer Arvo P rt, Paolo Faraldo's theory of neuronal relativity, Antonio Damasio's neurobiological search for the self, and many other topics in an attempt to broaden the perspective on neuroscience's most central question: "how and why physical states of the brain produce mental experiences." Or, as the author states the question, "How does the insentient, physical stuff of the brain... the 1,200 cubic centimeters of gloop that fills our skulls how does that stuff create awareness?" Like the box of old family photographs Broks achingly describes, this metascience narrative is well worth sorting through.
