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    Andrew's Brain
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    Andrew's Brain
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    Andrew's Brain
    Audiobook3 hours

    Andrew's Brain

    Written by E.L. Doctorow

    Narrated by E.L. Doctorow

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is talking, telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateMay 1, 2014
    ISBN9781471262890
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Andrew's Brain

    3/5

    263 ratings78 reviews

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    • 4/5
      E.L. Doctorow always writes interesting books, so I was happy to receive this through Library Thing's Early Reviewers. The book is an exploration of events as they occured in Andrew's brain. He is a cognitive scientist and this is his view. The doctor asks pertinent questions at times to provide information and continuity. The writing is very descriptive and helps bring the images to life. It was far-fetched at times, but overall is an engrossing story.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to enjoy this book, I did not. Andrew's Brain is a book about an unreliable (and creepy) narrator, discussing his life to a third party. Check for other reviews as I am probably in the minority in my thinking.
    • 2/5
      Never having read E.L. Doctorow, I have nothing to compare previous writings. Since he is so well known and published and has been writing for 45 years, does that make me an illiterate literate? I apologize, Mr. Doctorow, for not having known of your works. Andrew, a cognitive scientist, begins speaking in the third person, then after the presumed psychiatrist speaks, Andrew changes to a first person narrative: a bit odd, but keeps you on your toes. When the psychiatrist named Doc spoke, I found myself thinking some of the same 'psychiatric' phrases and became involved in Andrew's life. I would mutter the same phrase after Andrew's stories, waiting for his replies. This was a bit eerie. Most of the conversations are disjointed making it hard to follow but usually Doc keeps Andrew on track helping to resolve issues and be a sounding board. After all of the dreams, imaginings, real life Andrew stories and the many references to Mark Twain, we realize this ultra smart scientist has a heart and could be any one of us. Doctorow's writing is so beautifully descriptive that sometimes it was hard to believe this was a scientist (stereotype) speaking. A career choice in the field of cognitive science could be a physhiatrist, so was Andrew really speaking to somone else or was he, in his own mind, trying to justify his life? Not the best writing or plot for me. I received this ARC from Random House
    • 3/5
      I finished this book almost two weeks ago and struggled for those two weeks wondering what I would write about this novel, how I would rate it and what I actually think about it on a personal level. The one thing I can say with certainty before I commence the review is that a reader will either love or hate this book. There is no in between.The story is told from the point of view on Andrew, college professor who teaches cognitive science and who has an interest in the workings of the brain. He speaks throughout the book to an unknown, unnamed interviewer who may be a psychiatrist or doctor. His voice is only infrequently heard when he asks clarifying questions – questions which are rarely or never answered with any clarity at all.Andrew tells his own life story. He interprets his life in terms of having bad luck or being the creator of bad experiences that befall him and those around him. Beyond saying this, there is really no possible way to describe the story without spoiling it and the book itself is not long. So the following are observations that will help you decide whether this book is for you or not.The idea is that the narrations we create for ourselves are unreliable and tainted by our own physical shortcomings with regard to our brains. Is what we remember actually accurate as to the events of our life? What role does brain chemistry, brain structure and science play? Can anything science has really measure with any accuracy or reliability the human experience which itself is built on immeasurables like love, faith, sadness, happiness and a host of other emotions?This is not a typical Doctorow novel with historical figures although there are historical events that do play a part in this story. Every action, every part of the story is seen only through Andrew's eyes and heard only through Andrew's narration. There is not a lot of scope to explore as a reader other viewpoints so throughout the book, you constantly have to ask yourself Is this the truth? Or only Andrew's truth? Is there really any truth other than our own when telling our life story? How do others perceive it who feel they have pertinent truths to our life story? Ultimately, the book has a reader asking themselves a lot of questions and there are no real answers.I think people who are scientifically minded will enjoy the book because it will challenge what they believe science can prove. I think those who base their beliefs on faith will be challenged because there are scientific facts that do explain certain things but neither viewpoint can explain it all. As for my own rating...I am a navel gazer so books that resound with me tend to be owns where introspection continue after I finish the book. I give this book 3 ½ stars. The ideas are better than the actual story. Book clubs may find it a good discussion generator but it will be a discussion less about the book and more about the questions it raises. There are lots of Doctorow books that offer a much better and richer look at what this author is capable of writing.
    • 3/5
      E. L. Doctorow not at his best. The protagonist, Andrew, played the ¨ helpless victim¨ card too, too often, and I found myself not liking him very much.
    • 5/5
      I still mourn the death of E. L. Doctorow some 16 months ago. I figured the best medicine was a doss of his wonderful novels. What I most admire about Doctorow is the wide variety of subjects he tackles. In this work, the title character, Andrew, is a cognitive scientist teaching at a university. As far as I know Andrew’s Brain is his fifteenth, and most likely, his last work. It is also one of his most engrossing and interesting novels.From the first page, I had an unusual sense of bewilderment. The lack of quote marks and “he saids” got me thinking, searching my brain to untangle the mystery. As I tunneled further into the book, I thought he was talking to a therapist, then, I thought, maybe he chats with himself, and finally, was he talking to his own brain? Andrew was fond of “thought experiments” much like Einstein, Galileo, and Newton. This indicates to me Andrew is something of a genius. Early in the first chapter, he poses a thought experiment which disturbed his students. Doctorow wrote, “I asked this question: How can I think about my brain when it’s my brain doing the thinking? So is this brain pretending to be me thinking about it?” (34). Andrew “then picked up [his] books and walked out of the room” (35). This stopped me as though I had run into a brick wall. I read the passage again and spent the next 30 minutes trapped in a Möbius loop of understanding. Excellent stretching and strengthening for my brain muscle!Another interesting experiment is about a quarter of the way through the novel. Doctorow wrote, “I was just thinking. Suppose there was a computer network more powerful than anything we could imagine. // What’s this? // never mind a network, just one awesome computer, say. And because it was what it was, suppose it had the power to record and store the acts and thoughts and feelings of every living person on earth once around per millisecond of time. I mean, as if all of existence was data for this computer – as if it was a storehouse of all the deeds ever done, the thoughts ever though, the feelings ever felt. And since the human brain contains memories, this computer would record these as well, and so be going back in time through the past even as it went forward with the present” (44-45). I am not sure if I should make myself an aluminum hat or worry about the NSA – or both!Andrew falls in love with a young woman, Briony. She takes him to meet her parents. Andrew describes the event to whoever is listening. He writes, “Sounds as if you were having a good time. // Well, I saw how Briony loved her parents’ routine, laughing and clapping for something she must have seen a hundred times. Watching her lifted me into a comparable state of happiness. As if it had arced brain to brain. This was a pure, unreflective, unselfconscious emotion. It had taken me by surprise and was almost too much to bear – happiness. I felt it as something expressed from my heart and squeezing out my eyes. And I think as we all laughed and applauded at the end of the soft-shoe number I may have sobbed with joy. And I was made fearless in the in that feeling, it was not tainted by anxiety” (77). Maybe this is how true love can be indentified – two brains arcing across each other, flooding the brain with joy and happiness, while relieving stress and anxiety. Andrew’s Brain, by E.L. Doctorow is one of the best novels I have read in 2016. Not familiar with Doctorow? No problem. Of ten of his fifteen novels, only one slid from 5 stars to four. This novel is decidedly 5 stars.--Jim, 11/23/16
    • 3/5
      Andrew considers himself as an agent of disaster. More than once in his life he has inadvertently set events in motion that had grave consequences. In this books he tells about some of these events and the impact they had on his life.

      This is a stream of consciousness that takes us back and forth between events, sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third person. At first this is all very confusing, but the further we get into the book the more the storyline emerges until it all comes together in a final revelation that puts the whole situation into context. It feels as though the book is still growing on me.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed it until it was over, when I thought, "That's it?" Ultimately disappointing.
    • 5/5
      Reading along Andrew's thoughts was very interesting. He tells his story as an adult in jumping forth and back just like his thoughts which are jumping around be it in memories that are triggered by a word or thought. Not always it can be interrupted by the doctor especially if he clings to a train of thought. There are moments which are funny on the other hand it is clear that Andrew is a prisoner of his trauma which he shares with many people.I liked this story very much and can strongly recommend it.
    • 2/5
      I generally enjoy Doctorow, but I couldn't get into this book, though I tried several times. It is very disjointed, the main character is not likable, and the plot (such as it is) is based on a series of unpleasant events. I appreciate dystopian books, but this one didn't do it for me.
    • 3/5
      I listened to this book while doing some craft projects. I had read many reviews about this book when it first came out. I have mixed emotions towards this book because it skipped from one subject to the next sibject to fast for me to keep up. I did like the emotions Andrew had towards the other characters. Once I got used to the fast changes of subject, I enjoyed the story a lot more. This book did make me stop and reflect on my own life. I am giving it a middle rating because the author left to many loose ends.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding book, needed 4 readings!
    • 2/5
      I received this book through the early reviewers program, but only just got around to reading it this week. I'm really not sure what to make of it. I've read Ragtime and liked it, so I was expecting something similar from E.L. Doctorow. However, this is a very different book. Instead of a cast of characters, this book tells the story of just one: Andrew, a cognitive scientist. He recounts a difficult life in which he accidentally poisoned his young daughter, got divorced, lost his second wife on 9-11, and ends up working for the President. It's difficult to know which of these things are true. My best guess is that Andrew is a psych patient who has made up most of this story. Unfortunately, the truth is never revealed, which makes the book a very unrewarding read. I'm not sure if Andrew has a psychiatric illness or is just a weird, unlucky guy, but either way I didn't really like him all that much.
    • 1/5
      We're all Pretenders, Doctor, even you. Especially you. Why are you smiling? Pretending is the brain's work. It's what it does. The brain can even pretend not to be itself.There has got to be someone somewhere that will love this book but unfortunately I am not that person. Immediately when I finished this I felt like writing a scathing review of it but after calming myself down I am just going to do a short (calm, and respectful) review for this quick read. This started off reading like my philosophy textbook from my college class that I took, then it read like a textbook on the human brain, and finally it was like reading a liberal anti George W. Bush speech. Quite frankly I am still baffled on how we managed to move from Andrew, the main character, being a professor and teaching these complex things to ending up at the White House. I just didn't know what to make of Andrew and did not like him ever while reading the book. This book was just frustrating throughout. Quite honestly, the best thing about this book is that it was short (oh geez, I am starting on my scathing review now). I can't even imagine who I would recommend this book to but it clearly was not meant for a person like me.
    • 2/5
      I listened to this audio in one sitting, trying to understand it. It was short, just over three hours. I replayed several parts over and over, trying to understand the point. I fear I missed some of it.A man is speaking to what appears to be a psychiatrist, but could just as easily have been an imaginary friend, an alter ego, a prison guard, a lawyer, or himself. He is pretending, at first, to be speaking about a friend, but the reader quickly learns that it is Andrew, indeed, who is narrating.Andrew, presumably, is an expert on the brain. He is well educated with a diploma from an Ivy League school, probably Yale, if the person he alludes to at the end as his roommate, was really the President of the United States, none other than “W”. The reader will wonder if he is sane, perhaps schizophrenic, out of touch with reality, or simply telling a bizarre tale based in reality. Without intending to, Andrew seems to unwittingly leave death and destruction in his wake, and he has naively brought the hammer down upon his own head, if he is telling the truth.His character Andrew, tells his tale piece-meal and at times it sounds like half-truths. He has visions, hears voices and believes they are real or symbols representing reality. He speaks to this same character over a period of years, sometimes in different places, not in person, but by phone.When tragedy strikes his world, Andrew and his wife, Martha, split up. Eventually, he falls in love again with one of his students, Briony, and he enjoys a loving relationship. When tragedy once again strikes him, on what the reader will assume is 9/11 from hints given, he resorts to previous behavior and runs away from responsibility. However, Andrew always seems to be an accident waiting to happen. When he walks his dog, it is captured by a hawk, when he goes sledding and a car avoids hitting him, it kills the driver instead. Everyone he seems to interact with is dysfunctional in some way or in some way suffers from something extraordinary.While the surface novel is simple: man suffers and man makes mistakes and man pays for his mistakes, real or imaginary, physically, psychologically, emotionally or mentally, there seems to be a more profound meaning. The reader simply has to discover it. Is Andrew often misjudged or is he living in an alternate universe? Did the stories he relates really take place or are they figments of his imagination? Where is Andrew in the end? Is he a prisoner? Is he a free man? Is he an enemy combatant?Although he does not name President Bush and his staff by name, it is obvious that he is referring to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and he dislikes them, disrespects them, believes they are ill-prepared and inept at their jobs, and that they betray him, in the end, causing his imprisonment as if he had been nothing but a plaything. In fact, I thought the author’s portrayal was a bit insulting, and I don’t believe he would portray the current President in that same way, though he could well have, since the book was published in 2013, well into the current President’s service. An author who has a main character who is an academic, can safely be assumed to most likely be liberal in his beliefs, so once again, an author has taken the opportunity, or the liberty, to use his bully pulpit to put forth his own one-sided political views, which I believe unfairly and incorrectly influences the readers and forces them to swallow the author’s bias without presenting both sides of the issue.Be that as it may, Doctorow reads his book quite well, with expression, but his voice is gravelly, not resonant, and that made him sound a little tired and not quite that into the reading of it. It was interesting to try and figure out what was happening between the characters and guess the purpose of the conversations between the patient/client/doctor/attorney.
    • 4/5
      This is an interesting novel. E. L. Doctorow is a master at his craft. This is a deceptively simple, short novel (200 pages). The narrator, Andrew, provides a variety of perspectives for his narrative. The story unfolds through dialogue with his psychiatrist, first person narrative, and third person narrative. The shifting perspectives help to emphasize the broken mind that is dealing with the multiple tragedies in his life. These include the death of a child, a broken marriage, a faltering career, the death of a second spouse, the abandonment of a second child, and the loss of the fundamental human rights the narrator is accustomed to having. The differences between the mind and the brain are explored and used to enhance the story. The ending of the novel is unexpected, but provides a nice political commentary on the world in which we live. Doctorow also forces the reader to acknowledge the unreliability of the narrator, memory, story-telling, and wish-fulfillment. This novel deserves to be read twice to help understand all of the nuances contained within it. Highly recommended!
    • 3/5
      I did not have a great connection to this book. It left me somewhat confused with the narrative sometimes slipping into third person then back. The entire book is a dialog between Andrew and someone named Doc (is it a psychiatrist, or his own consciousness, or...) Is it about lost love or is it a political statement? I believe its a book I might go back to at some point and read again, no doubt discovering new pieces to the puzzle in doing so, and yet my TBR list is so long, I don't know if I would want to take the time. It certainly didn't hold me enraptured in the way his last effort "Homer and Langley" did. If you can only have one E.L. Doctorow book.... no I can't give an example here because there are too many "must have" E.L. Doctorow books - this just isn't one of them.
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to like this book. I have read several other Doctorow books and loved them., especially THE MARCH. This one was just a little too weird for me. I couldn't get into it. One of my friends read it at my request and said "It was interesting. It was short." So, not a lot of love for this one. Sorry.
    • 3/5
      This was unlike other books I have read by Doctorow. It seems like he just tossed this one off. It was a decent enough read but it helped that it was short. Don't think I could have read this as a long book. If you are interested in Doctorow, I would not read this one. It is stricktly for Doctorow fans.
    • 4/5
      My copy was a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.From the moment on the first page when Andrew hands the baby of his second marriage over to the care of his first wife, I was hooked. "...she reached out, gently took the swaddled infant, stepped back, and closed the door in his face."As he tells his disjointed story to a therapist one begins to wonder how much of it is actually true. But in Andrew's brain (mind) it is all too true. Some of it is plausible, some seems fantasy.But I was held by wondering what happened next? (Or what did Andrew think happened next?) Will he ever be able to sort it out? Will I? How reliable is anyone's memory?I have read and liked several of Doctorow's books. This one is different, but I liked it.
    • 4/5
      Andrew's Brain is not at all like Doctorow's earlier works. It is a significant change for him. It is structured as sessions with Andrew's shrink and a retelling of his life through those sessions. I can imagine that a devotee of Doctorow may not like this book but it is intriguing and satisfying. I read it twice in the same day.
    • 4/5
      Read aloud by Doctorow himself, this short novel inhabits the mind of the narrator as he relates his story inn a circular fashion. Tragedy has seemed to follow Andrew all his life, and with his professional knowledge of of the brain and personality his recounting takes on multiple levels of meaning.
    • 4/5
      This book had a large swell of popularity of late with its addition to several most anticipated book lists of 2014. I received this book through the early reader program, but subsequently misplaced it for several months, which turned out to be a shame. While not revolutionary, the stream of conscience style can and has been tried by writers normally with a less than great record of achievement. I found Andrews conversation with himself or his therapist entertaining, and full of thoughts for personal reflection. The pain that Andrew feels, came through via the words, the clinical view of the world, of a character that knows his flaws and is either too scared to fix them or incapable, I do not know, but a great read and story the same. I will definitely read this again in a bit, to see I if the initial infatuation grows to a relationship, much like einstein's dreams or the dub liners which have become book friends of mine that I will read, even though the words are all but memorized and the story lines known. Please take a chance on this book, it is well written, and does not waste words to plump up the page count like many books do these days.
    • 3/5
      Many questions remain after finishing Doctorow's latest book, Andrew's Brain. Andrew is brilliant, troubled and grieving, but those are the only certainties I know. The trip into his mind is alternately clarifying and confusing. I am a long-time Doctorow fan, but this is not one I could recommend unconditionally.I am grateful to Goodreads for the opportunity to read this book.
    • 3/5
      Andrew's Brain is my first book by E.L. Doctorow and, after putting it down, I'm a bit torn on if I would like to check out his back list. I'm really torn because on one hand I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative style and the unreliable narrator, but on the other hand I never felt as if the story was going somewhere with enough urgency to keep my attention from wandering - and wander it did. Still, I got through the book in a decent amount of time by sheer will, it's such a short read I felt guilty every time I put it down. To its credit, every time I picked it back up I ended up thinking, "ah - oh yes, he does write very well and what will happen next?" I hate it when books make me torn like that.Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Jan. 4, 2014.
    • 2/5
      A Doctorow You Can Duck One of the oddities you will notice if you read this new novel from Doctorow is the repetition of a single word in brackets sprinkled throughout the text, i.e., [thinking]. It is a persistent and persnickety interpolation. It pops up a total of 25 times in a text that is short and slight. The repetitive gerund floats; it could refer to Andrew’s Brain at work, to the analyst who endures listening to his rambling exhalations, or to a draft of the novel, which the Advanced Reader’s Edition could be, a sort of stalking horse for a finished product which Doctorow has yet to complete. Somewhere in Homer and Langely, the author’s 2009 novel, Doctorow implies a degree of boredom with his narrative of the reclusive brothers. Here he leaves that escape door wide open for the reader. It is tempting. But I slogged through this to the end, finding myself unengaged by elements in Andrew’s experience that he is enamored of: two former wives,(one divorced, one dead); an infant he’s left alone with; his dreams; his analyst who needs to ask frequently, “Who are we talking about now? and “What who said?”; and his opinions about the differences between the mind and the brain since he is a cognitive scientist. All of these are experienced as afflictions. But none of these accounts is more momentous (to him) than his rediscovery by his college roommate, the President (Bush), who takes him from his gig teaching high school science to the White House where Andrew is utilized as a sort of advisor. That role puts him into contact with “Chaingang” and “Rumbum,” amusing parodies of Bush’s right hand guys, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Andrew gets himself ejected from the seat of power by performing a handstand at a meeting in the Oval Office. An action akin to Doctorow placing this garrulous, goofy puppet in the reader’s face. Whack him aside. And pick up almost anything else by this accomplished American fiction writer who,in this novel, has uncharacteristically tossed off puffery.
    • 4/5
      It's hard to say why I read this book to the end, but I certainly am glad I did. There's something in the mystery of the narrator in the beginning that grabs (sorry that some reviewers have spoiled that mystery a bit), but it's more than that - it's an atmosphere of expectation (anxiety?) that won't let you set the book down until it's done. Which means you get to follow Andrew's involuntary free associations, tangents, and time-line wanderings as he seems determined to talk about his story without actually telling his story. This is not as frustrating as it may sound - it's more like how most of us think about things over the course of a few days. And when it's done, you've not only enjoyed Doctorow's wonderful prose, but Andrew will become quite real to you, and you'll know without a doubt why Andrew's brain is of such interest.Os.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant! Spend a few hours inside the mind/brain of cognitive neuroscientist?........multiple personalities?......inadvertent disaster catalyst?......Andrew! Doctorow's use of language is masterful as he leads us on a quest for meaning, which after survival, is paramount to us humans. Just read it!
    • 3/5
      I was excited to receive this as an early review because I have read several of Doctorow's books and have really liked them all. This was disappointing. The writing is excellent but I had a difficult time following the story and never connected with Andrew, or cared about him. Doctorow does build the story and at the end you understand why he started the story where he did in Andrew's life and you get where he was going. But, by the time I got to the end I didn't care and just wanted it to be done. Fortunately it is not a long book but I struggled to stay with it.
    • 3/5
      Andrew is a cognitive scientist, and a teacher. So he ponders and promulgates questions like "when and how does the brain become the mind?". We find him reviewing his life with a minimally participatory listener, who occasionally asks the kind of questions one expects of a therapist. Episodes of Andrew's life are revealed to the reader in seemingly erratic order, and his narrative begins to feel first unreliable, and ultimately bizarre. Did he cause the death of his child or is he merely "responsible" for it in some moral construct of his mind? Is he detained for psychological evaluation, or undergoing therapy of his own volition? Where is he? Was he really roomies with George W. Bush as an undergrad? And did that handstand in the Oval Office actually happen? Doctorow keeps the reader slightly off-balance throughout, and this novel would probably benefit from a re-reading. Unfortunately, I didn't care enough to give it that much more time, and I rate this low on the list of Doctorow novels I have read.