130. Proust Was a Neuroscientist

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Call me Nostradamus...

Yes, I am sore today. Putting on and taking off my jacket now comes with sound effects. 

I compounded Having finally made it to the gym; Being sore the day after the gym; and Discovering that the local (Chinatown) branch library isn't open until 1pm on Fridays (noticed when I tried to open the door at Noon) to excuse my ignoring both my budget and diet for lunch. Since I needed to hang around for about an hour, I went to my usual North Beach haunt (Caffe Puccini) for something different (their eggplant sandwich) and a glass of red. Now I'm worried about the place as it was empty at the lunch hour.

Proust Was a Neuoscientist

By Jonah Lehrer - Houton Mifflin Company 2007

My reason for going to the library was to pick up a copy of our next book club book. I would have been happy if the book had only been about Proust, but in fact Proust is just one of the artists sampled for their contributions to neuroscience.

From the Prelude
The author writes about his days as a lab technician,

pix It was simple manual labor, but the work felt profound. Mysteries were distilled into minor questions, and if my experiments didn't fail, I ended up with an answer. The truth seemed to slowly accumulate, like dust.

At the same time, I began reading Proust. I would often bring my copy of Swann's Way into the lab and read a few pages while waiting for an experiment to finish. All I expected from Proust was a little entertainment, or perhaps an education in the art of constructing sentences. For me, his story about one man's memory was simply that: a story. It was a work of fiction, the opposite of scientific fact.

But... I began to see a surprising convergence. The novelist had predicted my experiments. Proust and neuroscience shared a vision of how our memory works. If you listened closely, they were actually saying the same thing.
...

pxi We now know that Proust was right about memory, Cezanne was uncannily accurate about the visual cortex, Stein anticipated Chomsky, and Woolf pierced the mystery of consciousness; modern neuroscience has confirmed these artistic intuitions...

pxii The moral of this book is that we are made of art and science. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, but we are also just stuff.... 


Walt Whitman
I learned two interesting things reading this first section: The phrase "Leaves of Grass" is a printing term where "leaves" are pages and "grass" is "compositions of little value." The other interesting thing is that Whitman continued to revise both his poems and his book (adding more to it) from 1855 until just before his death in 1891. When his body was examined after his death it was discovered that nearly every organ in his body was ravaged my tuberculosis.

So what I now want to know is how does what he wants to say in 1891 differ from what he wanted to say in 1855, and how much of the change is a result of age and illness? Has anyone published an edition that includes both versions so you can see the young and old poet juxtaposed?

This would be interesting for any writer, but the reason he is included in this book is because he is "a self-described poet of the body..." who argued that "... the soul is made of flesh." To the extent that this is true, the soul -- and thus the poetry -- of a young and healthy man must vary a great deal from the soul of an old and very ill man. How could it be otherwise? 

Vertigo

Have I mentioned how interminable Sebald's paragraphs are? They sometimes go on for pages. And they may cover a number of subjects and include what could be many transitions. You come to a point that should be a good place to stop and resume later, but there is no paragraph break to make it easy to relocate your place. It occurs to me now that I just need a post-it to use to mark where I'm stopping. 

We just came to the point where he finally makes his way to Verona and checks into a hotel under the name of someone from the 19th century, Jakob Philipp Fullmerayer. Fullmerayer was from a town on the other side of the Alps (and Austria) from Sebald's hometown in Bavaria. They certainly have something in common, though I'm not sure what Sebald is getting out here. (As usual.) Fullmerayer is an interesting character but Sebald merely adopts his name for a moment. He doesn't say any more about him.

Candide

P109 ...He [Voltaire] has been inspecting his new estate at Ferney and finding that there is more involved than the cultivation of plants. He has acquired peasants who depend on him. What is the state of the community? Half the land lies fallow, the curé has celebrated no marriages in seven years, the countryside is depopulated as people rush to nearby Geneva. Taxation (especially the salt-tax) destroys those who remain; either the peasants pay and are reduced to abject poverty, of they evade payment and are clapped in jail. ‘It is heartbreaking to witness so many misfortunes. I am buying the Ferney property simply in order to do a little good there. . . . The prince who will be my liege lord should rather help me to drag his subjects out of the abyss of poverty, than profit from his ancient feudal rights....

P110 This is a new voice in Voltaire’s letters. We have seen how many times he had sought to intervene on the social or political scene and been frustrated. Here at last the right opportunity in time and place comes to hand. By acquiring seigneurial rights he is freer, he says, than when he possessed only his home in Lausanne and his ‘country cottage {guinguette}’ in Geneva, where the people were ‘a little arrogant’ and the priest ‘a little dangerous’... Already before he is even installed at Ferney he has taken up the cudgels against the curé of Moens, who is the malefactor extorting money from Voltaire’s peasants and forcing them to sell their own lands...

P111 At the end of 1758, Voltaire tells d’Argental with pride that he has created for himself ‘a rather nice kingdom’ (D7988). At last he has his new principality: he is now both roi and philosophe. His installation at Tournay on Christmas Eve 1758 was of fitting dignity and pomp,with sound of cannon, fife and drum, all the peasants bearing arms and girls presenting flowers to his two diamond-bedecked nieces. ‘M. de Voltaire’, writes a spectator, ‘was very pleased and full of joy . . . He was, believe me, very flattered’... As Candide begins to enjoy, a few weeks later, the success which has never deserted it, so too does Voltaire enter at last into his kingdom. In his sixty-fifth year, François-Marie Arouet has finally realized himself as M. de Voltaire. [Footnote: François-Marie Arouet is the name of an insignificant Paris bourgeois; M. de Voltaire (wherever his name comes from) is a gentleman, a seigneur, a person of European repute.]

So when Candide speaks of cultivating his garden he really does have in mind a good Tory existence. And I suppose Ford Madox Ford’s having Christopher turn his back on Groby is to make his point that, in the bourgeois age of the Great War, there is no longer a place for the seigneur. In the 20th century one can only cultivate a very small, private garden and even then it must be supported by trade (the antique business).


But now I must turn to the other book that shares the name of its protagonist: Faust. You can see Goethe ending his book with Faust also cultivating his garden -- ripped from the sea and funded by piracy. What I haven’t repeated above are the passages about how Voltaire disliked the British Navy because they were interfering with his trade -- capturing and selling either ships he had an interest in or ships carrying cargo he had an interest in. I also skipped the passage about his attack on the slave trade (and the sugar trade) which was inserted in Candide at the last moment. Ferney wasn’t ripped from the sea, but I suspect Voltaire’s wealth (all wealth) came with some unsavory write-offs. Mephisto’s Violent Men always have a hand in these transactions. Still, to give Faust his due, his intention was similar to Voltaire’s. But just as Voltaire was participating in the economic system that would soon lead to the French Revolution, Faust’s efforts caused as much harm as they offered future promise. Faust really is Goethe’s Candide in some ways.

Next - 131. Walt Whitman

104. Goethe in Derbyshire

Previous - 103. Best laid plans

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Little Dribbling

Why aren't there photographs in this book? Even a few photos would make the reading experience so much better. I've been driven to Google Image and Map to see the places and some of the things Bryson talks about. The problem with this is that, seeing the areas for myself, I have to go on to be critical of things he fails to mention or emphasize. 

He gave the impression that the bizarre English holiday traditions at Skegness were mostly a thing of the past, but viewing the area from above, there seems to be an amazing expanse of camps still around. And some of them really do look like concentration camps.

He gave the impression that the port of Grimsby was pretty derelict, but that's just the fishing port. Next door is a very active port that appears to mostly deal with transporting cars. The other interesting thing about this port -- also Hull and Liverpool -- is that, because the rivers are not always navigable due to the tides, the actual port facilities are separated from the rivers by locks. 


When I bought myself this book for Christmas I never expected to write anything about it. I read Bryson for laughs -- that's not entirely true, since he's written a number of books like At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything that are content rich -- but after making the notes above I hit a patch about the Peak District -- which makes me think of Pride and Prejudice, of course -- which I have to both quote and comment on. It never ends!

p272 About the Headstone Viaduct on the Monsal Trail which crosses, or rather tunnels and trenches it's way across, the Monsal Dale. ...When the viaduct was built in 1863, the art critic John Ruskin [especially here] famously raged against it, saying that a setting of tranquility and beauty had been cruelly sacrificed just so that "every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour and every fool at Bakewell in Buxton." Headstone Viaduct is often used as an example of how things that are hated when new later become treasured. Well, sure, that sometimes happens. But there is a difference here in that the Headstone Viaduct was from the start a thing of actual beauty, carefully built, which is rarely the case with intrusions on the landscape today.

As fond as I am of 19th century infrastructure, I'm sure I would love the walk along this old railroad right of way as much as Bryson did. But, again, I'm looking at the scene from Google Map and I have to sympathize with my old pal Ruskin here. The non-map view (satellite? aerial photo? whatever) is particularly fine of the Monsal Dale and it looks to be a lovely place to walk across, as one can imagine Elizabeth Bennett doing with her aunt and uncle in Austen's novel. That is until you come to the trench dug for the railroad. The viaduct itself, and the tunnel at one end of the viaduct, are almost beside the point. The problem is that trench running across the landscape as though a huge boar had been running loose. 

This is a prime example of a landscape where, for thousands of years you could wander at random until the 19th century when you were suddenly forced to find the few places where you could cross either over or under the tracks. Even now that it is just a walking trail and there is no danger of being run down by a steam engine, the barrier exists in the same way. And even Ruskin (probably) didn't consider the environmental side effects of dividing communities of wild animals by this arbitrary line. 

(It's worth noting that some of Ruskin's design ideas even apply to software interface design. I've considered his views, and sometimes gone against them -- with reservations -- more than once when designing software.)

But it doesn't stop there, Not far from Monsal Dale is a view nearly as good as, and even more historic than, the one that so exercised Ruskin, where the trail emerges from a long tunnel into a green valley. Holding a commanding position at the valley head is a white Georgian building that looks at first sight like a stately home. In fact, it is Cressbrook Mill, built by Richard Arkwright in 1779... to spin cotton. It is quite the most handsome factory you will ever see and possibly the most important, for it changed the world. Along with Cromford Mill, built a few miles away near Matlock, this was where the factory system started. Everything that is manufactured on Earth today traces its beginnings back to this tranquil corner of Derbyshire. Arkwright built his mills in the narrow valleys of Derbyshire because they had plenty of water to power his machines and because the remote location made it less likely that they would be besieged by angry spinners put out of work by his new methods. It also made it easier for him to exploit his workers. Cressbrook Mill was operated mostly by orphans who were treated worse than abysmally.

p273 Within half a century, the cotton industry employed over four hundred thousand people. Nearly everything that followed and made Britain great -- shipbuilding, finance, the building of canals and railroads, the growth of empire -- had its foundations here... Derbyshire's spell at the center of all this didn't last terribly long. As the cotton industry grew, larger factories and bigger rivers were required, and the work moved to more urban places like Manchester and Bradford. Derbyshire sank back into a picturesque oblivion. Today Cressbrook Mill is upmarket apartments."

Never-mind Ruskin, now I'm imagining Goethe here. (The Goethe of the last sections of Faust, the Developer sections.) Not reclaiming land and engaging in piracy, unless you interpret piracy to include the vicious exploitation of labor -- either "free" as here or slave as in Absalom, both are contemporary with Cressbrook Mill. The slaves producing the cotton to be spun by the orphans. 


When I first mentioned P&P it was because that's the first thing I think of when I hear the words "Peak District," but that association turns out to be prescient. On a hunch, I just did a quick Google search and learned two things: 1. There's a Wiki entry for "Pemberley," and 2. The fictional Pemberley was set in the vicinity of Bakewell -- also, like Cromford, near Matlock. I would love to know if Austen picked this neighborhood because it's romantically scenic or because it was coming to be associated with the new wealth of the Industrial Revolution. (Not easy to determine the source of the wealth of the Dukes of Devonshire. Seems to be something one doesn't speak of. Rents, I suppose?)

So Ruskin, Goethe, Austen, and Bryson -- I should have had them walking into a pub. 

Next - 105. Tower of Power

37. Tod

Previous - 36. Free waffles! + Tiny Houses

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Doctor Faustus 

It's finally come to this... I'm blogging about my blog about Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. I'm rereading the post about Chapter XXX -- one of the most important chapters of the book -- covering the start of the Great War and Mann's fictionalized reaction to that event, but also On the Marionette Theater by Heinrich von Kleist. Having now read The Brothers K, I see the influence of Kleist's ideas about the "grace" of marionettes on Ivan Karamazov's "Grand Inquisitor" story. A marionette's grace comes from a lack of freedom. The very freedom the Grand Inquisitor wants to save the faithful from. Or you could call it a freedom from freedom. The same freedom the National Socialists would offer the German people. From this context it's easier to understand how the Germans in general, but even the devoted Nazis, did not feel guilt or responsibility for the Holocaust and the war in general, because they had surrendered their freedom and responsibility at the very beginning. That was what Hitler -- like the Grand Inquisitor -- offered them. That was the irresistible appeal. Which, when you think about it, isn't really that different from the appeal of Christian cults that focus on the ability of the Jesus to Save you from all your sins. Total faith in Jesus or Hitler absolves all your sins and responsibilities. Hallelujah! 

And then there's death, or in German, tod. Thinking about "all this" (which includes all my blogging to date), I was struck by the role death plays in "all this." In the beginning there is the Romantic idea of death in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther -- something I still have yet to read -- which is picked up in The Magic Mountain through Schubert's Die Winterreise. Faust begins with the protagonist on the verge of suicide due to existential angst. The Birth of Tragedy is largely about how both the Olympian gods and Attic tragedy were intended to save man from the belief that a quick death was the best outcome to be wished for. 

I don't have a handy source to point to on the Japanese side (I'm thinking about WW2 now) -- there are lots of them, I just don't have them at my fingertips -- but the Imperial Death Cult was in many ways the most explicit in its desire for death. An "honorable" death, but still death. The Kamikaze fliers who didn't even seek out enemy ships but just crashed into the sea would be the most spectacular example here.  

And I wasn't forgetting Michel Foucault when I said the Japanese were the most explicit seekers after death. One troubled philosopher isn't nearly as impressive as an entire modern society. 

Even the Nazi true believers, as much as they may have sought annihilation, in most cases seemed to feel they had more important work to do first -- like Goethe's Faust, when you think about it. The Nazi dilemma was always the tension between Death and The Work. (Which, as I've pointed out before, is why the camps were compromised both in terms of providing slave labor and in eliminating what they viewed as sub-humans. In attempting to do two jobs at once, they failed at both.) And since this division of purpose -- or procrastination -- of necessity came from the top, what does that say about the people who took over the marionette strings of the German people? Is this a particularly bizarre and twisted example of absolute power corrupting absolutely? A society built on death but wanting just a little more life?

I should probably place an image of puppies here.

Getting close now

We are really at the fun part of the construction project now, things are racing to a conclusion. While I was at the gym the low area of the floor was built up with a fresh layer of cement. Almost all the trim is up in the unit, along with the heater and even the recessed lights -- I guess I'll never know how they did that. The hardware to repair the back door is sitting in the hallway waiting to be installed. 

I'm torn between wanting to keep an eye on everything and not wanting to get in their way, so I'm back at the Bank Cafe. I think I may have gotten over charged for my iced tea.

...An hour or so later

Arrived home to find them measuring the rear door to replace the whole thing because the outside bottom is a little rotten -- thanks to exposure after being crudely sawed off. Sent some rushed email and text messages to get the boss to re-think this. 

While getting a new door sounds like a great idea, this is not an easy door to rehang. There are at least three hinges, a door closer, and the alarm -- plus all the signs. And it would all need to be painted. The inside is going to be painted in any case, but the outside is still in good shape. I think I've saved it. We'll see in the morning. Otherwise everything looks good. The only bad news is that the electrician isn't coming back to hook everything up until next week. I really was hoping the laundry would be back in service tomorrow. I have a load of clothes to wash.

Next - 38. Pikachu?