CONTACT CAROLINE
facebook
rss
tumblr
twitter
goodreads
youtube

  • Home
  • Write Away Blog
  • Books
    • Books
    • Trompe l’Oeil
    • Heart Land
    • Gothic Spring
    • Ballet Noir
    • Book Excerpts
  • Video Interviews
  • Press
    • News
    • Print Interviews
    • Plays
    • Ballet Noir in the Press
    • Trompe l’Oeil In The Press
    • Gothic Spring In The Press
    • Heart Land Reviews
  • Contact
  • About
  • Resources
    • Writer Resources
    • Favorite Blogs
    • Favorite Artists



There’s a Gnome in My Garden

Jan 03, 2013
by Caroline Miller
Hlluucinations, Olive Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
2 Comments

Trompe l’Oeil, my third novel, deals with the world of illusion and raises questions about what’s real, what’s illusion and how to tell the difference. When science poses similar puzzles, the answers aren’t simple either, as Oliver Sacks reveals in his new book, Hallucinations. (“Review of Reviews: Books” The Week, 11/12 pg. 19) The author’s’ earlier best seller, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, drew attention to the brain functions of people with unusual disorders, like the inability to form new memories or to sense the relationship of one body part to another. His new book argues that hallucinations are more common than people imagine, being either harmless or troubling.

 As to the latter, one woman he writes about kept seeing her son being murdered. Another man couldn’t rid himself of the smell of fish. Sacks also notes that the Charles Bonne syndrome produces hallucinations in the blind. Joan of Arc and Fydor Dostoyesky, he speculates, may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy which explains their visions.

 Of course some hallucinations are self-induced through pharmacology or opiates of choice. Anyone living in the 1960’s will remember the LSD chant, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.

 People may laugh at some of the more bizarre illusions but Sacks takes them all seriously. One day, he hopes they might provide clues to the brain’s organization.

 Whether he breaks the brain code or not only time will tell. In the meantime, I’m happy that the gnome in my garden may put in an appearance to others.

Garden Gnome

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Courtesy of http://www.gardenideaimage.co.uk)

 

Social Share
2 Comments
  1. Pete January 6, 2013 at 7:05 pm Reply
    It seems remarkable that after generations of multiculturalism, it still can be considered an act of courage when an author writing in English borrows a phrase in a foreign language as a title, even though the expression "trompe l'oeil" ought to be familiar to an English-reading public, at least among those who have an interest in the visual arts, and there is a hint in the book's subtitle ("To Fool the Eye"), still it is heartening to encounter the French on my Kindle, and to expect that soon I will be in a very different place, an imaginative space quite unlike the one I'm in right now ... And here Trompe l'Oeil doesn't disappoint, as the opening chapter describes a castle somewhere south of Paris, and the author skillfully evokes a Piranesi-like architecture of shadow rooms, a modern Otranto, as Rachel Farraday... well, more when I've read more ... or better, you should read it, and see for yourself! ...
    • Caroline Miller January 7, 2013 at 8:51 am Reply
      Thank you Pete for stopping by and making such an intereting comment. Apparently, you have begun to read the book. I hope you enjoy it. And thank you for your endorsement from your reading thus far. When you finish it, I hope you will be in the same frame of mind. The ending is a bit of surprise.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

Subscribe to Caroline’s Blog


 

Archives

Categories

YouTube-logo-inline2 To access and subscribe to my videos on YouTube, Click Here and click the Subscribe button.

Banner art “The Receptive” by Charlie White of Charlie White Studio

Web Admin: ThinPATH Systems, Inc
support@tp-sys.com

Subscribe to Caroline's Blog


 

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Sitemap | Privacy Notice

AUDIO & VIDEO VAULT

View archives of Caroline’s audio and videos interviews.


Copyright © Books by Caroline Miller
Posting....