Donovan's Brain

If you read only one brain in a jar story in your lifetime, make it this one. In part because it’s the first and in other part a brain in a jar has only so much it can do and it does it all in Donovan’s Brain.

I’ve never liked much science fiction. For me, reading it has always been like sitting through a church service of a denomination that, to begin with, irritates me. It’s preachy, usually too long, overloaded with smug bullshit and you can’t say anything bad about it without ticking off a lot of people. And the pastor is a precocious 12 year old who you know you couldn't beat you at chess.

Donovan’s Brain falls into this category, although I will say that it’s at least entertaining. John Wyndham writes sci-fi show more beautifully; I recommend him over all other authors.

As an aside- I like to trace popular phrases. The classic 'The call is coming from inside the house' from When a Stranger Calls was actually used at least twice before; the earliest record I've got is from the movie 'The Severed Arm' from 1973. But I digress. Siodmak uses the phrase 'fanatic without a cause' to describe a handsome tough accused of killing his mother. It would be interesting to know if it influenced the Dean movie 'Rebel Without a Cause.' show less

Um acidente leva um milionário a morrer, e o médico Patrick Cory aproveita a ocasião para conservar seu cérebro em um aquário. Depois de um tempo consegue se comunicar com ele, e em seguida, muito mais que isso, cada vez mais... Escrito em forma de entradas de diário, com um ar de filme antigo, tem um final bastante dinâmico e recompensador (a misteriosa frase que vem e vai!). Ainda assim, todo o episódio Donovan em si não me empolgou muito, os problemas de um ególatra com tendências psicóticas.

I was reminiscing about my reading history the other week, and I tried to remember my favourite Science Fiction books from my teens. John Wynhdam’s The Chrysalids was one, Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage was another, but my absolute favourite from back then was Donovan’s Brain by Curt Siodmak. This made me desperate to read it again; it’s out of print, but I ordered an old paperback and devoured its 160 pages as soon as it arrived.

Siodmak was born in Germany, of Polish Jewish descent, leaving Germany before WWII and settling in the USA. A mathematician, he became a successful screenwriter getting his big break with The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney in 1941. At first glance, Donovan’s brain has all the trappings of a pulp sci-fi novel show more – the melodramatic story of a mad scientist who keeps a brain alive and then the brain takes over him. However, it’s not that at all! In fact, it’s rather serious, and alongside the SF with a horror slant is a novel that’s pure noir.

Patrick Cory is a middle-aged doctor who experiments in his lab at keeping animal brains alive funded by his wife Janice. One night he’s called out to a plane crash and rescues a dying man. He harvests the brain before the body finally dies and connects it up in a tank. It turns out the man was a rich industrialist, W H Donovan, who was dying of kidney disease anyway. Cory manages to keep the brain alive successfully, recording the brain waves, but can’t work out a way of communicating with it. The brain starts to grow, and then one night, Cory falls asleep after tapping Morse Code on the brain’s container. He wakes up to find some names written on the pad. This is the start of the brain’s telepathy with Cory. The elderly Dr Schratt, his sometime alcoholic assistant, begs him not to take it further…

“ '… You are killing faith! I’m glad only a few men like you exist! Your researches have made you more and more rational, until you refuse to recognize a single fact cannot be proved in the laboratory. I’m frightened, Patrick! You’re creating a mechanical soul that will destroy the world.”
I listened patiently. Schratt obviously had thought deeply about all this, and saying it seemed to make him feel better.
“Great mathematicians and pyysiologists,” I said quietly, “inevitably arrive at a point where their minds meet something beyond human comprehension, something divine. They can only face it by believing in God. Most scientists become religious when they reach that stage of research.”
Schratt looked at me astonished. Those might have been his own words. When he saw I had not spoken with irony, he nodded, but doubtfully, still mistrusting me as a convert to his philosophy."

Cory of course can’t let go, he’s already ensnared by the brain, and as the days go on the brain gets stronger, and then it takes his body over, and also adopts the mannerisms, gait and penchant for cigars of its dead owner. Donovan sends Cory to LA to sort out unfinished business, and this is where the novel turns into a noir detective story. Cory cannot resist the brain except when asleep, and finds himself signing cheques, and carrying out the dying man’s last plans to get his own back on those whom he believes have wronged him in business. Cory is finally scared …

"I recalled the stages I had passed through during this experiment with Donovan’s brain. At first I had concentrated on Donovan’s orders, forcing myself to understand him. During the second phase I easily interpreted commands, and acted accordingly. Finally I had permitted the brain to direct my body.
Until now I was unable to resist. I had lost control completely!
The brain could walk my body in front of a car, throw it out of the window, put a bullet through my head with my own hands. I could only cry out from the despair of my imprisonment, but even the words my mouth formed were those the brain wanted to hear.
A wave of terror engulfed me as I realized I was like a man fastened in a machine which moves his hands and feet against his will."

Donovan’s Brain may not have the best writing, but it does have a philosophical side that explores ethics and other scientific dilemmas amongst the many other moral issues raised by the story. It’s also written as journal entries by Cory which help give that first person authentic noir narrative. So, some thirty plus years after I previously read it, how was it on re-reading? I think you can guess – I still love it! I want to track down the film too. show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3011851.html

A short novel which was the basis of several memorable films. Our protagonist, a mildly corrupt doctor in a desert town in the Western USA, rescues the brain of evil millionaire Donovan, who is fatally injured in a plane crash, and finds a way of keeping it alive; but the brain is stronger than its human minders, and manipulates them to continue its original owner's evil plans of various kinds (notably perverting the course of justice). It's a basic horror plot of possession, but there's a tremendously convincing air of despairing degeneracy about the entire story (the narrator is disgusted with himself) and nods to the latest technology as of 1942.

Great brain in a vat story - with a dose of philosophy of life thrown in. Definitely a book that should last. It also includes one of my favorite quotes:

"The struggle for money in this world is the struggle for life. The rich man lives a packed life equivalent to many ordinary ones. With hired assistants, slaves, servants, secretaries, sycophants, he accomplishes things in a short time the poor man sometimes takes a year to do. A rich man's life is a hundred times longer than that of a poor man. With money one outlives the other. Money is life itself."

Patrick Cory har fundet en måde så han kan holde en isoleret abehjerne i live. Så får han chancen for at holde en rigmand, Warren Horrace Donovan, i live eller i alt fald hjernen. Efter en tid finder han ud af at kommunikere med hjernen, men hvem styrer hvem?

Bortset fra det usandsynlige i plottet er bogen godt skrevet, men det er for meget i længden og der er nogle meget svulstige replikker i de sidste afsnit.
Ok knaldroman