Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 9 Number 2, August 2008
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Dames, Nicholas. The Physiology of the Novel: Reading, Neural Science, & the Form of Victorian Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, 288 pgs. ISBN 978-0-19-920896-8, $110.00 (hardback), not available (softback).
Reviewed by
Bergen Community College
(I am a theoretical psychologist with a professional background in the areas of cognition and psychobiology. Although my knowledge of aesthetic theory is limited, reading this book has expanded my appreciation of the complex realm that is the interface of art and psychology.)
Nicholas Dames has produced an interdisciplinary study of Physiological Novel theory that is both intricate and insightful. The author has masterfully intertwined classic studies in psychophysics, scientific musicology, ocular physiology, and psychometrics with histories of literary and aesthetic theories and sociological issues and findings. The following are
brief descriptions of the major ideas of his work.
Physiological Novel theory has historically been more of a “fringe”area of study that encompasses findings from several disciplines and sub-disciplines simultaneously. Broadly, this theory includes ideas coming from a aesthetic theory, physiological psychology, and the sociology of the mass reading public. Scholars of Physiological Novel theory seek to understand the neuropsychological processes stimulated in the reader during the reading act. Generally, the internal cognitive patterns that are generated are intertwined with the ‘form” of the novel. In other words, the ways in which the particular author “molds” his/her text has a tendency to arouse the nervous system, affecting the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of the reader in certain (often desired) ways. Also, these scholars are interested in how the writing and reading of novels of particular forms can both shape the brain and mind of members of a society, as well as how societal change can persuade if not dictate the forms that novels could or should take. (These differences may be related to political issues such as the tendency to keep readings habits and tastes of the upper and lower classes separate, as well as to broader socio-historical issues such as generational increases in mass consumption.)
Why novel-reading as the psychological act of study? According to Dames, “…it is because the novel works as an effective control for the experiment, guaranteeing a large percentage of identical responses, its readers washed away into the vaguer and more statistically reliable contours of the reading public. Again, the novel-reader is the general reader, produced by the machinery of the genre that consumes her: a form of sensations that is registered by the most mechanical aspects of our cognitive apparatus.” (p. 68)
Dames has introduced detailed accounts of the development of four “practices of reading” in mid-to-late 19th century Victorian fiction. According to Dames, these forms do not represent “the stylistic ubiquity of novelistic prose” (p. 220), but instead more represent forms of novel writing and reading that challenge the human nervous system to explore its natural tendencies and well as its limits of processing. (For instance, do patterns of repetition associated with the Elongated form remind people in general to pay attention or cater only to those neurologically capable of such sustained attention in the first place?) The following are brief descriptions of each of these four forms.
The Intermittent form. Here, readers as well as (the author) Thackeray’s characters themselves oscillate between “…attentiveness and distraction, or alertness and obliviousness… ‘Attention’, in Thackeray, is constantly in danger of slipping into its supposed opposite…” (p.77) This is so through “…the largest movement of his plots as well as in the operations of the small scenes…” (p.83)
The Elongated form. Here, readers as well as (the author) Eliot’s characters themselves experience protractions in time that challenge the cognitive system. With regard to certain quotations made by one of Eliot’s characters, Dames writes, “Gwendolyn’s speech, in fact, reads like nothing so much as the ordinary, nervously compulsive talk of someone uncomfortable with feeling time passing, or of someone in a hurry.” (p.159)
The Discontinuous form. Here, readers as well as (the author) Meredith’s characters themselves are challenged to notice the smallest perceptible change in experience. Dames writes, “The slightest of physical movements--the shutting of the eyelids, the lifting of the brow--are the scene’s determinants, far more so than the spoken dialogue, which, while balder than the minute adjustments of facial expression, is less effective at conveying intention.” (p.201)
The Accelerated form. Here, readers as well as (the author) Gissing’s characters themselves are continuously confronted with issues of rapidity, on personal as well as societal levels. Dames writes, “His ‘fast’ characters age quickly, are possessed of more rapid heartbeats and sensitive nervous systems, and talk and act more quickly, and less deliberately, than others.” (p.236)
During the first quarter of the 20th century, Physiological Novel theory was briefly re-applied to poetry writing and reading rather than to the novel.