"Andrew's Brain" by E.L. Doctorow *****

• Early Reviewer selection on LibraryThing
• US author
• Originally scheduled to be published in 2014
• Vocabulary:
• langur:long tailed monkeys
• breughel:  ?
• Reference to major transition occurring regarding mental illness and neurological research
• p.8..."Well, it's a short step from anthropomorphism to hearing voices."..........love it
• p.19...."My soul resides in a still, deep, beautiful, emotionless, calm cold pond of silence.".....sociopath?
• mountains giving a "sense of the nonhuman world we live in.......Americans like to catch rides in that world."
• p.29...."Where most people live, most of us, imagining it to be the real sunlit world when it is only a cave lkit by the flickering fires of illusion."...wow
• p.31...""If consciousness exists without the world, it is nothing, and if it needs the world to exist, it is still nothing."
• Concept of the brain coming to a decision seconds before the person is conscious of it.....implications?
• p.38..."It is what is left of the dead that is still them, that fragment of the voice that renders a moral nature though the rest of the person is gone."....like my late mother's voice
• p.45....."As evolved beings we have in our genes memories of the far past, of long-ago generations, memories of experiences not our own."............instinct?
• p.51...."To walk the fields is to feel yourself breasting the air, leaving behind you the sound of tinkling ice and a tubular indication of your form."...lovely
• p.104..."True happiness comes of not knowing you're happy, it's an animal serenity, something between contentment and joy, a steadiness of the belonged self in the world."...like this
• p.107..."Given the inspiration, anyone can step into an identity because the brain is deft, it can file itself away in an instant.  It may be stamped with selfhood, but let the neurons start firing and Bob's-your-uncle."....LOL
• Concept of the collective brain.....i.e.  people being in a park define the park, the "brain of an ant colony is the colony."
• p.140..."But it is dangerous to stare into yourself.  You pass through endless mirrors of self-estrangement.  This too is the brain's cunning, that you are not to know yourself." 
• p.186..."I thought how contention makes us human."...not sure I agree with this one
• Significant events:  death of child, death of wife, time at White house
• Review:  Brilliant!  Spend a few hours inside the mind/brain of cognitive neuroscientist?........multiple personalities?......inadvertent disaster catalyst?......Andrew!  Doctorow's use of language is masterful as he leads us on a quest for meaning, which after survival, is paramount to us humans.  Just read it!