Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Ordinary People comes a gripping novel of suspense, exploring fragile family dynamics in the aftermath of tragedy...
Acclaimed author Judith Guest makes a triumphant return with this poignant and powerful novel that's sure to add luster to her reputation as one of the most thoughtful observers of the human condition.
Taking as part of her inspiration a baffling, unsolved true-life crime, Guest achieves in this absorbing new novel an extraordinary combination of page-turning mystery and intimate, emotionally charged family drama.
The Tarnished Eye takes readers to the community of Blessed, in northern Michigan, where Sheriff Hugh DeWitt still grieves for his infant son, who died of SIDS a few years earlier. Obsessed with the past, he's endangering his future with his beloved wife and daughter.
Meanwhile, up the road from the DeWitts, in one of the rich summer cottages, Paige Norbois grieves for a lost love of her own. Married to a stern and unresponsive man, Paige wills herself to stay in the marriage and sacrifice her personal feelings for the sake of her children's stability.
But soon an unimaginable tragedy destroys all dreams of stability in Blessed. Paige, her husband, Edward, and their four children are brutally slaughtered in their home. Sheriff DeWitt, deeply moved by the horrific murder scene, must find answers to a string of urgent questions.
When, exactly, did the murders occur? Why did nobody miss the family earlier? Who had a motive to kill? The man with whom Paige was having an affair? The business partner, who was stealing from Edward's publishing firm? Which family member was the primary, intended victim? And above all, what sort of trauma could fuel a killer's capacity to commit such hate-driven violence?
Judith Guest, with her own untarnished eye and finely nuanced prose, delivers a novel that transcends genre and showcases once again her remarkable literary gifts.
Customer Reviews:
Not a great book, but much better than previous novels........2006-10-10
I'm a fan of Judith Guest, though, her subsequent novels after ORDINARY PEOPLE were a bit long in the tooth for me. THE TARNISHED EYE, however, highlights her strong writing ability. The first third of the novel is very well written. I particular enjoy the rhythm of her words and sentences; they're cohesive, concise, languid, and assured. You get a sense of time, place, Sheriff DeWitt and his familly life and the Norbois household. I also liked the construction of the novel in that first-third: the reader gets a chance to see what the victims were doing, through their own eyes, right before they were murdered. The last two-thirds of the novel are the challenge. This is Ms. Guest first "on her own" foray into a police procedural so there are some rocky and tedious moments that could have been stripped and/or written better?? I read a lot of mysteries so I figured out the murderer long before the end. What I could NOT figure out is how the murders were commited. I just didn't get it. I re-read several passages trying to piece together the actual murder and quite frankly, I do not see how the murderer was able to ambush all six people so fast. If someone else figured it out, please let me know!
It is a great book? No. It's an interesting read, I enjoyed it for what it was, and I'm glad to see Ms. Guest back in the bookstores.
Outstandinf Procedural.......2006-01-11
Minnesota author Judith Guest hasn't written a lot of fiction. Her first, ORDINARY PEOPLE, an acclaimed and best-selling debut, was transformed into a popular, award-winning motion picture. Now we have only her fourth book. She may not write fast, but she certainly writes well.
THE TARNISHED EYE is variously described as a novel of suspense and it is that; as a fine police procedural, and it is that, too. It is also a finely conceived observation of human dynamics. It is not a long novel. Guest's spare, precise style lends itself to this kind of page-turning story with its careful, nuanced prose, multi-layered characters and intricate human dynamics. Yet a reader is not drawn to rush pell-mell through the action. Rather, one settles in, appreciating the language, the individual scenes, the thoughtful, careful way in which Guest hovers over the characters, examining, illuminating, observing even minor characters. "The driver of the yellow Link-belt Tractor is waiting on the road. `What a bitch, gettin' up that hill!' he shouts. Stu turns to snap a picture of the rig." A few words that tell us a great deal about two minor players.
THE TARNISHED EYE has its roots in a still unsolved multiple-murder that took place in Michigan many years ago. The novel follows the sheriff of Blessed, Michigan, Hugh DeWitt, who is still struggling to cope with the death of his infant son three years earlier. His wife, Karen, who has coped better with the tragedy of SIDS, now struggles to support her husband and her marriage.
DeWitt is faced with a multiple homicide. An entire family has been wiped out in their expensive, almost palatial, nearby vacation home. Perhaps this is the final; crushing blow for Sheriff DeWitt, an experienced, dedicated, rural sheriff who is beginning to believe hope for the human race is a lost cause. Written in present tense with multiple points of view, the novel is a masterpiece of structure. What happens next is a finely wrought example of good, careful police work, putting Guest in league with author Michael Dymmoch.
Steadily, carefully, coping with a media frenzy, unhelpful fellow law enforcement agency colleagues, and a host of odd and wonderful idiosyncratic minor characters, DeWitt and his small agency gradually put the pieces together, working against the possibility that the killer may have other targets, until they arrive at a final, surprising, solution. This is an eminently satisfying and wonderful novel.
intriging subject, but more details please.......2005-09-23
The subject is one I remember and looked forward to reading the book although it's fiction. When finished I found myself looking for much more information.
Disappointed, too........2005-07-05
I, too, read the reviews here and got this book expecting a good read. I am totally in agreement with the review who said that this author does not have the talent for good, gripping, complex but accessible, intelligent mystery writing. It's okay. Just okay.
The ending was, in my opinion, just tacked on, not hinted at or built up to in any way that made all the pieces fit together with a fine "ah ha!" It was as if she wrote the book to have a "surprise ending" by creating one false suspect after another, then just assigning an unlikely person the role of villian without creating the character so that it made sense in a satisfying way.
I gave it three stars, because I did read the whole thing, but I would not recommend it to anyone.
Very,very good.......2005-06-17
This is the first book by Judith Guest that I have read but I'll now try to get her most famous one, Ordinary People, as well as several others written by her. A wealthy but reclusive family, parents, three sons and a daughter, has been brutally slaughtered in their summer home in northern Michigan, with curtains closed and doors locked, so that their bodies are not discovered for several weeks. The scene is one of unbelievable carnage, with the mother and little girl raped as well as murdered. Sheriff Hugh deWitt is the towns' second generation police chief, a conscientious but depressed man who has never fully recovered from the SIDS death of his son and who is not mentally prepared to confront the horror of this situation. M/s Guest's writing style is fluid but not flowery and her use of short, sharp chapters helps the flow of the story, making it a smooth, quick read. She uses a number of red herrings in the form of locals with agendas which tie them into the crime scene and throws in a few local characters for slight comic relief, admitting that she based this book on a true story which happened two decades previously and is unsolved to this day. I'd unhesitatingly recommend the work of Judith Guest to any reader of this genre.
Average customer rating:
- Wicked Tight Little Number
- More than just a simple murder mystery
- A page turner
- Continues to be a good read
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The Tarnished Eye: A Novel of Suspense
Judith Guest
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ASIN: 0743486153 |
Book Description
A novel inspired by a baffling true-life crime, Judith Guest's "finely tuned page-turner" (Publishers Weekly) melds heart-pounding suspense with an emotionally charged family drama.
The community of Blessed, Michigan, is shattered by the murder of the Norbois family -- Paige, Edward, and their four children -- in their summer home. Sheriff Hugh DeWitt, still grieving the loss of his infant son, is determined to find answers to a string of urgent questions: When did the murders occur? Which family member was the primary, intended, victim? What could have fueled such hate-driven violence? As suspects and secrets swirl around the case, one stunning revelation lies in wait: a shattering clue that may be right in Sheriff DeWitt's line of sight.
With her own untarnished eye, Judith Guest delivers a novel that transcends genre and showcases once again her remarkable literary gifts.
Customer Reviews:
Wicked Tight Little Number.......2007-05-11
The sheriff if the county surrounding Blessed is a man haunted still by the sudden death of hie eleven month old son. A gruesome murder scene is dicovered in the cabin of a rich, but little known seasonal family, the Norboys. As Sheriff DeWitt looks deeper into the crime we learn about the victims, the townspeople, the suspects, and the DeWitt family with grace--effortlessly the subplots coalesce with the main plot. Just a word of warning to all those that think they know who did kill the family: you are wrong. She left you a red herring to follow and you sniffedlazily away. Thr poor wrong man goes off to rot, and even the sheriffs dont catch on. Wierd endin, but I loved the book.
More than just a simple murder mystery.......2006-12-19
"The Tarnished Eye" is set in a small town called Blessed, located north of Petoskey, Michigan, an area of big lakes bordered by gorgeous beaches, sand dunes, and forests. The subject matter is an unsolved multiple murder of a wealthy downstate family staying at their vacation home in Northern Michigan, which took place in the 1960s. This fictional account takes place in the twenty-first century however, and DNA and forensics are part of the story. There is and has been a great deal of conflict between long-time locals and wealthy in-comers from downstate in this beautiful and formerly wide-open country. Several times in the book various characters from downstate make remarks to the effect that they are not in Northern Michigan to have a social life with the locals. They have used their money to buy land with million-dollar views but have no interest in becoming part of the community and hold the local population in contempt. Was this wealthy family, headed by a blunt, self-consciously superior outsider, murdered in reprisal for some percieved insult to a local resident? Or is a random maniac on the loose? Sheriff Hugh DeWitt investigates the case on two fronts, in Northern Michigan and in Ann Arbor, a wealthy university town in Southern Michigan, where the murdered family lived a life of influence and privilege. Sheriff DeWitt's counterpart in Ann Arbor is investigating a serial killing (also a true event, the subject of a book entitled "The Michigan Murders"), but offers his own perspective on DeWitt's case. Judith Guest successfully weaves together elements of both cases with the sociological tensions between the privileged and everyone else to create a book that really is more than just a simple murder mystery.
A page turner.......2006-06-17
This book is about an unsolved murder that took place in Michigan during the 1960's. It was very fast paced and was well written. An excellent book for a plane, train, the beach or poolside.
Continues to be a good read.......2006-01-04
I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Guest at a book signing in the fall of 2004 after the hardcover version of this book came out. She was friendly and approachable and the audience enjoyed her visit a great deal. In attendance were fourteen of her sorority sisters from her college days. What a special night it was for them. The overall turnout was excellent, and the audience appreciated Ms. Guest's comments, her discussion of the real stories behind this novel, and her revelation of some of her own life issues. She also shared her thought processes behind certain fictional characters in this book, particularly that of the depressive Sheriff Hugh DeWitt. DeWitt has a difficult time seeing the positive side of anything. That does not change during the course of the story.
Ms. Guest's writing is easygoing and fluid. The book is made up of short, fast-moving chapters. The concept is a little different than the usual mystery novel as Guest includes chapters about the Norbois victims at the time they were alive. Each member of the family has his/her own chapter.
Being from Petoskey, Michigan, and very much aware of the Robison murders (Norbois) and a student at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, during the time of John Norman Collins, I was interested in reading this book from the instant I first heard about it (one of Collins's victims was murdered two blocks from where we lived on campus). When you've been there, a story based on real events looks very different to you than to someone who knows nothing about these events. The Robison murders have never been solved. John Norman Collins remains in prison.
Judith Guest shared with us some of the fears she had about writing this story while the possibility exists that the Robison killer is still out there somewhere (even though she believes there's a connection between the Norbois murders and JNC). She also talked about some of the people still very interested in solving this horrendous crime. Hopefully, this fictionalized version of the real story will lead to that end. A good read.
Carolyn Rowe Hill
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The Tarnished Eye: A Novel of Suspense
Judith Guest
Manufacturer: Thorndike Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book
Police Procedurals
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ASIN: 0786268980 |
Book Description
A New York Times Bestselling Author
In the northern Michigan community of Blessed, Sheriff Hugh DeWitt still grieves for his infant son, who died of SIDS a few years ago. Right up the road, in one of the rich summer cottages, Paige Norbois grieves for the lost love in marriage, though she stays to provide stability for their children. But soon all dreams of stability in Blessed are destroyed when Paige, her husband, and their four children are brutally slaughtered in their home.
Customer Reviews:
Diana Palmer is a great Author.......2007-08-03
I love all of diana palmer books, this was a great book!!!!! I could not put it down once I started reading it!!!!
Lord of the Desert~Great Book.......2006-07-08
I read this book at least once a year of not twice. It's about Sheikh Phillip Sabon & sheltered small town girl Gretchen Brannon. If you love Diana Palmer you'll like this book.
Very entertaining book.......2006-03-16
I thought that this book was really good. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because it was really far-fetched and would NEVER happen in real life. Anyway, Phillppe Sabon is the ruler of Qawi. He is a dark man with a dark past and he has sworn that he would never fall in love again. Gretched Brannon is on a vacation with her friend Maggie. Maggie is supposed to take a job as a secretary for Phillippe. She is suddenly called home to care for her stepbrother who was just hurt in an accident. (Read Desperado) So, Gretchen fills her shoes. At first, she is going to lie and say that she is Maggie, but she is an honest woman and decides to tell the truth. There is someone after Phillippe and wants him to pay for sending him to prison, so Phillippe and anyone around him is in grave danger. Gretchen and Phillippe fall in love and she makes him feel like he is a man again. (He was hurt and told that he could never have sex or father any children) But Gretchen makes him feel desire.
I thought that Phillippe was a great man and very sexy to boot. He is a take charge man and very romantic also. I liked Gretchen, but she talked about Texas way too much. Everytime she opened her mouth, something about Texas came out of it. There is lots of romance and action in this book. It will keep you reading from start to finish.
Must read for die hard DP fans!.......2005-11-03
When i read once in paris where phillipe was first introduced, my heart was aching for him cause he could never have a happily ever after. Then i first came across this book lord of the desert my first reaction was "YESSSSSSSS!!!!!" Thank you Diana for giving Phillippe(That how you spell it?)a wonderful happy ending, no matter how unrealistic. I realise that it is quite unlikely that a man would be able to function sexually when there is extensive damage to that area but i don't care! Books like DP's novels are meant to be an escape form reality and i adore this book sooooo much. I think gretchen is perfect for him, not only becasue she is reminiscent of Brianne, phillipe's former love, but also she was willing to accept his limitations as a man. The sex scenes are quite steamy although i wish DP would stop using the phrase "I've never been this potent!". I've read enough of her books to realise that most of her noveld follow the same pattern and this does, but this is extra special! Everyone should read this!
I love IT..........2005-10-13
When i read a book, I try to pay more attention to the drama that is going on, instead of the geography or linguistic mistakes that are in it...They are romance/fiction books... Im not a high scholar professor that is paying attention to all those little details.....I JUST DONT CARE... I just try to enjoy my book..and I love Diana Palmer Books.. I know they tend idealize the heroine to the perfect naive virgin role.. But I dont care.. they are good anyway...
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DILEMMAS OF THE DESERT WAR: The Libyan Campaign of 1940-1942
Lord Carver (Field Marshal)
Manufacturer: Spellmount Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Libya | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1862271534 |
Book Description
Having written acclaimed accounts of Tobruk and El Alamein, Field Marshal Lord Carver has used newly available first-hand historical resources - including the recently released war diaries and private papers of General Sir Neil Ritchie, the predecessor to Montgomery in command of the Eighth Army - to reassess the story of the British campaign in the North African desert. History shows that several key figures in these battles were wrongly criticised - Carver sets the record straight.
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Hellfire Tonight: The Diary of a Desert Rat
Albert Martin , and
Lord Hailsham
Manufacturer: The Book Guild Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1857760514 |
Average customer rating:
- Little Lords
- Excellent Children's Book
- Little Lords of the Desert
- Little Lords of the Desert
- great first look at the desert
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Little Lords of the Desert
Conrad J. Storad
Manufacturer: Donna Atwood Design
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Nonfiction | Bugs & Spiders | Animals | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Activity Books | Sports & Activities | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Insects & Spiders | Animals | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0966029321 |
Book Description
Little Lords of the Desert is a coloring/learning book of 26 insects and spiders that make their home in southwestern deserts. The book features high-quality illustrations of each creature along with informative text. It is a beautiful coloring book as well as a useful classsroom learning tool for young readers or an inexpensive field guide for desert explorers. The book is bound like an artist's notepad and printed on recycled paper.
Customer Reviews:
Little Lords.......2000-03-10
Beautiful, gorgeous artwork. Highly recommended
Excellent Children's Book.......2000-02-17
The illustrations are great and very likeable to children. I was so pleased to give this book to my nephew for both his entertainment and for educational purposes. I have several other books written by this author and have been pleased with all of them. This is not a typical coloring book. Great job to the author.
Little Lords of the Desert.......2000-02-16
Storad and Atwood have done it again. I hope to take my Colorado kids to the desert this spring so that they can see firsthand all of the wonderful, magical things we have learned about insects and the desert. This book has engaged them and taught them in a way I rarely see in juvenile non-fiction.
Little Lords of the Desert.......2000-02-16
As a teacher of second and third graders I am constantly looking for resources that my students can use while researching science and social studies topics. One of our course of study requirements is to study animals and their habitats. Since we live in Ohio, it is difficult to find information about the desert. Little Lords of the Desert provides accurate information written at an appropriate reading level. My students also gain information from the realistic drawings of the animals. This is an invaluable resource that should be a part of every primary classroom library.
great first look at the desert.......2000-02-08
This coloring book is a great first look at the desert for young children. It is written from a thoughtful, interesting perspective that will appeal to children of all ages who have an interest in science, little critters or the environment.
Average customer rating:
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Aladdin and the wonderful lamp: Based on the Arabian nights tale
Jack Neary
Manufacturer: Baker's Plays
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
United States
| World Literature
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ASIN: B0006F5R0M |
Amazon.com
Jack Vance has specialized in science fiction decadence since his first stories in 1950. This novel's decadent world is called Fader, whose inhabitants have only leisure to pursue since they have a genetically engineered slave class to do their hard work. Fader is threatened by many dangers, but the pleasure-seeking inhabitants are paralyzed by lack of will. Vance has developed his own vocabulary, sometimes tricky to decipher, to convey an alien speech, but the meaning of his invented words emerges as the story unfolds.
Book Description
Found as a child with no memory of his past, adopted by a scholarly couple who raised him as their own, Jaro never quiet fit into the rigidly defined Society of Thanet.When his foster parents are killed in a mysterious bombing, Jaro Fath sets out to discover the truth of his origins--a quest that will take him across light-years and into the depths of the past.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Jaro is a boy that remembers nothing but his name, nothing at all about
his past, who his parents are, or any of that stuff. His foster parents
adopt him after finding him being attacked.
They are a pair of musicians, but Jaro does know what the doesn't want to be a musician, but to get into space.
A few bad jokes here, with all the clubs on the planet - a girl he notices is a clam muffin, for example.
No Sour Grapes Bunch that I remember.
Would you be proud to be a Clam Muffin?.......2005-09-15
During an excursion to record native music on the planet of Camberwell, Hilyer and Althea Fath find a band of hooligans beating a small boy in the street. They intervene and save the boy, taking him to the hospital. The boy won't come out of his coma without tremendous stress, so the doctors erase his memory. The only thing the boy was able to tell them is that his name is Jaro.
The Faths adopt Jaro and take him to their homeworld of Thanet to raise him. Thanet has a complex social structure, of which Hilyer and Althea refuse to participate in, making them "nimps". If a person doesn't belong to a club, and continuously strive to reach a higher level club, they are ridiculed and unaccepted in Thanet's society.
Jaro grows up, a "nimp" like his adopted parents. In his class is Skirlet Hutsenreiter, a "Clam Muffin", one of the most elite clubs. Skirlet has more problems than she lets the outside world know of, therefore she and Jaro strike a shaky friendship. Jaro grows up wanting to be a spaceman, to find out the truth behind his strange past. Hilyer and Althea want him to have an academic career at The Institute.
Because 'Night Lamp' is a story of Jaro's maturing, I won't give away any other details of the story. There are intricately imbedded subplots and schemes that add to the character of the tale. Vance has a way of lulling you into the complacency of Jaro's life and then shocking you with a sudden turn of event. His was of painting new worlds, species, and societies with intricate detail and interesting situations will keep you reading long into the night.
However, about three quarters of the way through this book, the story falls apart. It becomes more than a bit cheesy, uses repetitive dialogue, and IMHO makes a dumb turn that the story would have been better without. Also annoying was mention of a particular package that piqued curiosity and was never revealed.
All in all, you will definitely like 'Night Lamp' if you are a Jack Vance fan. If not, start with 'The Demon Princes' and save 'Night Lamp' for later. Enjoy!
My favorite Vance book..........2003-04-26
This is Vance at his absolute best. Wry humor, imagination, action, great characters, in short, everything a good book needs is right here and done so masterfully! Any Vance is special, this particular Vance is extraordinary. An absolute must-read...
Glorious, quirky, mind expanding, Vance at his best.......2002-05-18
Superbly eerie SF masterwork, there isnt another writer in the world like Vance. To criticise him for not describing the detailed functioning of spacecraft is to totally miss the point of this wonderful, haunting author, easily the finest prose stylist ever to work in the field.
Evocative, imaginative, and creative: vintage Vance.......2002-01-11
Jack Vance is now in his nineties, yet his creativity seems to be unbounded. This book will appeal to both newcomers and those who are already accustomed to Vance's unique style. The (great) story is littered with hundreds of ideas, persons, even whole worlds. Cruelty is always balanced with dry humor, and Vance manages to create believable and likeable (although sometimes quite peculiar) characters. A definite must-read.
Product Description
This large Golden Book features Jim Henson's Sesame Street Muppets.
Product Description
The playing time of this dramatization of the story from the thousand and one nights takes around 1 1/2 hours with intermissions. The characters are Scheherazade, Aladdin, Aladdin's mother, Nuphsed the Camel, the Magician from Morocco, the Princess, the Wazier, and the Slave of the Lamp. There are also a number of extras. There are six scenes with three sets, which may be elaborate or simplified. Stage directions include suggestions for staging, costumes, music, movement, and dance.
Book Description
Traditionally, the human soul is regarded as a nonphysical concept that can only be examined by psychiatrists and theologists. In his new book, The Astonishing Hypothesis, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick boldly straddles the line between science and spirituality by examining the soul from the standpoint of a modern scientist, basing the soul's existence and function on an in-depth examination of how the human brain "sees."
Customer Reviews:
Boring.......2007-09-15
This was a boring and tedious book and I was glad to be done with it. It was very disappointing, as it was basically a rehash of psychology experiments involving vision, with some basic neurobiology thrown in as background. While it is well written, it goes nowhere. There is very little mention of a "soul" until chapter 18, and there is, of course, no mention of a scientific search for it, or research on it. There cannot be. It pains me to think that Crick spent years on this endeavor. The answer he seeks will come only after a long and arduous study of all aspects of the brain, its anatomy and function, as well as that of the neurons that constitute it. While I agree with Crick in what he is trying to show---that the "I" that is each of us, is the activity of neurons. How to demonstrate this is the problem. Instead of working backwards from behavior to structure, it would be more fruitful to begin with DNA---the genes that determine brain structure, from the neurons to the brain's gross anatomy, and try to reach an explanation of behavior based on the molecular biology of the brain. However, the human brain may be too complex and the problem thus too intractable. Start with something simple, a flatworm perhaps, and work up from there.
Eloquent argument.......2007-04-28
I love the part at the very end where Dr. Crick serves some delicious food for thought, making one think, "Gee whiz, maybe these archaic superstitions known as 'The World's Religions' are not based on any logic."
Are the eyes really the window to the soul? .......2007-03-11
Crick claims to be investigating consciousness through the visual system because he believes that the visual system is more amenable to scientific investigation. Those who do not appreciate this tactic, he sniffily claims, do not understand how science operates. It should be clear why it is often necessary to study what can be experimented on first, but this in no way validates this particular strategy. Crick's approach is a lot like trying to understand the mechanics of a car's engine by studying its wheels. Yes, there is a connection, and yes, the wheels are a lot more accessible (especially if you haven't yet figured out how to open the hood). But you won't necessarily learn very much about how the engine actually works.
Closely connected to this difficulty is his refusal to countenance the very question of what consciousness actually is. Of course, not doing so makes his investigation of visual perception as a `mode' of consciousness much more plausible. If one explicitly refuses to define what is under investigation, then investigating almost any related phenomena will do. Unfortunately, this mindset will not actually serve to advance the enterprise very far. Crick uses the glib analogy of a battle: in war, he notes, one will not get far trying to define what a battle is when what is needed are troops and strategy. It should go without saying that this analogy is so deeply flawed as to be useless, except for its intended rhetorical purpose. There is no need to define the battle because that is clearly understood by all out the outset; the same can hardly be said of consciousness. If one does not know what the battle objective is, fighting it well becomes a lot harder. And that is the unfortunate plight of this book.
To be more specific, it seems relatively apparent that whatever else we can say about consciousness, it involves an essentially subjective dimension. Crick makes no mention of this, except to dismiss it as something to be perhaps considered much later. Conversely, it is far from apparent that consciousness must involve visual awareness inherently. Where does this leave blind persons, one might ask? Are they not fully conscious? And today we are close to developing sighted machines, which can process and navigate three-dimensional environments using lasers or stereoscopic video cameras (e.g., the DARPA challenge). Are these machines therefore approaching consciousness? This seems patently absurd.
The book as a whole reeks of a lack of erudition beyond narrow scientific training. We are treated to freshman physiology lessons on neurons, brain areas and basic visual processing, the details which are both not deep enough for real scientific comprehension and far more detailed than necessary for advancing the concepts being discussed. At times, it reads like an undergraduate report in which the student is eager to impress and not let a single fact they have uncovered go unreported - no matter if they actually enlighten the stated aims or not.
In sum, most of the problems with this book could be fixed with a single simple but profound change: change the title to "Primer on Vertebrate Visual Physiology", circa 1995. It probably would not have sold many copies that way, though.
Flawed, but still worth it.......2007-01-18
The astonishing hypothesis referred to in the title of Crick's book is that all of your phenomenological experience is ultimately reducible to "no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." So, just how is consciousness neurally instantiated? What the reader should take away from the book is just how difficult of a question this is.
Francis Crick was a thorough going empiricist and he strongly believed that the experimental method was the only way of successfully tackling the problem of consciousness. Along with his close collaborator, Christof Koch, Crick chose visual awareness (rather than say, self-awareness) as the main point of attack. The reason for this is because the visual system is relatively well understood and much easier to study in the laboratory.
Visual processing is an extremely complex business. Essentially, the visual system has to create a fairly high-fidelity representation of the environment (a model) from an array of heterogeneous light patches falling onto the retina. A staggering number of computational processes need to be performed in order for you to become aware of the final output. These processes operate unconsciously, in massively parallel streams. So, what we finally become aware of (our model) is the end result of a great many hidden computations. Much has been learned about the details in which the various features of a visual scene are decomposed and processed, but what remains a mystery is how we ultimately see something (i.e., become visually aware of it). As Crick says, what is required is an account of our "explicit, multilevel, symbolic interpretation of a visual scene."
"The Astonishing Hypothesis" does not provide anything like a Crick-Koch `theory' of consciousness. In fact, Crick goes to some length to eschew any precise definitions or theories. Any such purported theories, he believed, were pre-mature. (The closest that he comes to presenting some kind of a theory is his `Processing Postulate'). Instead what the book offers is a general strategy for submitting the problem to experimental study. Here the idea is to look for neural signatures of awareness or more technically the neural correlates of consciousness (abbreviated NCCs). In a nutshell (excuse the oversimplification), here is what NCCs are all about: submit to study some visual phenomenon which has an ambiguous interpretation (e.g., the Necker cube which can be perceived in two possible ways) and simultaneously obtain measures of neural activity. Some portion of the neural activity associated with the processing of an ambiguous figure will remain invariant (that portion which corresponds to the unchanging retinal input) while another, minimal portion of the neural activity will vary along with the percept. This variant, minimal portion is a good bet for representing a NCC, a neural signature of awareness. Finding a NCC can also tell us many other interesting things, such as whether or not there any special properties of the neurons in question, whether they are located in particular places or cortical layers and so on. And, a similar mechanism which underlies visual awareness is likely to underlie other forms of awareness. [Note that this addresses what David Chalmers has called the `easy' problem of consciousness and does not touch on the `hard' problem. There is a possibility however that Chalmers' hard problem is ill-posed and that there may in fact not be a hard problem to address].
Crick presents the results of many interesting research studies that bear on the problem of consciousness. He devotes some space to the issue of temporal binding and the 40-Hz oscillation hypothesis (or more precisely, the gamma-band oscillation hypothesis) as well as the potential importance of reverberatory thalamo-cortical circuits (see also the work of Gerald Edelman). Crick also speculates about the possibly important role played by the claustrum in the generation of consciousness (something he thought about a lot just prior to his death). Unfortunately for the general reader, this comes only near the end of the book, after a rather protracted discussion of the psychology and neurobiology of vision. For a reader who is unfamiliar with neuroscience, all the hard work done to get to the final portion of the book may produce a low pay-off. It seems that Crick could have got the main point of the book across just as strongly while omitting some of the technical details along the way. For those who have some familiarity with the subject matter the book will actually be an interesting and concise review but since the work was intended for a general readership one must judge it according to that criterion (and this is one of the book's flaws).
Francis Crick died in 2004. This marked a tremendous loss to the field as Crick was blessed with a brilliant mind and he undoubtedly had it in him to make many more important contributions. He brought his enthusiasm to the study of consciousness and made it a bona-fide scientific problem. For this, among other things, he should be celebrated.
A few final remarks about the book's title are in order. First, "The Scientific Search for the Soul" is a sensationalist title that was more likely than not the publisher's idea. Second: as most of the people working in the neurosciences adopt a materialist perspective (the most famous exception of course was Sir John Eccles), the purported astonishing aspect of the hypothesis has sometimes been questioned. And yet, this idea (that our consciousness, in all its richness, is in some mysterious way the result of biophysical processes) really should be astonishing. It is easy to be familiar with the workings of the brain and still slip into old habits of thought, implicitly believing that there really is some homunculus in the head who is doing all of the perceiving. As Crick says, "A man may, in religious terms, be an unbeliever but psychologically he may continue to think of himself in much the same way as a believer does, at least for everyday matters."
It is interesting to speculate about whether our experience of ourselves would change even in the hypothetical case that we did have a complete neurobiological theory of consciousness.
One of my top 10 favorite science books.......2006-10-19
This is one of the top 10 science books I have ever read. Not a light read, but anybody with a basic grasp of biology and computers should be able to follow along.
Francis Crick plays the quintessential scientist in this book. He puts forward a hypothesis about human consciousness that closely mirrors the philosophies of John Searle: there is no mind-body problem. There is only the body. You, your soul, is basically a complex pattern of neurons in your brain.
Naturally, gathering supporting evidence for such a hypothesis is quite a daunting task. This book does not provide ultimate proof, nor ultimate answers. Rather it presents a large body of promising and highly interesting anecdotal evidence. Since its a huge subject, Crick focuses mainly on how vision affects consciousness. He discusses a good part about the human visual cortex, and neural network theory in computer science.
The book is filled with fascinating stories about people with brain trauma, and how it affected their behavior, their personality... their SOUL.
Did you know that there is a form of blindness, where the people don't know they are blind? Did you know that human free will is probably located in the anterior cingulate sulcus?
If Crick is correct, this scientific journey to understand the soul is a long one: it might take a century. This book is the first step on a very, very long journey, and it might not even be correct. Readers and reviewers must keep this in mind.
To emphasize again, its a HYPOTHESIS. Not a THEORY. So don't expect a ton of supporting evidence. Just a bunch of good ideas, some compelling data, and a good direction for future research.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Antioch Review, published by Antioch Review, Inc. on June 22, 1994. The length of the article is 460 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul.(Brief Article)
Author: Albert B. Stewart
Publication:
The Antioch Review (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1994
Publisher: Antioch Review, Inc.
Volume: v52
Issue: n3
Page: p533(2)
Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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