BOOK REVIEW: The Mindful Brain by Arnon Levy

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The Mindful Brain, written by Prof. Arnon Levy, clinical psychologist, psycho-anthropologist, and coaching psychologist, is the result of over 40 years of clinical and academic practice. The Mindful Brain endows you with a new way to understand the brain’s complex, integrated interrelations with the self and with culture. Reading The Mindful Brain would unveil latent resources within yourself and teach you effective ways, to implement self-help psychotherapy, mindfulness, and positive psychology, all these within an enjoyable, suspenseful story.

Introduction to The Mindful Brain

The Mindful Brain, by psychologist Arnon Levy, is a book which purports to analyze “scientific issues of mind and brain, psychology, positive psychology, psychotherapy, and human life, narrated within an exciting story of jaw-dropping adventures within a journey of self-exploration.” The narrative is almost exclusively thoughts and dialogues of the protagonist, Norman, through Israel, as he tries to explore meaning in life and its purpose after a breakup with a longtime girlfriend. Much of the narrative is dialog (both internal and external) as Norman explores the concepts of psychopathology and psychotherapy, and especially how they impact understanding of relationships.

My PhD is in the humanities, not the sciences, so I cannot evaluate the psychological claims from an academic view. Some of the concepts were familiar, whereas other ideas were. The book presents itself as fiction, but as a vehicle to explore psychology and psychotherapy in theory and application. Much of it strikes me as more of a philosophical discussion of particular psychological approaches, which I found fascinating and interesting.

Some reviews of The Mindful Brain suggests that it is complex and difficult to read. I did not find either to be true. Levy has done a good job of simplifying the scientific jargon and terminology for the most part.

While the ideas and the concept of the book are intriguing, the style, literary approach, and lack of editing made it a frustrating read. This is often a problem with self-published books who do not rely on a copyeditor and proofreader, and, in this case, where the author is not a fiction writer, a development editor or even a ghostwriter.

I found this frustrating because I sense that Levy is a sound thinker and has some fascinating ideas that are worthwhile exploring. But this attempt to turn a nonfiction paper into a novel fails in its execution (not content) for several reasons.

Review and literary issues

The book begins with one of the cardinal sins of fiction writing: too much “telling” rather than “showing” (exposition rather than action). The author introduces us to the main character, Norman, and spends most of the chapter telling us his background and history, rather than revealing it through action and dialogue. OF course, there is a time and place for exposition, but rarely does it work at the beginning of the story because the reader is left thinking, “so what?”

Furthermore, in this extensive exposition (and occasionally throughout the book, the author has inserted strident political critiques and views. While fiction is often a vehicle for social analysis and critique, these have little to do with the theme of psychology, and read more like the author’s personal pet peeves than an integral part of the protagonist’s story.

At the end of the chapter, the exposition suddenly switches to the protagonist, Norman, going about his life and making plans to travel after a breakup with his girlfriend. Finally, the reader has some question and perhaps become curious. I wish the author had begun with this, adding a bit more mystery, or a hook, or something to grab me and make me want to keep reading.

The rest of the book follows Norman through his journey as he seeks intelligent people to discuss the concepts. There is not a lot of action, but in the hands of a skilled literary artist, dialogue can be engaging and drive the story forward.

Unfortunately, that is not the case here. Often, characters explain concepts, ideas, or events to another character, when that character alreadyhas the information. A thinly veiled way to tell the reader something by forcing it into dialogue causes the reader to pop out of the story world. The author should have found a more natural way to express the information to the reader. For example, have Norman to someone who does not know the concepts, or have Norman write the information down for his own use…anything but unnatural dialog. Even exposition would be better than an unrealistic discussion between two scientists as if they had to rehearse the basics.

Furthermore, much of the dialogue is stilted and awkward, reading like a nonfiction or academic paper rather than a natural conversation. For example:

“Shall we sit down?” Asked Norman, here is the café where I write my research on the human psyche.

“Great,” Tal replied in a tone that reminded him of their shared past, “I am really thrilled with an expectation to hear about your spiritual explorations.”

No one speaks like this. People talk in contraction—nonfiction papers eschew them. We do not say, “I have a good and challenging job,” we say, “I’ve got a good and challenging job.”

Note also the erroneous capitalization and missing quotation marks. This is a problem throughout the book. While all books contain typos, the number of problems or incorrect uses of punctuation, grammar typos, random capitalizations, and improper dialogue attribution phrases, are quite distracting. These issue could easily have been avoided with a good copyeditor and proofreader.

Other issues are more problematic because they go to the core of what is wrong with the book: a nonfiction work that is trying to be a fiction book.

For example, at times, the narrative drops away, and suddenly the reader is treated to many long paragraphs that read like a nonfiction paper. The worst offense is a long section in the middle of the book. It begins as a discussion between two characters, but devolves into a paper about psychopathology, replete with bullet points, no dialogue (or little dialogue), and no literary indications of who is thinking or speaking. In the middle of the discussion, we read:

“So far, I have given you a general overview of the self, and it’s inherent anger relations with the brain. We shall not go forward to a higher resolution and see…”

That sounds like a paper, not a person actually talking. (In fact, even the headings throughout the book sound like a paper rather than a novel.) At one point, the fictional “speaker” says this:

“Gerald Edelman (2000) puts it in scientific perspective in one concise and brilliant sentence” written like an academic nonfiction writer.”

From the citation, It seems obvious that this is a paper written by the author, unceremoniously stuck into the middle of a conversation, with no attempt at continuity with the fictional world. Quotation marks disappear, and even the style and format read like a paper rather than a book.

Some of the punctation choices are nonstandard and distracting. The use of single quotes to delineate when Norman is thinking to himself is unusual. But if the book had stayed consistent with it, that would be acceptable. Sometimes there is no indication he is thinking to himself. (Usually, italics or regular double quotes with proper attribution (“That’s crazy,” he thought to himself.) In addition, the internal dialogue is just as awkward and unrealistic as much of the dialogue.

“Indeed”, Norman thought. “As one who has studied psychology and wishes to complete a specialization and a Ph.D. thesis, these words inspire me to understand better the present condition of psychology.” 

Conclusion and Recommendation

The concept and theme of the book is intriguing, it is unfortunate there the vehicle itself is so flawed. I found myself wishing that Levy had hired a ghostwriter, or at least worked with a sound development writer and literary editors. The typos, missing punctuation, nonstandard internal monologue, and long expositions detract so much that the story and concepts are lost. I suspect that this was a nonfiction paper, perhaps even an academic overview of the field, which the author attempted to rewrite into a fictional narrative, without knowing how to write fiction.

I wish Levy would unpublish this book and rewrite it with the help of some literary experts and artists because I think the content and the concept could be quite interesting, and perhaps even groundbreaking.

If you can look past all the problems of style, typographical errors, and jarring juxtaposition of an academic paper and narrative fiction, and focus primarily on the concepts, you might find it a useful and fascinating book. My advice would be to ignore the fictional elements and read it as a nonfiction book about some of the more unusual and intriguing concepts of psychology.

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