I write book reviews all the time; with a good book, it is easy to find something to say. But with a great work, the task becomes nearly impossible. You find yourself wondering, "how could I say something more useful than the totality of what the work already inherently expresses?" Or, "won't I be banalizing or flattening the work by trying to sum it up?"

After six months of trying to write a book review that rises to the occasion, I've concluded that I've failed, so I'm writing this instead.

I read these books during a four-month period. Concurrently, I read McGilchrist's earlier work, "The Master and His Emissary," and listened to over forty hours of discussion about "The Matter with Things" on McGilchrist's YouTube channel.

I would warn those of you contemplating skimming the work: brain hemisphere science is perennially perverted and oversimplified. One of the reasons that this text is so massive is that the subject demands a high degree of rigor and nuance. One of my teachers, Carol Sanford, says, when you're entering a school, you need to take in the entirety of it. It is easy for us to uplift the things we agree with and minimize or ignore the things we don't agree with or don't understand. But when we do this, not only are we not learning anything new, we're also undermining the wholeness of whatever we're studying in a parasitic fashion. So please, commit and dive in, but don't test the water first.

I had actually been recommended this book when it came out, but it took me a year to pick it up. I have an allergy for the mechanistic and cybernetic analogies rife in neuroscience. I assumed this book would be more of the same. I was wrong. After the second ringing endorsement, I decided I should put my reservations aside and give it a try. Very quickly I came to see, what most people call "neuroscience" comes from a paradigm propagated by the left hemisphere of our brains.

A few foundations:
* All known organisms with brains, even those with only 180 neurons, have a right and a left brain hemisphere which behave in roughly the same way
* In simple terms, the left hemisphere is focused on automation, on processes, on mechanisms. The right hemisphere is focused on gestalt perception, on somatics, and on mystery.
* What the left hemisphere isn't aware of "doesn't exist." The clinical term for the lies the left hemisphere fabricates is called "confabulating."
* The right hemisphere acknowlegdes what it doesn't know, and is able to delegate (sometimes to the left hemisphere). The left hemisphere doesn't have this capacity.

The book is split into three sections:
I. The clinical science regarding the hemispheric function of the brain
II. Four windows of truth: science, reason, intuition, and imagination (each of which have right- and left-hemisphere aspects).
III. The metaphysics possible with these foundations (time, flow and turbulence, sense of the sacred, etc.)

Like any great work, as soon as you read this book, you'll start seeing everything through a brain hemisphere lens, because it is a totalizing framework.

Also like any great work, the gravity of McGilchrist's subject always means that the manifestation of his written material will have some shortcomings. I felt like the introduction to Part II, where McGilchrist scaffolded the structure of the brain hemispheres on the myth of the two brothers was brilliant. Where my own writing on the subject has fallen flat is that I have not yet found a myth through which to structure my writing; and I think that McGilchrist's work would be even more powerful if he had leaned more fully into myth in the creation of this book. McGilchrist also cites Indra's Net, which does seem to be one of the best analogies for the work, but doesn't explore the full depth of this analogy. Also, although McGilchrist calls out the fundamental importance of imagination and intuition, the vast majority of the text, by word count, is dedicated to science and reason. If anything, given our cultural bias towards science and reason and away from intuition and imagination, I wish this emphasis had been reversed.

This book feels akin to a threshold crossing, a trail, and initiation: you come out on the other side of reading it transformed.

I have numerous questions:
* What can the brain hemisphere lens illuminate about the nature of psychedelics?
* When does consciousness and mindfulness complement intuitive and somatic knowing? When does it undermine?
* How can we bring about a cultural evolution that restores balance between the brain hemispheres? Does the left hemisphere always "win" in a race towards mutually assured destruction?

To illustrate the impact of this book on my life, I'll end by noting: I find myself spending more time listening to music again. As a teenager, music was a central part of meaningfulness in my life. Reading this book has reminded me: the most important things in life don't need justification. We will know their value and priority if we allow ourselves to trust our intuition. ( )

This very wide-ranging discussion of everything to do with mind and brain grew out of the author's decades-long neuroscience research on the split brain. How left and right hemispheres work and interact proves to be a lens for examining not only behavior but also reality, metaphysics and the irreducible role of consciousness. I'm sure I'll be dipping back into this for years to come. The only hesitation I have in recommending it is the vertiginous price being asked for even an e-book. I don't know why this author would have agreed to a marketing vehicle that will limit or deny access to so many. ( )

overhyped and underdelivered
in essence a vast commentary on his earlier book
the systems view of our world is hardly new ( )