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Mind Catcher
When a thirteen-year-old boy falls victim to an accident that damages his brain, two scientists combine their groundbreaking research to push the boundaries of human consciousness. 75,000 first printing.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
10 people are currently reading
255 people want to read
About the author
John Darnton
15 books55 followersJohn Darnton has worked for The New York Times for forty years as a reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent. He is the recipient of two George Polk Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of five novels, including The Darwin Conspiracy and the best seller Neanderthal. He lives in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 11, 2009
This book started out with a great premise. The first few pages had me hooked - or so I thought. About 50 pages in I started getting bored. Soon I was skimming multiple pages at a time. The author obviously did extensive research for this novel and, sadly, decided to put every bit of it into the story. I found the constant intricate medical talk distracting. The amount of information was unnecessary and took me out of the story. Also, the characters had a tendency to go through two or three pages of introspection - over and over - to the point where the story lost its zing.
This book could easily have been 100 pages shorter without losing anything. In fact, a shorter version would have gained intensity (for me, anyway).
This book could easily have been 100 pages shorter without losing anything. In fact, a shorter version would have gained intensity (for me, anyway).
August 2, 2024
review of
John Darnton's Mind Catcher
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 1, 2024
The complete review will be here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticD...
I was in a rural used bkstore that I wanted to give some support to since they seemed to be struggling. Most of what they had for sale seemed to be 'best-sellers' so I picked 2 by Darnton b/c they seemed to be thrillers about mad scientism in the medical industry, a subject that I 'can't get enuf of' since the plandemic quarantyranny. I shd note that when I 1st declared myself to be a Mad Scientist in 1978 I had in mind being a person who creates something monstrous (or magnificent) that gets out of my control (or takes on a life of its own) - much like that archetypal mad scientist of Mary Shelley's, Dr. Frankenstein, & his 'patchwork guilt' (pun intended). Now, I'd have to qualify what I mean by my own Mad Scientism, wch is more of a free-form psychological experiment inspired by Stanley Milgram's studies of authority, as opposed to the mad scientism of the medical industry & drs w/in it & their imposed experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs.
The 1st bk I read by Darnton was The Experiment (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). I concluded that review w/: "Yes, there was plenty for me to like about this bk.. I just get so tired of these writers who use cookie-cutter English all the time. Still, of the 3 thrillers I've read this was probably my favorite." - &, actually, thinking back on it, The Experiment was very good, even excellent - I'm just reluctant to give praise to writers who already have the publishing industry firmly on their side. That shd be ME, ME getting that kind of distribution, making enuf money for me to live the wild & extravagant life where I can afford unheard-of luxuries like toorhpaste & razor-blades. Ahem.
The dedication at the beginning of the bk reads:
"To the memory of my father, Byron Darnton, who died in New Guinea in World War II.
"And to the memory of my mother, Eleanor Choate Darnton, who said she knew of his death the moment it occurred" - p -ii
Given that dedication, a powerful motive is established for the author's writing this bk.
Cleaver, the head dr at a mental institution for severe cases who's interested in establishing clinically that there IS an anima, a MIND that can exist apart from the brain, works at Pinegrove, a hospital w/ insufficient funding for good upkeep.
"The linoleum was pock-marked with cigarette burns, and in one spot the tiles were missing, dark squares with snakelike squiggles of dried glue.
"It never ceased to amaze Cleaver how the state had let Pinegrove slide into ruin. Here it was smack in the middle of New York City, stuck on the southernmost penisnsula of Roosevelt Island in the East River. Tugboats and barges peered down upon it ; yet few people could tell you what the building was. For all that it mattered, he could be working in a lunatic asylum from the Middle Ages." - p 10
Mental Instiutions have always been a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, they enabled & continue to enable people like Dora Marsden, Antonin Artaud, & Yayoi Kusama to survive & probably really did & do provide a nurturing environment. On the other hand, there're so many horror stories about mental hospitals that it seems like the bad outweighs the good. At any rate, my understanding of their history is that many of them went under when chemical straight-jackets enabled the release of patients into the outside world. I made a very non-definitive documentary about one of these called Dixmont ( https://youtu.be/yEWrSNKzg60 ). These huge sprawling complexes of abandoned bldgs on large grounds have always fascinated me. The combined promise of hope for the hopeless & threats for the even more hopeless is a powerful mixture.
"All this meant that Cleaver had a certain necessary latitude in his work. It was part of a long and venerable tradition in neuroanatomy. Paul Broca's work with epileptics at the Bicetre Hospital in Paris in the 1860s. Carl Wernicke's probings of the brain's receptive language center in Germany in the 1870s, Wilder Penfield performing brain surgeries under local anesthetic to draw his map of bodily sensations in the 1940s and '50s. None of them had been constrained in their work." - p 12
""And the TMR?" he asked, looking at the helmet that fit snugly around the old woman's skull. The acronym was short for transcranial magnetic receiver, a device that recorded the electricl impulses of brain activity." - p 14
In other words, inmates are somewhat helpless to protect themselves against the machinations of sadistic drs, of wch there are plenty. Cleaver's research into anima wd be fine if he cd do it w/o being sadistic & irresponsible, wch he can't.
""What I examine is the mind. And I examine the difference between them—the brain and the mind. That's the whole point—the difference. People speak of the mind-body problem, but that misses the boat. Think of the mind-brain problem. Where does one stop and the other begin?" He looked searchingly at them. "What makes consciousness? What makes us conscious?"" - p 24
Darnton's obvious dedication to making his novels well-researched earns my admiration. I'm convinced that he tried to make this as realistically predictive as he cd based on research that was being conducted shortly before he wrote the bk.
""No, those weren't my parents," he replied matter-of-factly. "They're perfectly nice people. But they're not my parents. They're imposters."
"Cleaver stepped forward and addressed the visitors.
""Imposters is the key word," he said. "It occurs over and over in patients with Capgras's syndrome.["]" - p 28
"Capgras syndrome is a rare condition in which someone believes that their loved ones or others they know have been replaced with doubles or imposters. The belief is so real that nothing can correct this illusion.
"Capgras syndrome, or Capgras delusion, is named for the doctor who treated a patient with it nearly 100 years ago. You may also hear it called imposter syndrome. But this condition is different from the more common “imposter syndrome” that you may have heard about." - https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/i...
Imagine having a condition such as the above named after you:
"Yes, that's a classic case of "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE syndrome". The symptoms are that a person stands on one leg & repeatedly says 'Jerk me off 2 legs to the board, hot mama!' while juggling live fish underwater. There's no cure for it yet but we're pretty sure that getting rid of all things purporting to be news will work in the right direction."
"Finally, the patient, a Hispanic-looking woman in her thirties, was wheeled in on a gurney. She had been drugged with Valium, but her eyes looked scared as she was transferred to the operating bed under the powerful overhead lights. An intravenous line was started, and she was sedated by an infusion of propofol, or "milk of amnesia," as the residents called it." - p 37
For those of you who're lacking the ability to get every joke, "milk of amnesia" is a play off of "milk of magnesia". B/c this patient was suffering from "t,ac syndrome" she was still wet in places that the orderlies & nurses hadn't noticed. As such, she short-circuited something causing the dr to be electrocuted & a whole plethora of other Rube Goldbergian events. Thank the Holy Ceiling Light for small favors. B/c of this, the next 71pp were smoldering & I had to jump-cut to p 108.
"Saramaggio explained that there were, in effect, two operations—one to extract the metal object, install the computer, and extract the stem cells, and then some weeks later, once the cells had multiplied to many millions in the lab, another one to plant them." - p 108
""Elizabeth Gould and Charles Gross. At Princeton. They discovered neurogenesis."
""What's that?"
""They discovered that the brain continues to make new cells. That opened up a whole new area. Before them, it was believed that the brain simply stopped developing. You got your one hundred billion neurons and that was it; you got older, the cells expired, your brain deteriorated, you turned senile, and you died. Now, we know that new neurons are produced all the time."
"The other resident chimed in.
""This corresponds to work done at Rockefeller University on canaries—believe it or not. A guy named Fernando Nottebohm showed that canaries grow new neurons to learn new songs."" - p 115
I'd actually read about the latter in David Rothenberg's Why Birds Sing (see my paltry review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ).
"He recalled sitting in a classroom, hearing that there were two types of scientists—the integrators and the inventors. The integrators produced systems; they accumulated data, synthesized things, sifted and winnowed calculations to form a theory. It was like constructing a building—valuable work, in its own way. But the inventors—ah, they were the revolutionaries. They cut through everything with one blow, a leap of deductive thinking. They dynamited the entire building and leveled the landscape and made way for something new." - p 132
Yes, but did they evacuate the bldg before they dynamited it?
"Cleaver finished his coffee and checked the monitor. Then he went to a supply cabinet, filled a syringe, stepped over to the old woman's bedside, and raised her thin wrist, exposing the upper arm. He jabbed the needle in. He slipped behind the bed and fiddled with a valve, cutting of her oxygen. After a moment, she gave a little heave in bed, twitching slightly and raising her chin. Then her head dropped to her chest, and she remained still of all movement. Cleaver watched her closely. After a short period, he turned again to the valve, opened it, and gradually she came to life again." - p 140
Cleaver is clever & unscrupulous. How uncommon of a combination is that?
""Ray Kurzweil says that computers will exceed human intelligence by 2020. He foresees that man and machine will link up and evolve together. This inevitable once machines replicate themselves. And so the only answer for humankind is to figure out a way to enter into that system of evolution. If we don't, we'll be left behind. Evolution teaches that there is room for only one entity in any particular niche, and the niche we're talking about is the one reserved for the planet's supreme intellect." - p 144
""And will that be the end of us?"
""The end? Far from it. It will be the beginning. It will be the quantum leap that science and religion promise. The moment of deliverance. Our minds will no longer be bound to our bodies. Perhaps if we can truly shake off our physical vessels, we will achieve an immortality of sorts. The mysterium tremendum. Physicists call it escape veolcity. Pentacostalists call it the Rapture."" - p 145
Same old, same old. How many of these people making such predictions about 'leaving the body behind' have unfit bodies? I doubt that very many (or any) people w/ fit bodies are fantasizing about 'leaving it behind'. As for immortality? What if we already have it but just can't recognize its form? I find the overall logic of the above-quoted passages to be suspect. Does "Evolution teach[es] that there is room for only one entity in any particular niche"? Apparently somebody's concluded that but I, personally, haven't. Some humans are just so conceited that they think that something that humans make is superior to everything that's evolving organically - hence AI is touted as 'superior' to nature - but built-in to anything that humans have created are the consciousness limitations of humans. Our whole intelligence isn't spawning AI, only our consciousness is - everything goes far deeper than just consciousness. It's typical human arrogance to consider everything to've been 'left behind' by human evolution. The next time you see a deer explain to it that it's been 'left behind' by us. It's doubtful that the communication will go very well & that's a good sign of how very limited human communication abilities are.
The central dramatic element of the plot here is that a boy named Tyler gets a severe brain injury & is very near to death. His father is devastated. Drs convince him that an experimental surgery may save his life. Darnton's story-telling is thorough, he approaches the subject from many angles. One of them is reminiscences about Tyler's loveable self.
"["]The counter guy joked that Tyler owed him a lot of money, so one day he came in with a suitcase with a whole bunch of fake money in it. He put it on the counter and flipped it open dramatically. The whole place just cracked up. We'd walk down our block and people would wave to him.["]" - p 162
Ethics, & the lack thereof, are an important issue.
""You'll need something else," Quincy observed, detached now, almost philosophical.
""What?"
""Someone to put inside it. And . . . how can I put this? Someone who might not be missed if things go wrong. Someone expendable."
"Cleaver permitted himself a false hearty laugh. "No problem there," he said. "I've got a whole ward full of candidates."
""And are they ready to sacrifice themselves for the great god Science? Have you asked them that?"
""They've all signed waivers, if that's what you mean."
""Hmmm. Informed consent, was it? From nutcases."" - pp 167-168
It doesn't take a deep look to see that 'informed consent' is rarely that. I went to a Pittsburgh hospital in the 1990s to get a blood test for hepatitis. Instead of doing that, they subjected me to whatever tests they wanted to. After repeated visits w/ no hep test, I was told that I had to get a physical examination & I had to sign some papers authorizing it. I read the papers, they authorized SURGERY. I wasn't there for surgery, I refused to sign. The nurse in charge got very belligerent & told me that if I didn't sign the papers I wdn't be able to get any further services from the hospital. It was as crooked & unethical as you get. I never went back, the hospital went out of business soon thereafter. How many people did they perform unnecessary operations on in the meantime?!
One of the protagonists is a dr named Kate Willett. She's been having doubts.
"Yes, a premature baby barely twenty-four weeks old could be saved by all that fancy incubation equipment, but would he live a healthy life? Yes, an old man on the threshold of death could be kept alive on a ventilator, but was that living? Maybe things had been in some ways better in the not-so-distant days when the cycles of life played out like the natural rhythms of the seasons and we bowed down in our communal helplessness before the Grim Reaper." - pp 175-176
As one of my rubber stamps reads: "I want to BE ALIVE not KEPT ALIVE!"
"She stood up, straightened her skirt, and made the bed, and as she placed the coverlet over the pillow she noticed that the double mattress had developed a life-sized indentation on the left side where she habitually slept. She made a mental note to try to switch to the right." - p 177
Ha ha! I wonder how many readers respond w/ recognition to this? I have an indentation on the left side of the mattress that I sleep on. The right side is covered w/ bks so I'm not likely to be switching soon. Maybe if I get involved w/ a squirter she can take the left side & we'll make it a swimming pool.
"it was best to confront the talk head-on and explain just what had been done and how well the patient was doing so far. All of it, of course, off the record—until such time as the New England Journal of Medicine would carry Saramaggio's own account." - p 185
In my own idiosyncratic medical readings of the past few yrs, I keep encountering mention of the New England Journal of Medicine (& other medical journals) again & again. I have a high opinion of that journal, primarily b/c of Marcia Angell, M.D.'s The Truth About the Drug Companies - How They Deceive Us and What to do About It (you can see the beginning of my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... or read the whole thing in my bk THE SCIENCE (volume 1)). Angell was the chief editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for 20 yrs & impressed me as a person of stunning intelligence & integrity.
"Not for two nights since he had put Mann into the machineand discovered that somehow Mann's brain had connected with the computer, actually entered into the memory of the damned thing and pillaged it to come up with some some snatches of Polish, had Cleaver been able to sleep well." - p 216
Imagine if Mann had downloaded the Big Book of Jokes instead! He cd've had Cleaver in stitches - instead of the other way around.
"Wasn't that obscene? And yet scarcely a year later, he'd become a stickler for unflinching truth when he began nibbling at the edges of literature and admired writers like Philip Roth and Frederick Exley who had the courage to turn their own lives inside out and strip them bare for art." - p 276
I've never read work by either of those authors but now I'm interested. Of course, when creative people use their own lives for subject matter there's always the danger that their significant others won't be toompleased to be included in the exposé.
""In Latin America, you know, there is this saying that at the precise moment of death, the body loses twenty-one grams—that, they say, is what life weighs. I myself do not believe this saying to be literally true, but as a myth I find it psychologically compelling and surprisingly revealing. For something is given up at death. The question is, What? The ancients had a word for it—psyche. Today we call it the soul. Some call it the anima."" - pp 332-333
There you have it! Those of you who say you'd 'die to lose weight' are just being foolish, you wdn't lose enuf.
The Acknowledgments are on pp 435-436. It' an impressive list of relevant drs & researchers. Darnton's background as a reporter for The New York Times seems to come into play here b/c he obviously has a serious ability to make connections & to get them to keep him informed.
The complete review will be here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticD...
John Darnton's Mind Catcher
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 1, 2024
The complete review will be here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticD...
I was in a rural used bkstore that I wanted to give some support to since they seemed to be struggling. Most of what they had for sale seemed to be 'best-sellers' so I picked 2 by Darnton b/c they seemed to be thrillers about mad scientism in the medical industry, a subject that I 'can't get enuf of' since the plandemic quarantyranny. I shd note that when I 1st declared myself to be a Mad Scientist in 1978 I had in mind being a person who creates something monstrous (or magnificent) that gets out of my control (or takes on a life of its own) - much like that archetypal mad scientist of Mary Shelley's, Dr. Frankenstein, & his 'patchwork guilt' (pun intended). Now, I'd have to qualify what I mean by my own Mad Scientism, wch is more of a free-form psychological experiment inspired by Stanley Milgram's studies of authority, as opposed to the mad scientism of the medical industry & drs w/in it & their imposed experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs.
The 1st bk I read by Darnton was The Experiment (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). I concluded that review w/: "Yes, there was plenty for me to like about this bk.. I just get so tired of these writers who use cookie-cutter English all the time. Still, of the 3 thrillers I've read this was probably my favorite." - &, actually, thinking back on it, The Experiment was very good, even excellent - I'm just reluctant to give praise to writers who already have the publishing industry firmly on their side. That shd be ME, ME getting that kind of distribution, making enuf money for me to live the wild & extravagant life where I can afford unheard-of luxuries like toorhpaste & razor-blades. Ahem.
The dedication at the beginning of the bk reads:
"To the memory of my father, Byron Darnton, who died in New Guinea in World War II.
"And to the memory of my mother, Eleanor Choate Darnton, who said she knew of his death the moment it occurred" - p -ii
Given that dedication, a powerful motive is established for the author's writing this bk.
Cleaver, the head dr at a mental institution for severe cases who's interested in establishing clinically that there IS an anima, a MIND that can exist apart from the brain, works at Pinegrove, a hospital w/ insufficient funding for good upkeep.
"The linoleum was pock-marked with cigarette burns, and in one spot the tiles were missing, dark squares with snakelike squiggles of dried glue.
"It never ceased to amaze Cleaver how the state had let Pinegrove slide into ruin. Here it was smack in the middle of New York City, stuck on the southernmost penisnsula of Roosevelt Island in the East River. Tugboats and barges peered down upon it ; yet few people could tell you what the building was. For all that it mattered, he could be working in a lunatic asylum from the Middle Ages." - p 10
Mental Instiutions have always been a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, they enabled & continue to enable people like Dora Marsden, Antonin Artaud, & Yayoi Kusama to survive & probably really did & do provide a nurturing environment. On the other hand, there're so many horror stories about mental hospitals that it seems like the bad outweighs the good. At any rate, my understanding of their history is that many of them went under when chemical straight-jackets enabled the release of patients into the outside world. I made a very non-definitive documentary about one of these called Dixmont ( https://youtu.be/yEWrSNKzg60 ). These huge sprawling complexes of abandoned bldgs on large grounds have always fascinated me. The combined promise of hope for the hopeless & threats for the even more hopeless is a powerful mixture.
"All this meant that Cleaver had a certain necessary latitude in his work. It was part of a long and venerable tradition in neuroanatomy. Paul Broca's work with epileptics at the Bicetre Hospital in Paris in the 1860s. Carl Wernicke's probings of the brain's receptive language center in Germany in the 1870s, Wilder Penfield performing brain surgeries under local anesthetic to draw his map of bodily sensations in the 1940s and '50s. None of them had been constrained in their work." - p 12
""And the TMR?" he asked, looking at the helmet that fit snugly around the old woman's skull. The acronym was short for transcranial magnetic receiver, a device that recorded the electricl impulses of brain activity." - p 14
In other words, inmates are somewhat helpless to protect themselves against the machinations of sadistic drs, of wch there are plenty. Cleaver's research into anima wd be fine if he cd do it w/o being sadistic & irresponsible, wch he can't.
""What I examine is the mind. And I examine the difference between them—the brain and the mind. That's the whole point—the difference. People speak of the mind-body problem, but that misses the boat. Think of the mind-brain problem. Where does one stop and the other begin?" He looked searchingly at them. "What makes consciousness? What makes us conscious?"" - p 24
Darnton's obvious dedication to making his novels well-researched earns my admiration. I'm convinced that he tried to make this as realistically predictive as he cd based on research that was being conducted shortly before he wrote the bk.
""No, those weren't my parents," he replied matter-of-factly. "They're perfectly nice people. But they're not my parents. They're imposters."
"Cleaver stepped forward and addressed the visitors.
""Imposters is the key word," he said. "It occurs over and over in patients with Capgras's syndrome.["]" - p 28
"Capgras syndrome is a rare condition in which someone believes that their loved ones or others they know have been replaced with doubles or imposters. The belief is so real that nothing can correct this illusion.
"Capgras syndrome, or Capgras delusion, is named for the doctor who treated a patient with it nearly 100 years ago. You may also hear it called imposter syndrome. But this condition is different from the more common “imposter syndrome” that you may have heard about." - https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/i...
Imagine having a condition such as the above named after you:
"Yes, that's a classic case of "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE syndrome". The symptoms are that a person stands on one leg & repeatedly says 'Jerk me off 2 legs to the board, hot mama!' while juggling live fish underwater. There's no cure for it yet but we're pretty sure that getting rid of all things purporting to be news will work in the right direction."
"Finally, the patient, a Hispanic-looking woman in her thirties, was wheeled in on a gurney. She had been drugged with Valium, but her eyes looked scared as she was transferred to the operating bed under the powerful overhead lights. An intravenous line was started, and she was sedated by an infusion of propofol, or "milk of amnesia," as the residents called it." - p 37
For those of you who're lacking the ability to get every joke, "milk of amnesia" is a play off of "milk of magnesia". B/c this patient was suffering from "t,ac syndrome" she was still wet in places that the orderlies & nurses hadn't noticed. As such, she short-circuited something causing the dr to be electrocuted & a whole plethora of other Rube Goldbergian events. Thank the Holy Ceiling Light for small favors. B/c of this, the next 71pp were smoldering & I had to jump-cut to p 108.
"Saramaggio explained that there were, in effect, two operations—one to extract the metal object, install the computer, and extract the stem cells, and then some weeks later, once the cells had multiplied to many millions in the lab, another one to plant them." - p 108
""Elizabeth Gould and Charles Gross. At Princeton. They discovered neurogenesis."
""What's that?"
""They discovered that the brain continues to make new cells. That opened up a whole new area. Before them, it was believed that the brain simply stopped developing. You got your one hundred billion neurons and that was it; you got older, the cells expired, your brain deteriorated, you turned senile, and you died. Now, we know that new neurons are produced all the time."
"The other resident chimed in.
""This corresponds to work done at Rockefeller University on canaries—believe it or not. A guy named Fernando Nottebohm showed that canaries grow new neurons to learn new songs."" - p 115
I'd actually read about the latter in David Rothenberg's Why Birds Sing (see my paltry review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ).
"He recalled sitting in a classroom, hearing that there were two types of scientists—the integrators and the inventors. The integrators produced systems; they accumulated data, synthesized things, sifted and winnowed calculations to form a theory. It was like constructing a building—valuable work, in its own way. But the inventors—ah, they were the revolutionaries. They cut through everything with one blow, a leap of deductive thinking. They dynamited the entire building and leveled the landscape and made way for something new." - p 132
Yes, but did they evacuate the bldg before they dynamited it?
"Cleaver finished his coffee and checked the monitor. Then he went to a supply cabinet, filled a syringe, stepped over to the old woman's bedside, and raised her thin wrist, exposing the upper arm. He jabbed the needle in. He slipped behind the bed and fiddled with a valve, cutting of her oxygen. After a moment, she gave a little heave in bed, twitching slightly and raising her chin. Then her head dropped to her chest, and she remained still of all movement. Cleaver watched her closely. After a short period, he turned again to the valve, opened it, and gradually she came to life again." - p 140
Cleaver is clever & unscrupulous. How uncommon of a combination is that?
""Ray Kurzweil says that computers will exceed human intelligence by 2020. He foresees that man and machine will link up and evolve together. This inevitable once machines replicate themselves. And so the only answer for humankind is to figure out a way to enter into that system of evolution. If we don't, we'll be left behind. Evolution teaches that there is room for only one entity in any particular niche, and the niche we're talking about is the one reserved for the planet's supreme intellect." - p 144
""And will that be the end of us?"
""The end? Far from it. It will be the beginning. It will be the quantum leap that science and religion promise. The moment of deliverance. Our minds will no longer be bound to our bodies. Perhaps if we can truly shake off our physical vessels, we will achieve an immortality of sorts. The mysterium tremendum. Physicists call it escape veolcity. Pentacostalists call it the Rapture."" - p 145
Same old, same old. How many of these people making such predictions about 'leaving the body behind' have unfit bodies? I doubt that very many (or any) people w/ fit bodies are fantasizing about 'leaving it behind'. As for immortality? What if we already have it but just can't recognize its form? I find the overall logic of the above-quoted passages to be suspect. Does "Evolution teach[es] that there is room for only one entity in any particular niche"? Apparently somebody's concluded that but I, personally, haven't. Some humans are just so conceited that they think that something that humans make is superior to everything that's evolving organically - hence AI is touted as 'superior' to nature - but built-in to anything that humans have created are the consciousness limitations of humans. Our whole intelligence isn't spawning AI, only our consciousness is - everything goes far deeper than just consciousness. It's typical human arrogance to consider everything to've been 'left behind' by human evolution. The next time you see a deer explain to it that it's been 'left behind' by us. It's doubtful that the communication will go very well & that's a good sign of how very limited human communication abilities are.
The central dramatic element of the plot here is that a boy named Tyler gets a severe brain injury & is very near to death. His father is devastated. Drs convince him that an experimental surgery may save his life. Darnton's story-telling is thorough, he approaches the subject from many angles. One of them is reminiscences about Tyler's loveable self.
"["]The counter guy joked that Tyler owed him a lot of money, so one day he came in with a suitcase with a whole bunch of fake money in it. He put it on the counter and flipped it open dramatically. The whole place just cracked up. We'd walk down our block and people would wave to him.["]" - p 162
Ethics, & the lack thereof, are an important issue.
""You'll need something else," Quincy observed, detached now, almost philosophical.
""What?"
""Someone to put inside it. And . . . how can I put this? Someone who might not be missed if things go wrong. Someone expendable."
"Cleaver permitted himself a false hearty laugh. "No problem there," he said. "I've got a whole ward full of candidates."
""And are they ready to sacrifice themselves for the great god Science? Have you asked them that?"
""They've all signed waivers, if that's what you mean."
""Hmmm. Informed consent, was it? From nutcases."" - pp 167-168
It doesn't take a deep look to see that 'informed consent' is rarely that. I went to a Pittsburgh hospital in the 1990s to get a blood test for hepatitis. Instead of doing that, they subjected me to whatever tests they wanted to. After repeated visits w/ no hep test, I was told that I had to get a physical examination & I had to sign some papers authorizing it. I read the papers, they authorized SURGERY. I wasn't there for surgery, I refused to sign. The nurse in charge got very belligerent & told me that if I didn't sign the papers I wdn't be able to get any further services from the hospital. It was as crooked & unethical as you get. I never went back, the hospital went out of business soon thereafter. How many people did they perform unnecessary operations on in the meantime?!
One of the protagonists is a dr named Kate Willett. She's been having doubts.
"Yes, a premature baby barely twenty-four weeks old could be saved by all that fancy incubation equipment, but would he live a healthy life? Yes, an old man on the threshold of death could be kept alive on a ventilator, but was that living? Maybe things had been in some ways better in the not-so-distant days when the cycles of life played out like the natural rhythms of the seasons and we bowed down in our communal helplessness before the Grim Reaper." - pp 175-176
As one of my rubber stamps reads: "I want to BE ALIVE not KEPT ALIVE!"
"She stood up, straightened her skirt, and made the bed, and as she placed the coverlet over the pillow she noticed that the double mattress had developed a life-sized indentation on the left side where she habitually slept. She made a mental note to try to switch to the right." - p 177
Ha ha! I wonder how many readers respond w/ recognition to this? I have an indentation on the left side of the mattress that I sleep on. The right side is covered w/ bks so I'm not likely to be switching soon. Maybe if I get involved w/ a squirter she can take the left side & we'll make it a swimming pool.
"it was best to confront the talk head-on and explain just what had been done and how well the patient was doing so far. All of it, of course, off the record—until such time as the New England Journal of Medicine would carry Saramaggio's own account." - p 185
In my own idiosyncratic medical readings of the past few yrs, I keep encountering mention of the New England Journal of Medicine (& other medical journals) again & again. I have a high opinion of that journal, primarily b/c of Marcia Angell, M.D.'s The Truth About the Drug Companies - How They Deceive Us and What to do About It (you can see the beginning of my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... or read the whole thing in my bk THE SCIENCE (volume 1)). Angell was the chief editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for 20 yrs & impressed me as a person of stunning intelligence & integrity.
"Not for two nights since he had put Mann into the machineand discovered that somehow Mann's brain had connected with the computer, actually entered into the memory of the damned thing and pillaged it to come up with some some snatches of Polish, had Cleaver been able to sleep well." - p 216
Imagine if Mann had downloaded the Big Book of Jokes instead! He cd've had Cleaver in stitches - instead of the other way around.
"Wasn't that obscene? And yet scarcely a year later, he'd become a stickler for unflinching truth when he began nibbling at the edges of literature and admired writers like Philip Roth and Frederick Exley who had the courage to turn their own lives inside out and strip them bare for art." - p 276
I've never read work by either of those authors but now I'm interested. Of course, when creative people use their own lives for subject matter there's always the danger that their significant others won't be toompleased to be included in the exposé.
""In Latin America, you know, there is this saying that at the precise moment of death, the body loses twenty-one grams—that, they say, is what life weighs. I myself do not believe this saying to be literally true, but as a myth I find it psychologically compelling and surprisingly revealing. For something is given up at death. The question is, What? The ancients had a word for it—psyche. Today we call it the soul. Some call it the anima."" - pp 332-333
There you have it! Those of you who say you'd 'die to lose weight' are just being foolish, you wdn't lose enuf.
The Acknowledgments are on pp 435-436. It' an impressive list of relevant drs & researchers. Darnton's background as a reporter for The New York Times seems to come into play here b/c he obviously has a serious ability to make connections & to get them to keep him informed.
The complete review will be here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticD...
March 28, 2013
Darnton creates another scientific thriller, his second one of the medical genre, that captures the attention of the reader from the opening sentences. Setting the scene with an apparently random preface, Darnton pushes through and sets the plot with an accident that yields a traumatic brain injury in a teenager. What happens next is a mix of medical uncertainty and science fiction possibilities. As the reader navigates through the book, the preface becomes the central theme of the book. Darnton lays out the possibility of futuristic neuro-regenesis and neuro-communication. Weave in the dramatic pull a father feels for his son and a doctor not yet ready to accept that the brain holds its own ‘personality’
With each Darnton book, I become more and more amazed at his attention to detail. I was blown away by Neanderthal, with its evolutionary undertones. From there, Darnton took us on trips through organ transplantation and now, the inner workings of neuro-science. A masterful writer, Darnton is not afraid to experiment with scientific ideas that may not jive with the mainstream. He does so from an apparent ‘knowledgeable’ standpoint, putting the reader at the centre of the debate. Some may say the book was too scientific or too ‘futuristic’, and to those people I would ask them what they feel the role of modern medicine should play in society. While there are many paths not worth following, medicine is all about forging ahead and looking at what seems impossible. Darnton dazzles those who enjoy expanding the brain, but keeping things fictional.
Kudos, Mr. Darnton. Keep up the excellent work!
With each Darnton book, I become more and more amazed at his attention to detail. I was blown away by Neanderthal, with its evolutionary undertones. From there, Darnton took us on trips through organ transplantation and now, the inner workings of neuro-science. A masterful writer, Darnton is not afraid to experiment with scientific ideas that may not jive with the mainstream. He does so from an apparent ‘knowledgeable’ standpoint, putting the reader at the centre of the debate. Some may say the book was too scientific or too ‘futuristic’, and to those people I would ask them what they feel the role of modern medicine should play in society. While there are many paths not worth following, medicine is all about forging ahead and looking at what seems impossible. Darnton dazzles those who enjoy expanding the brain, but keeping things fictional.
Kudos, Mr. Darnton. Keep up the excellent work!
June 8, 2011
I have to echo what a number of others have said about this book. After such a promising start it just seems to drag on in places. I know Scott is a grieving father but I don't see any hint of attractive features that normal heroes display. Perhaps in trying to flesh out every character, the author sacrifices the pace and in the end it didn't hold me.
February 23, 2011
I really enjoyed this book. Interesting idea, but the ending, eh. I'm going to give Darnton another shot.
March 9, 2023
El poco conocido John Darnton ha vuelto a centrar otra de sus obras en uno de sus temas favoritos para la elección de trama de la historia: el tecno-thriller. Escritor del New York Times y ganador del premio Pulitzer, esta vez nos encontramos en un contexto actual a pesar del toque transhumanista que expone abiertamente por parte de uno de los protagonistas en forma de deseo demencial. Un niño en estado de coma, un padre devastado creyendo estar cediendo a su hijo en buenas manos, un neurocirujano dispuesto a hacer cualquier cosa por triunfar mundialmente. La narración se encuentra constantemente invadida de datos histórico-científicos y teorías aristotélicas enfocadas en un dualismo antropológico que se intensifican fuertemente con el avance tecnológico de los últimos años. Conspiraciones, psicosis y narcisismo en su máximo esplendor. Una obra maestra para los amantes de la ciencia ficción, con un final algo surrealista, muy a mi pesar.
September 2, 2025
Until I got to the last few chapters, I thought this was one of the best futristic type of book I had ever read. However, the last part was so "out there" (literally and figuratively) that I ended up actually hating the book, and it is now in my donate pile.
The only reason I gave it four stars because it was VERY well-written and sustained my interest so that I read it in a single day. It is just too bad that the ending was such a let-down in that it made absolutely no sense and was also very depressing to me.
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The only reason I gave it four stars because it was VERY well-written and sustained my interest so that I read it in a single day. It is just too bad that the ending was such a let-down in that it made absolutely no sense and was also very depressing to me.
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November 12, 2022
I think the story is good but it left me the impression that the third act was stretched out a bit, like about 100 pages more than necessary. Other than that, I believe the book delves into a fascinating topic, the seat of the soul or “anima.” Also, the lengths a father would go through to protect his child. This one in particular moved me deeply.
October 10, 2025
4.3 stars
I really liked this book. It was really interesting and definitely makes you think. I like how it talks about neuroscience and different operations but never seems like it is dumbing anything down or making it overly complicated. Overall, it was not hard to understand and I like how it combines medical procedures and things with actual people and stories.
I really liked this book. It was really interesting and definitely makes you think. I like how it talks about neuroscience and different operations but never seems like it is dumbing anything down or making it overly complicated. Overall, it was not hard to understand and I like how it combines medical procedures and things with actual people and stories.
May 4, 2020
This book is the first one that I have read by John Darnton. I will give him another chance, but I have to say that this one was a little slow. The beginning was really good, the middle slow, the end was ok.
April 26, 2021
Excelente lectura. Mi unica crítica es que me hubiera gustado saber un poco mas de la historia, creo que el autor pudo tratar de cerrar a mas detalle la conclusión, un poco abrupta para mi gusto. Por eso 4 y no 5 estrellas
August 9, 2017
This book was beyond interestimg. Fast paced and exciting.
September 2, 2019
Good story, kept me reading. But the outcome...?!
January 26, 2021
Awesome! Loved the fact that they found his son....
December 31, 2018
a very fast enticing read.
January 20, 2008
John Darnton, Mindcatcher (Onyx, 2002)
Darnton's latest novel has all sorts of nifty stuff going for it, not least a punchy, adrenaline-rousing plot. Tyler, a thirteen-year-old boy, has been injured in a rock climbing accident. Two scientists, brain surgeon Leopoldo Saramaggio and artificial intelligence guru Warren Cleaver, see Tyler as the gateway to performing a revolutionary new experiment that could further the medical field by orders of magnitude. At the other end of the spectrum are Tyler's father Scott and Kate Willett, one of Saramaggio's team, who find themselves confused by the ethical ramifications of what the two doctors are up to. Add to this a mutual animosity underlying the necessity of collaboration between Saramaggio and Cleaver, and you have all the makings for a decent medical thriller.
And decent it is, if overly wrapped in cliché and a little predictable at times. Darnton draws his characters well and invests them with real emotion, when they're not spouting phrases that were old when Shakespeare was writing soap operas. The pace rarely leaves breakneck level, and usually gets back up to speed within a few pages. The book goes quickly, especially once the operation begins about ninety pages in. It's good brain candy, gripping but eminently forgettable. An excellent beach read, as we head for another summer. *** ½
Darnton's latest novel has all sorts of nifty stuff going for it, not least a punchy, adrenaline-rousing plot. Tyler, a thirteen-year-old boy, has been injured in a rock climbing accident. Two scientists, brain surgeon Leopoldo Saramaggio and artificial intelligence guru Warren Cleaver, see Tyler as the gateway to performing a revolutionary new experiment that could further the medical field by orders of magnitude. At the other end of the spectrum are Tyler's father Scott and Kate Willett, one of Saramaggio's team, who find themselves confused by the ethical ramifications of what the two doctors are up to. Add to this a mutual animosity underlying the necessity of collaboration between Saramaggio and Cleaver, and you have all the makings for a decent medical thriller.
And decent it is, if overly wrapped in cliché and a little predictable at times. Darnton draws his characters well and invests them with real emotion, when they're not spouting phrases that were old when Shakespeare was writing soap operas. The pace rarely leaves breakneck level, and usually gets back up to speed within a few pages. The book goes quickly, especially once the operation begins about ninety pages in. It's good brain candy, gripping but eminently forgettable. An excellent beach read, as we head for another summer. *** ½
January 7, 2013
Opinião no blog http://howtoliveathousandlives.blogsp...
Este é um livro que me deixou dividida quanto à opinião final. As primeiras páginas são excelentes: a descrição da angústia de Scott perante o acidente do filho e o início da ação são cativantes. A própria estrutura do livro é muito boa: dividido em três partes (acidente, operação e recuperação) originam uma leitura mais organizada.
A personagem de Scott inicialmente é bastante emotiva e cativante, com o seu desespero perante a situação do filho. Contudo, ao longo da estória acabei por me distanciar dele, tornando-me indiferente à sua demanda.
De igual modo, nota-se que o autor fez uma pesquisa bastante extensa sobre os aspetos médicos e científicos presentes no livro. Contudo, parece que optou por colocar esta pesquisa toda no meio da ação, o que originou passagens altamente descritivas. Toda esta informação tão compactada e maçuda torna a leitura cansativa e desmotiva o leitor.
Mais ainda, muitas das personagens frequentemente entravam em duas ou três páginas de monólogos introspetivos, chegando a um ponto em que perdia completamente o interesse pelo que estava a acontecer. Na verdade, se o livro tivesse menos páginas não perderia nada e poderia até ter sido uma experiência literária mais intensa e marcante.
Este é um livro que me deixou dividida quanto à opinião final. As primeiras páginas são excelentes: a descrição da angústia de Scott perante o acidente do filho e o início da ação são cativantes. A própria estrutura do livro é muito boa: dividido em três partes (acidente, operação e recuperação) originam uma leitura mais organizada.
A personagem de Scott inicialmente é bastante emotiva e cativante, com o seu desespero perante a situação do filho. Contudo, ao longo da estória acabei por me distanciar dele, tornando-me indiferente à sua demanda.
De igual modo, nota-se que o autor fez uma pesquisa bastante extensa sobre os aspetos médicos e científicos presentes no livro. Contudo, parece que optou por colocar esta pesquisa toda no meio da ação, o que originou passagens altamente descritivas. Toda esta informação tão compactada e maçuda torna a leitura cansativa e desmotiva o leitor.
Mais ainda, muitas das personagens frequentemente entravam em duas ou três páginas de monólogos introspetivos, chegando a um ponto em que perdia completamente o interesse pelo que estava a acontecer. Na verdade, se o livro tivesse menos páginas não perderia nada e poderia até ter sido uma experiência literária mais intensa e marcante.
March 9, 2012
lido em 2009:
O livro é muito bom, adorei ler! É daqueles livros que dava um excelente filme.
É sobre a ambição humana, neste caso dois médicos, que querem garantir o seu lugar na HISTÓRIA, através de procedimentos médicos nunca antes experimentados, aliados à evolução informática, para isso só precisam do doente perfeito, para conseguirem alcançar a CONSCIÊNCIA HUMANA, a centelha que nos diferencia. Quando conseguem esse doente, o Tyler, não vão pensar nos meios e nas consequências para alcançarem o sucesso. Como aliciarem o pai de Tyler a autorizar as cirurgias necessárias, para ter Tyler de volta.
Scott quer o seu filho de volta, mas existem limites na dor de um pai. A vida tem limites. Irá Tyler viver? Estará a sua morte apenas a ser prolongada pelo “bem da ciência”?
Recomendo : )
http://the-door-to-my-imaginarium.blo...
O livro é muito bom, adorei ler! É daqueles livros que dava um excelente filme.
É sobre a ambição humana, neste caso dois médicos, que querem garantir o seu lugar na HISTÓRIA, através de procedimentos médicos nunca antes experimentados, aliados à evolução informática, para isso só precisam do doente perfeito, para conseguirem alcançar a CONSCIÊNCIA HUMANA, a centelha que nos diferencia. Quando conseguem esse doente, o Tyler, não vão pensar nos meios e nas consequências para alcançarem o sucesso. Como aliciarem o pai de Tyler a autorizar as cirurgias necessárias, para ter Tyler de volta.
Scott quer o seu filho de volta, mas existem limites na dor de um pai. A vida tem limites. Irá Tyler viver? Estará a sua morte apenas a ser prolongada pelo “bem da ciência”?
Recomendo : )
http://the-door-to-my-imaginarium.blo...
May 6, 2011
Audio Book. I didn't particularly like this book. A kid is out hiking with his friend when some rock climbers drop a piece of equipment and it lodges into the kids head. The doctors attempt surgery but the kid supposedly dies even with the computers hooked up to him to keep him alive. Then one of the doctors takes the kid's mind and puts it on the internet where the kid finds his Dad and essentially haunts him. The dad then finds the doctors experimental machine that was being used on mental patients to put their minds into a computer. The dad uses the machine to go get his son from the ether or other world or something and they finish the other surgery where they had extracted stem cells and regrew some of the kids brain. The whole time the dad is getting help from a third doctor who he falls in love with. I would not recommend this book.
February 13, 2007
Nueva York: Tyler, un chico de trece años, yace en la cama de un hospital con el cerebro dañado a causa de un trágico accidente. al lado de la cama su padre permanece impotente mientras dos científicos muy diferentes se hacen cargo del destino del chico. Uno es un neurocirujano cuyos experimentos nada ortodoxos incluyen el uso de ordenadores para controlar las respuestas físicas del paciente durante la cirugía. El otro es un investigador que lucha, secretamente, por conseguir algo extraordinario: encontrar la esencia de la conciencia humana... y capturarla para siempre.
Novela sobre ciencia, tecnología y ese "algo" que nos convierte en humanos; es un viaje a las posibilidades de la mente del hombre... y de su alma. Demasiado e innecesariamente larga.
Novela sobre ciencia, tecnología y ese "algo" que nos convierte en humanos; es un viaje a las posibilidades de la mente del hombre... y de su alma. Demasiado e innecesariamente larga.
January 28, 2013
This is an engaging medical thriller that explores the mind body dilemma. Tyler, a thirteen-year old boy, has been badly injured in a rock climbing accident. His father will do anything to save him. Enter the superstar brain surgeon who wants to keep Tyler alive connected to a computer and then perform revolutionary (and highly questionable) procedures on him to restore his brain. Enter the computer guru who wants to extract his mind or "anima" and have it roam around in cyberspace. If you're interested in philosophical end of life issues, this book might intrigue you. There's even a little romance. It's a good read. Not mind blowing, but I liked it.
Read
May 6, 2015A thirteen-year-old boy, brain damaged from a tragic accident, is operated on by two unorthodox scientists, sending him into a netherworld of man and machine, to a place no living person has gone before and from which one person desperately tries to bring him back. 11 sound discs (13 hrs.)Read by Dick Hill. This is another one I don't remember reading. Maybe I got it for Randy to listen to.
Brain -- Research -- Fiction.
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction.
Neurosurgeons -- Fiction.
Genre Suspense fiction.
Science fiction.
Medical novels.
Subject Audiobooks.
Brain -- Research -- Fiction.
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction.
Neurosurgeons -- Fiction.
Genre Suspense fiction.
Science fiction.
Medical novels.
Subject Audiobooks.
November 12, 2009
I'm not sure the original reason why I picked this book up at the library, but it freaked me out a little when I read it probably because of a recent death in the family. It's an interesting topic and, after looking on the internet, I see it is a very popular topic of discussion. The writing is not really admirable but its also not horrible. Might be worth a read if you are interested in a little foray into sci-fi and the brain.
October 15, 2013
Mau. Sendo um romance muito baseado na tecnologia acho que falha muito nas descrições do uso dos computadores, nomeadamente na forma como pai e filho conseguem estabelecer comunicação. A construção de algumas personagens também é muito fraca. A médica que se envolve com o pai e o médico neurocirurgião adoptam comportamentos muito pouco credíveis. E o último capítulo, "a recuperação" é demasiado mirabulante.
March 19, 2010
This book was not nearly as good as "The Experiment." It was not the bet book I have read in the area. It just was not a book that I would every go back to again and did not particularly enjoy reading the first time. He can do better and has.
J. Robert Ewbank author, "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
J. Robert Ewbank author, "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
October 29, 2015
This book had a sad and creepy premise about an experiment gone wrong on a young boy. The book was both good and not so good to me but I can't tell if it was my reaction to the horror that the young boy and his father went through or because the writing was not quite up to snuff. I didn't hate it but I didn't LOVE it.
December 13, 2007
So I bought this book so that I had something to read on the plane on my way to Europe. It was good. Gave me enough of a story for me to be entertained. I do remember thinking this would make an interesting movie.
January 24, 2011
I just know I've read this premise before..... just can't remember where. And if the pacing in the whole book had been as good as the last third I'd have enjoyed it more. However, very lackluster ending. VERY
October 13, 2020
I was disappointed with this third book from Darnton. I really liked his others and this was just not in the same class. Some of the story was interesting but it seemed old. Like reading the Lawnmower Man.
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