The Kingdom of Infinite Space: An Encounter with Your Head by Raymond Tallis

The Kingdom of Infinite Space: An Encounter with Your Head



Download The Kingdom of Infinite Space: An Encounter with Your Head




The Kingdom of Infinite Space: An Encounter with Your Head Raymond Tallis
Language: English
Page: 344
Format: pdf
ISBN: 0300158602, 9780300158601
Publisher:

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Tallis, a UK poet, novelist, philosopher and professor of geriatric medicine, here combines his talents to produce a ponderous, celebratory tour of the human head which, while thorough, avoids the other-worldly complexities of the brain. Instead, Tallis (The Hand: A Philosophical Inquiry into Human Being) fills his essays with a curious and personal mix of bio-mechanics, philosophy and wonder: "the head harvests sights and sounds and smells and tastes; sequesters indoor and outdoor, private and public, urban and rural air; and ingests food and drink and medicines and worse. And its outputs are as impressively varied." He examines each sense in detail, along with functions such as smiling, blushing, breathing and kissing in playfully-titled chapters ("Head Traffic: Eating, Vomiting and Smoking"). Tallis's mix of history, etymology, literature and science, along with his infectious enthusiasm ("Our ability to pick sounds out of a background of other sounds... is the equivalent of picking out all the ripples associated with one raindrop from a puddle in a downpour") leads him to many interesting points. Readers looking for a thoughtful assessment of what's right behind their noses-without all the tedious neurology-will find this an entertaining, eye-opening experience.
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--This text refers to the

edition.

From

British medical doctor Tallis considers the looks and actions of the human head—without discussing the brain. That would seem like performing trapeze without a net, yet Tallis pulls it off with panache. Notifying readers of his penchant for digression, Tallis appears to meander through the sense organs domiciled in the head, but he unfailingly brings rambles full circle to a central theme: “the great gaps that have opened up between humans and animals.” Tallis doesn’t go so far as to separate humans from the natural world, but he stresses our cultural distance from it in an effervescent writing style. Anatomy, literary quotations, philosophy, and psychology merge in Tallis’ launch from what heads do physiologically (eat, see, breathe, hear, etc.) into the social communication human culture attaches to such bodily functions, shown in the great variety of eye contact, from winking to weeping, among other kinds of facial expression. Creative and proudly humanistic, Tallis’ tour might induce readers to scrutinize their reflections as minutely as Tallis does his own. --Gilbert Taylor
--This text refers to the

edition.

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