Book Review-Proust and the Squid By Maryanne Wolf

I read about this book some time ago. I didn't think it would be of interest to me at the time, but I bought the book anyways, as the topic piqued my curiosity enough so that I figured I might be interested later. True to form, I gained interest in the subject over time because of my interest in cognitive sciences. As I became more interested in how our brain learns, I came to appreciate the complexities of how human do what we do, which led to my interest in reading and this book, as reading is one of the most complicated skill to acquire.

Parenthetically, I was also reading Mortimer Adlers’ How to Read a Book (Adler, 1972) and Alberto Manguel’s  A History of Reading (Manguel, 1996) in parallel with reading Proust and the Squid. The three books covered the topic of reading from differing vantage points, so they complemented each other well in my mind, giving me great perspective.  I am now reading Marianne Wolf's second book Reader, Come Home (Wolf, 2018) to follow up on her work. The idea was to practice what Adler calls synoptic reading; this is to train myself to think deeply as Wolf talks about, because our mind is evolving as we  think deeply as we read broadly. Indeed, reading multiple books on the same topic has been not just enjoyable but also very good training.

Returning to this book, Proust and the Squid is split into three parts. Part One describes how our civilization developed language; a critical point that Wolf makes clear is that human brains  were never designed to read. The ability to read evolved as our brain adapted to synthesize many different parts of our neuro structure to integrate invented written language into our cognition. We learned to use the parts that had other principal functions that are necessary for survival and recruiting the  disparate parts of the brain for the purpose of becoming better at reading and to gain better understanding of what we read and write. We were able to take the original functions of those parts of the brain and synthesize them into developing coherent systems of writing and reading.  This was an extremely clever and significant development in our evolution; different cultures developed these abilities independently, as the different cultures were isolated from one another, which was surprising and serves to give ample proof to the concept of neuroplasticity.  A sampling of different languages shows that some are pictographic in nature, others are based upon sounds, and other languages are based on assigning meaning to the writing rather than just be based on the sound or appearance, which demonstrates how powerful our brain is in adapting to differing cultural needs. This section naturally leads into Parts Two of the book.

Part Two is a tutorial on how the brain learned to read over time. This was the main reason for my interest in reading the book. Chapters Four through Six told the story of how reading developed throughout history and how the brain developed and evolved into the reading and thinking machine. The key point that Wolf drummed into the reader as she beautifully told the story of reading is the fact that as we read more, the better we can think; and the better we are able to think, the better we are able to read and the more we can understand through reading. A positive feedback loop between reading and thinking. abilities. Yet another important point within the Part 2 is that we are shaped by what we read and how we read; which also affects how well we can understand and analyze what we read, a symbiotic relationship.

Part 3, on dyslexia — what happens when the reading brain of some people does not work the same way for the rest of us — was the part of the book that I was the least enthusiastic about tackling. Dyslexia and reading problems were never on my radar, it never piqued my interest, yet I found this part of the book,  Chapters seven and eight, fascinating, it is almost my favorite part of this book.

I had never studied dyslexia, how the brain  deviated from its usual reading process when people are dyslexic. I had thought of it as being somewhat mysterious, being an electrical engineer,  I always thought in terms of a short circuit somewhere. Part 3 of this book not only delineated all of the results from the theories and studies about dyslexia, it also reflected back on Part 2 of the book: how we learned how to read. The referral to Part 2 made Part 3 understandable, and Part 3 reinforced the narrative that Part 2 told. The two parts created a cohesive picture. I could not help but be riveted.

Chapter 9 is the conclusion chapter, which is where the author explains herself: the reasons for writing the previous eight chapters. She lays out the specific issues that raised alarms for her as a researcher in psychology and cognition, as well as a public intellectual that is alarmed about where our  society and culture is heading as far as reading and writing are concerned.

The first eight chapters set the stage by telling the reader the story of how we came to be readers and writers.  The final chapter interlaces the major themes and details of the fist eight into a well-knit argument, which served to be a warning about where our reading evolution is headed and by implication, where our ability to think is headed.

This book changed my mind about many things;  I learned all that I could handle about how closely coupled thinking and reading are and the extrapolation of that coupling could lead us in the future if our reading skills continues undisturbed down this present path.

I am just a very interested amateur in the neurosciences, and this book allowed me to take a giant  leap forward in my knowledge and made me more conversant in the research results and the structures of how our brains deal with reading, at least well enough to become a very committed amateur to learning more. I now have a scaffolding to hang onto as I continue to explore this area of study. Which is why I decided to read Readers Come Home.

Go and read this book. It is very important and it is delightful reading.

1.     References

Adler, M. (1972). How to Read Science and Mathematics. In C. V. Mortimer Adler, How To Read A Book (pp. 255-269). New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster.

Manguel, A. (1996). A History of Reading. New York City: Penguin Putnam Inc.

Wolf, M. (2018). Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. NYC: Harper Collins Books.

 

 

 

Ruminations-On the Hoopla Over a Jewish Deli

Ever since All the Best Deli opened its doors, the discussions on the restaurant groups have been vociferous and partisan. Some of it have even become nasty. I suppose that is a reflection of the times that we are in. Even accounting for our present culture’s proclivity for polarization, it is still very surprising from the usually genteel people of the Midwest.

I had seen this report about Steingold’s Deli in Chicago. (https://abc7chicago.com/jewish-deli-chicago-near-me-steingolds/13303768/) and it occurred to me that one of the contributing reasons is the expectations that the general public has when they speak of delis. There is a huge difference between deli’s and Jewish deli’s as the reporter tried to explain in the video. It never occurred to me because as I had lived in cities such as Atlanta, St. Louis, and Ann Arbor, there were Jewish deli’s in those cities. It didn’t bother me that there wasn’t a Jewish deli in Dayton, although I did miss my latke’s, matzo ball, kreplach, and knishes. I also missed the meats: briskets, corned beef, and pastrami that did not come with the Boar’s Head label stamped on the packaging.

Not all delis are the same. Just as not all places who make sandwiches call themselves delis, any place that calls themselves delis are not automatically Jewish deli’s. The difference in price can be attributed to the difference between a place that calls itself a deli and one that calls itself a Jewish deli, it is not apples to apples.

A Jewish deli is a place where the meats are prepared by the establishment, come out of the tables steaming hot, and are then sliced for each order. The bread must be Jewish rye, baked in small batches, unless otherwise requested. There are minimal accoutrements but the menu also has plenty of other Jewish cuisine delicacies to fill my needs.

I need to declare at the outset that I don’t own stock in the restaurant, I don’t work there, nor am I related to anyone who owns of works there.  They don’t pay me for endorsements either. In fact, I have only been once, and I was quite a happy customer. I intend to go back again to sample the menu items that I had not sampled.

Being the curious sort that I am, I did a bit of Googling to see whether there are real Jewish delis in the surrounding area. The only place that I would call a Jewish deli is Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, this is where I would resort to when I needed my Jewish deli yen met. Matzo ball soup, an order of latkes, and big old sandwich on rye bread, the meat being the only variable.

I am unfamiliar with the food scene in Cincinnati and Columbus but in my cursory search, I found Izzy’s (Cincinnati) and Katzinger’s (Columbus)

I looked at the menu of All The Best Deli  and picked out some quintessential staples of a Jewish deli. I then tried to compile a table comparing Jewish deli’s in the other cities. As it turned out, Izzy’s and Katzingers offered less than half of what All The Best Deli offers, so I took them off the comparison.

I selected Steingold’s in Chicago, Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, and Katz’s Deli in New York City, the iconic representative of a proper Jewish deli in my humble opinion. I was able to compare the prices for five menu items that are offered by both All The Best Deli and Steingold’s; seven menu items that are offered by both All The Best Deli and Shapiro’s; eight menu items that are offered by both All The Best Deli and Katz’s. I could not accurately judge the portion size comparisons between the different restaurants, so that is something for people to continue to kvetch about.

Some salient points, I had selected a dozen items from All The Best, three were dropped because they weren’t offered by the majority of the Jewish deli’s I selected; I was down to nine menu items. The restaurants in the Midwest had mostly comparable prices. Katz’s prices were astronomical as compared to the midwestern restaurants.  To put things into better perspective I looked up the cost-of-living comparisons between Dayton to NYC and adjusted the Katz’s prices to bring it closer to a Dayton equivalence. For your information, the cost of Living in NYC is 43% more than Dayton. The farthest right column shows the adjusted price. The comparison between the adjusted Katz’s price and as compared to the All The Best menu price, they are not all that different.  

One last variable in the menu pricing is that All The Best proudly proclaims that they source all of their foods from the best Jewish deli’s around the country since they wanted the best and most authentic Jewish food products available (https://allthebestdeli.com/our-story/ ), which means that they have to pay massive shipping costs to schlep all the food regularly from wherever the other deli’s are and get them to Dayton, which adds to the cost of doing business.

Here is to the wishful thinking that the malevolent tones of the kvetchers will ameliorate somewhat if they read this. But I highly doubt that.