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Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology
 
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Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology (Hardcover)

by Paul Broks (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Like some aberrant surgeon, neuropsychologist Paul Broks' debut book, Into the Silent Land peels apart the skull and declines to cauterise. We are plunged straight into the macabre world that Broks inhabits--an infernal and tragic look at people with bits of their brains missing. We meet Michael and Stuart, textbook cases of equal and opposite brain wreckage; Jeanie, who believes herself already dead and Robert's tumour that "reset his personality dials". But this is no travelling freak show. Broks is careful and gentle with his subjects, recognising the humanity in each, which turns Into the Silent Land into a rare work of compelling, cerebral genius.

Broks is as much a part of this book as any of his patients. He turns the glare of his analysis on himself as intensely as he does on any of his other "characters", revealing his own deepest concerns. He also includes professional anecdotes and other interesting phenomena that will be familiar to students of consciousness--phantom limbs, out-of-body experiences, ghosts, emotional response and the social instinct.

He goes on to explore his doubts as to whether neuropsychology can truly attain its stated aim of understanding consciousness. But despite his deft touch and elegant, sparse style, toward the end he begins to leap fretfully from subject to subject before coming to an abrupt end. Nevertheless Into the Silent Land is as unsettling, mentally engaging and unusual a book as you are likely to read for some time. --Dan Green



Ian Finlayson, The Times

'Paul Broks is set to be the new Oliver Sacks'
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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A poetic and poignant meditation on consciousness, 1 Jan 2004
By Kirsty Hall "kmhlamia" (Bristol, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a very intriguing book with a surprisingly wistful and poignant tone. Paul Broks wanders between authorial voices, sometimes he is a clinician describing symptoms, sometimes a man relaying his dreams or furnishing us with examples from his personal life, sometimes a writer of short fictional interludes that explore his theme - yet he always returns to his central question - what is the difference between meat and mind? Is there even such a thing as a mind, or a soul in the midst of all those neurons? Whilst Broks takes the scientific view that it is all explainable meat, his own ego and personality continually seeps out to challenge that pure material view. This conflict between what science thinks it knows about brains and consciousness and how we, as brain users, actually experience consciousness, is at the heart of the book.

Whilst I'm not sure that I always agree with his views, it was refreshing to read a scientific book that explores more than the impersonal third person view. The personal and poetic tone of the book worked well for me, although I found that I also wanted more facts and more resolution. But perhaps that is Brok's point, in the search for the elusive human mind perhaps there can be no true resolution - perhaps, like mystical enlightenment, the experience of being conscious can only really be hinted at and alluded to rather than explained.

This is a book that leaves you with a lot of questions. It left me pondering these questions deeply and eagre to think more about them and it's a book I intend to reread. If you are looking for a straightforward exploration of the current state of knowledge about human consciousness then look elsewhere, but if you are interested in a poetic, poignant philosophical meditation on the mind, then this book is a winner.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a modern classic, 11 Jul 2003
By A Customer
Science books written by good writers are rare. Broks, a working neuropsychologist, presents a compelling account of the human brain. His style is poetic, assured and remarkably humble. The cases (phantom limbs, living ghosts, damaged and diseased minds) are expressed with elegance and dignity. There is no sense of spectacle, but rather of insight and speculation into what it means to be human and how our brains support the delicate phenomenon of consciousness. Modern and accessible. This book is set to be a classic.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, disturbing and emotional, 7 Oct 2003
If you look into a brain, can you find the soul?

Whilst Paul Broks leaps between case studies, philosophical thoughts and imaginary scenarios, the one thread running through this beguiling, and sometimes upsetting book, is the search for the "self".

This search stops and starts, and often one feels that Broks is trying to impress the reader by making their reading just a little more difficult than it needs to be. Wonderful little stories such as the effects of a butterfly ganglia on a patient are disrupted by technical details that, whilst educational, ensure that the book cannot be read in just a couple of sittings.

And maybe that's the point. Woven into the stories and dialogues are ideas that rarely see the light of day, and make you question your common-sense ideas of the person and the self. These moments need reflection, not continued reading.

For all it's tongue-tied moments, though, Into The Silent Land has a breathtaking two chapter finale that will upset some and enchant others. Only when we are faced with our death do we ever question whether our lives really matter. The two takes, that of a malfunctioning time machine, and the personal, touching tale of Broks' wife's breast cancer, leave us hanging over a pit of uncertainty. And that's how it needs to be : philosophy is very much alive and well, and there is still an awful lot to think about.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Sort of Ok
Given the rave reviews, I thought this book was a bit of a letdown. It just came across as a series of narcissistic meanderings. Read more
Published 2 months ago by madaboutbooks

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
I was really very disappointed by what I thought would be an interesting and sharp insight into neuropsychology but what actually turned out to be an attempt at philosophical... Read more
Published 14 months ago by L. Dean

3.0 out of 5 stars pseudo-philosophy but decent neurology.
In this book Brok castigates neurology books that have a bent towards morbid curiosity. he skirts the issue, yes, but essentially says that they rely more on the human curiosity... Read more
Published 22 months ago by D. T. Brunetti

5.0 out of 5 stars Even *I* could understand it!
This is a truly wonderful, moving, thought-provoking insight into the human mind than even I, having NO knowledge of, well, anything really, could understand. Utterly beautiful.
Published on 23 Sep 2006 by T. Hennessy

5.0 out of 5 stars A student's view
As a student at the UOP and thus a student of Paul Broks, I was intrigued to discover what interests Dr. Broks. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2005 by Mrs. J. Hard

5.0 out of 5 stars Into the Silent Land
This book has altered my perception of everything. Paul Brok has gently dessembled all sense of the self that we have clung to unwittingly. Read more
Published on 17 Aug 2005 by katiestgeorge

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, highly recommended
Absorbing, Insightful, Intelligent but easy reading... a must for any psychology student. Presents the philosophical aspects for the consciousness phenomena from a... Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Good stuff
Interesting, informative, thought provoking and entertaining. What more could you ask?
Published on 31 Aug 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Piques your interest then leaves you dangling
Having read the review of this book in the Guardian I was desparate to read it: the published extract of "The Seahorse and the Almond" chapter had really piqued my interest and I... Read more
Published on 30 Jul 2003 by J. Leedham

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