Reminds me of semiotics which is the understanding of how we communicate by the signs we use. Along with philology and semantics and the other areas of where we get the tools to communicate verbally, stucturally, symbolically and in written form. [See ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics]

I must admit I haven’t read any novels with the multiple perspective viewpoints. I can see where it would be a mental exercise to read and comprehend the novel as it progresses. A very good thing for the human brain that needs such stimulus to improve its function & continue its development. We should never stop learning until we die.

Proust was French? I loved my French Lit. class,
though reading Proust seemed to me, like French
wine, way over rated, I prefer reading something
lighter like George Bush’s enlightening reading of
“My Pet Goat” while from a fetal position.

As for delusions, I have my own and there is a grave
difference between my delusions and other peoples
hallucinations.

Read someplace differences between the gray matter
and the white matter in the brain provide
differences between being deluded and deluding.

@ gerard, please forgive the correction but Hamlet seeing his father’s ghost would be correctly labeled an hallucination rather than a delusion. No biggee though. It’s rather technical.

I actually like the original article, but then I am inordinantly fond of cognitive science (in any regard). And I like Proust.

Read Marcel Proust and you’ll be reading extraordinary literature and neuroscience at the same time!

If that sounds far fetched, you might first try reading Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer.

Please excuse me, Mr. Flesch of Brandeis, but to label Hamlet an “altruistic punisher” is just a tiny bit superficial, dontcha think?  Also the other heroes, maybe?  Hamlet for me is a much more complex character, both universal and confined to his time and his “station” in life.
  He was confined by the social demand for revenge which was particularly severe in his day, if I remember correctly.  He was also inordinately tied to his mother (tip of the hat to Sigmund Freud) and incapable of extending sympathy and consideration toward a young woman who loved him (manipulative and selfish). He suffered from delusions—his father’s ghost—and plotted a psychologically complex but dishonest ruse to “catch the king”, his murderous uncle. He ended by getting himself killed in a suicidal duel.
  Much more could be said, but I’ll stop with making the point that English and psychology have been “cross-pollinating” for centuries.  So what else is new?  Yrs. sincerely, Ms. Monshyne,, Head of the Retroactive Dept. of Literary Bombast, University of Liederschnoffen.