Neuroscientist Dr Yvonne Churcher has problems in
the world beyond her lab. One of her students, James, a
dangerously attractive animal rights campaigner, has set
out to challenge her certainties about how the brain
works. His brilliant, unstable friend, Gareth, is
obsessed with the biochemical basis of memory. When
Gareth tries to persuade Yvonne to get involved with a
plan to stimulate memory artificially, it sets off a
chain of events involving unscrupulous biotech
companies, stolen brain-mapping data and a strange brand
of eco-terrorism. Set in a near-future world of
experimental brain research, A Box of Birds combines the
pace of a literary thriller with a darkly intense love
story. It brilliantly dramatizes the clash between two
of the predominant philosophical positions of our age:
the materialist view that science has all the answers
and that 'we' are nothing more than brain cells and
neurotransmitters, and the therapy-inspired view that
the stories we tell about ourselves and our pasts have
the capacity to change our future. As Yvonne Churcher is
drawn towards an ever more complex and disturbing truth,
she has to face tough questions. Can neuroscience really
change our understanding of who we are? Or are we all at
the mercy of our own need to make coherent
stories?
|
|