Customer Reviews

Pathways of the Brain: The Neurocognitive Basis of Language

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"Pathways of the Brain" is one of those rare works of high scholarship that is immediately accessible to the general reader. Painstaking in its explanation of a complex subject, it never plods. Its prose, comprehensible even when addressing the most technical subject matter, rises on delightful occasion to dry wit. A lesson for academics too lazy to write well and a must-read for anybody -- expert and layperson alike -- fascinated by the miracle of human language: I highly recommend it.

Here is a book that transcends the perceived complexity of its subject because Professor Sydney Lamb engages readers with his approach. He tells us that to study a piece of glass we must look at it, not through it! And right there, being a poet rather than a linguistics specialist, I was hooked. It has been for me like going to the vaulted sanctum where the archives of knowledge are kept, and finding a note on the door saying, "The door's not locked--come in."

There is a philosophical thread of humor that runs through this book. It shows up in numerous methaphors and similitudes, which are--after all--the most profoundly effective means of communicating with any newcomer to specialized material. They encourage the reader to understand things that may not seem too complex to the author because he has already solved the puzzle. More than once I thought, this is like listening to Joseph Campbell talking about The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers.

I think Pathways To The Brain lives up to its claim that it will engage the mind of any thoughtful person interested in language or the brain.

Sydney Lamb deals with one of the most fuzzy areas of linguistics with astonishing clarity in his attempt to systematically examine language from the standpoint of the very networks which researchers believe to represent the brain's system of retaining and accessing knowledge. As Lamb points out, traditional studies in linguistics tend to either ignore or simplify the way language symbols and relationships are represented to the listener or speaker. There is not, as Lamb states, a little piece of paper and pencil in the mind on which we scribble new vocabulary or grammatical rules; rather these are stored within the neural networks themselves.

Lamb goes further than most dealing with such a speculative field would; he details a theory of language representation from clear base principles and using clear diagrams and explanations builds a theory worthy of serious study and analysis.

I've checked this book out from my university's library a few times as I find it so captivating. It's unfortunate that a 400 page paperback book costs $80 these days. I'd love to have a copy on my bookshelf but the price is far too exhorbant.