Book reviews: ‘A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness’ and ‘On Morrison’

‘A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness’ by Michael Pollan

“Michael Pollan is upfront about what his latest book won’t do,” said Tiffany Ap in Bloomberg. A World Appears “doesn’t settle the age-old debate between those who believe subjective experience can be reduced to the electrochemical chatter of neurons and those who suspect something more ineffable is at work.” Even for the best-selling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, the mystery of the subject is too difficult to crack. By his count, there are currently 106 competing theories of consciousness. Instead of using his book to make a case for any one of them, he takes us along on a quest for understanding that “pushes the reader to become more conscious”—more aware that it’s miraculous both that “a world appears” every time we wake from sleep and that no one yet has fully explained how or why.

“A good chunk of A World Appears is devoted to a useful elucidation of the differences between sentience, feelings, thought, and the self,” said Laura Miller in Slate. Like humans, Pollan reminds us, plants have sentience, in that they sense the particulars of their surroundings and can respond accordingly. Moving on, he defines feelings as physical processes that produce mental experiences and defines thought as all the content that streams through our minds during our waking hours. As in his previous books, Pollan employs a travelogue approach to exploring these topics, conversing with a bevy of experts, including neuroscientists, philosophers, and artists of various kinds. Unfortunately, his chosen current subject “does not lend itself to this kind of journalism.” The nature of consciousness is just too elusive, and when he turns to the question of whether the self is an illusion, “things get especially vaporous.” We’ve taken a journey—“one that effectively leaves us right where we started.”

Other books have delivered “more lucid and arresting introductions to this subject,” said Charles Finch in The Atlantic. Still, “Pollan’s real genius—the word is not too strong—remains intact.” As he proved with his explorations of human nutrition and the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, he possesses an “uncanny” ability to “scent the direction in which the culture is headed.” That talent shines through when this book pushes back against the notion that AI is anywhere close to replicating consciousness. Though Pollan hesitates to claim that a fundamental aspect of human capability and human experience remains beyond science’s reach, A World Appears closely maps out such a territory. By doing so, it “steals back some of the sensation of miraculousness that this era has largely outsourced to technology.”

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‘On Morrison’ by Namwali Serpell

Toni Morrison is easily misjudged, said Sam Sacks in The Wall Street Journal. Though the 1993 Nobel laureate is routinely celebrated for centering the experiences of Black women in her novels, her “true genius” was as a stylist. Critic and fellow novelist Namwali Serpell apparently feels the same way, because her new book seeks to shift readers’ focus from Morrison’s sociological significance to her artistic achievements. As Serpell pores over Morrison’s body of work, she highlights how Morrison put herself in conversation with prior writers, including by adopting and furthering the evasions and fragmented perspectives of William Faulkner’s fiction. The effort pulls Morrison out of “sanctified solitude” and “into the busy fold of canonized American writers, whose difficult books demand to be debated and compared, and, most of all, to be reread.”

“I have waited years for this book,” said Laila Lalami in The Guardian. As Serpell notes in her introduction, one of the reasons Morrison’s novels are more often read in African American Studies classes than in Comp Lit is because they are difficult to read and difficult to teach. But Serpell “does Morrison the respect of reading her seriously,” probing her narrative strategies and her language choices, admiring the novels that deserve admiration and criticizing Morrison’s lesser writing, such as her poetry. As a result, On Morrison “works on many levels: as a study of craft, as a critical appraisal, and as a tribute to an artist who was difficult in all the right ways.”

As Serpell argues and wrestles with Morrison, “she might be having the time of her life,” said Wesley Morris in The New York Times. Whether she’s spotlighting the comedy in Song of Solomon or the names in Sula or the significance of numbers in Paradise, “Serpell’s excitement, her sense of discovery and dismay, become yours.” Familiar texts suddenly feel new again, and Serpell’s “ingenious connections—of Morrison to Nabokov, to Ellison, to Disney, to the ancient Greeks—inspire you to do your own connecting.” Even when Serpell expresses disappointments, she “cuts because she cares.” You finish the book thrilled that Morrison (1931–2019) isn’t just a cultural icon. Even under sharp scrutiny, “St. Toni holds up.”