Reviews for Recollections of My Life

The average rating for Recollections of My Life based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-29 00:00:00 Scott Shunkwiler I wish I could give this book a better rating, as I find the story of Cajal fascinating and his work inspiring. The bad: The language in this book is so extravagant and impenetrable that I was severely disappointed (and sometimes provoked). Some quotes: "I realized bitterly that the extravagant romanticism which I had acquired during my adolescence from my foolish perusal of Chateubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, and Espronceda has poisoned my mind. Because of it, I had consumed in trivialities all the rich patrimony of constitutional energy inherited from my elders. In my desperation, I because a misanthrope and got to the point of despising the most holy and venerable things." Translation: The author got ill and depressed as a teen. "I made some resistance at first to the brutal games and to the undesirable escapades of climbing into orchards and stealing fruits. But the spirit of imitation was more powerful in me than the wise counsel of my parents and the commandments of Decalogue." Translation: The author once scrumped apples as a child. This book contains 600 thick pages of this writing style. The good: There are very interesting accounts of early neuroscience in this book, and also some of Cajal's amazing artwork. The passages about hypnosis (accounts of course only from hyponosis on individuals "free of neurotic taint", such as physicians and lawyers) and mediums are quite interesting to the contemporary neuroscientist. There are also several amusing statements such as the following: "The second lesson was the discovery, rather late, that physical exercise on the part of men devoted to study should be moderate and brief, without ever passing the stage of fatigue. It is a common phenomenon, but one which is rather overlooked by educators of the English school, that strenous sports rapidly diminish the aptitude for intellectual work. When night comes, the brain, tired out by the excess of motor discharges - which seem to absorb the energies of the whole cerebral mechanism - falls upon books with the inertia of a paperweight. In such circumstances the structural differentiation of the central nervous system seems to be suspended or retarded; it might be said that the higher regions of the gray matter are repressed and, as it were, choked by the motor areas. Such compensatory processes explain why most young people who excel in sports and other physical exercises have not much to say and have relatively poor and simple intellects". Personally, I would safely say that this book illustrates why even eminent scientists need strict editors.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-01-19 00:00:00 John Bennet Cajal's autobiography made me want to dedicate my life to Neuroscience and understanding the brain. This is a great autobiography for the budding neuroscientist.