Why Readers Love This Book (According to Brain Science)

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Last year, I read an incredible novel.

[00:00:03]It's The Remembered Soldier by Annette Da.

[00:00:07]>> Wasn't that the one that won?

[00:00:09]>> Yes. Can you at least be a little quiet while I do my intro and then you can talk?

[00:00:13]>> Last year, I read an incredible novel.

[00:00:16]It's The Remembered Soldier by Anette Da, translated by David McKay and published by New Vessel Press. This has been on several best of lists. It's been recognized by multiple literary awards, including my favorite literary award, the Republic of Consciousness Prize. It was not just recognized, it won the Rep Republic of Consciousness Prize for 2025. Full disclosure, I was a judge for the Republic of Consciousness Prize this past year. So, I did have a part in to play in choosing this as it wasn't just my choice, but um I did have a part to play in choosing this as the winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize this year. And I've been thinking a lot lately since this was announced as the winner um about why I find this book so captivating and why so many people who I've talked to, who have read it have found it so captivating. And I have a new theory that I want to share with you based on another book that I have read recently. First, first of all, let me apologize for my scratchy throat. It is um allergy season, so I'm a little I'm a little allerged. Um and then also, apologies, I'm going to be referring to my notes here. I'm a little out of practice because I'm returning from a medical leave. My brain is not quite as sharp as I would prefer it to be at this point in time. In case you let me tell you a little bit about this beautiful, very chunky novel in case you haven't come across it yet. So, The Remember Soldier is a novel that is set in Belgium and Germany in the years following World War I. And it opens in a Belgian psychiatric asylum I think 5 years after the end of the war or something about something along those lines. It's a psychiatric asylum run by monks and one of the patients who lives there that's the five years he's lived there for 5 years. One of the patients who's who has live who lives there is a soldier who suffered some kind of injury that has resulted in him losing his memory completely. He doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know his name. He doesn't remember his family. He doesn't know where he's from. He doesn't know how he got there. He has no memory.

[00:02:46]Otherwise, fully functional, but no memory. One day, a woman named Julenne arrives at the asylum and she identifies this soldier as her husband, Amand.

[00:02:58]After a period of proving that this is her husband, uh Julianne takes him home with her to their two children and to their small business, which is a photography shop. and they proceed to try to piece their life back together while simultaneously Amand tries to piece his memory back together. Um, but all he has to go on for his memory is what Julenne tells him. So, a lot of people are loving on this book recently.

[00:03:31]As I said, it's been on lots of lists and just I've seen it in lots of places as um as something that people are really responding to and it makes a lot of sense because there's a lot to love about this book. It is it beautifully and meticulously evokes a very specific time and place. Belgium in the postworld war I years. Um I found myself completely immersed in this world, especially in um Julian and Aman's photography shop um as well as the rooms that they live in above the shop. It's all just so beautifully done.

[00:04:09]It's also an incredibly compelling premise that have a soldier and I and there are other movies and books that I've seen this done in where there's a a soldier who's lost his memory and then even like similarly like a girlfriend shows up and says it's her boyfriend. I feel like there's I've seen this story before, but it's still like an incredibly compelling premise for a novel. The language is also very hypnotic. the rhythm of the sentences and the rhythm of the paragraphs really draw you in and through the whole novel.

[00:04:43]Some people might say it's too hypnotic and I've heard some people in my own very own family say that it's too slow for them. Too slow, too hypnotic, um too repetitive. Uh but it's all done very purposefully. there is a reason for the repetition and for the kind of hypnotic um rhythm and the characters are really enticing. This is a beautiful story at the end of the day. It's it also has an intense psychological depth and really interesting relationship dynamics play out here in this novel. There's just so much to love about this book. But I think there is a deeper but also somehow simpler reason this book is so captivating and it's something that's not necessarily unique to this book. It's something that great storytellers the world round and throughout history do to grab the attention of their readers. They tap into our brains oldest instincts. So the reason this has been on my mind is I also recently read a book from way back in this was published a while ago 2006 called Why We Read Fiction Theory of Mind and the Novel.

[00:06:04]This is by Lisa Zunshine and it's published by the Ohio State University Press. PS. If you are new here, I talk on this channel about books from small and nonprofit publishers. So, New Vessel Press is a small publisher. Ohio State University Press is obviously a university nonprofit press. So, uh, so that's what we do here. So in this book, Zenshine shows how great storytellers are really intuitive strategists who know just how to hold our attention.

[00:06:41]Great storytellers specifically know how to give readers a very strong hit of something that our brains have evolved to crave. And those specific things that our brains crave are the two uh cognitive abilities that Sunshine talks about in this book and they are theory of mind and meta representation. So let me give a very boiled down description of Sunshine's definition of theory of mind and meta representation. So I'm doing this based only on what I how Zshine has defined them. There are other definitions that you can find out there that might be a little bit different, but based on what she says in the book, here's my understanding of them. And I'm also going to give examples of each of these because that's how I best understand it is through examples.

[00:07:37]Theory of mind is our human cognitive ability to explain another person's behavior or even our own behavior by imagining mental states. So, Zenshine also calls it mind readading which I find is a helpful way to think of it.

[00:07:56]Um, it's not that we actually have direct access to another person's mind, but we are reading what we think is in someone else's mind based on their behavior. Basically, it's our ability to imagine what another person's thoughts, beliefs, feelings, motivations might be based on their behavior. It's an evolved ability of our brains and it's been incredibly useful to our success as a species um to be able to predict what other people around us are thinking. Um or even animals like what's this animal I'm going to based on its behavior? What is this animal going to do? Um based on another person's behavior, what do I think they're going to do? You know, are they danger? Do I think they're a dangerous person? Do I think they think I'm attractive? and you know, should I go ask for their number? That kind of thing. Um, we look at behavior and we guess what someone is thinking and what their motivations are and what they might do next. As an example, this is kind of based on Zenshine's example that she gives in the book. Let's say I'm having lunch with a friend and my friend takes a sip of water. My assumption as I see her take a sip of water is probably going to be that she's thirsty and wanted some water. So, that's me imagining her mental state of being thirsty um based on her behavior and her saying, "Oh, that glass of water looks good. That'll quench my thirst. I'm going to take a sip." But what if I had just said something like really rude to my friend or to someone else? I I just I said something really really rude and my friend like kind of looks away as she takes a sip of water and like refuses to meet my eye and like takes a sip of water. In that case, I might see that behavior and imagine that, oh, maybe my friend is insulted by the rude thing I just said and is holding her tongue instead of speaking back to me, is holding her tongue by taking a sip of water and is like giving herself that opportunity to like hold her tongue by taking a sip of water instead of speaking. And so if I successfully pick up on those clues, then maybe I apologize for that rude thing that I said and save our friendship. So that's kind of how theory of mind can work. Our brains do this almost automatically.

[00:10:21]Like I'm not as I'm watching my friend take a sip of water, I'm automatically coming up with these assumptions about what she's thinking. But we also crave practicing like theory of mind. And usually we crave practicing it in a really focused or heightened way than we would more focused and more heightened than we would encounter in everyday life. Zenshine points out that an evolved behavior is more likely to continue in a species if that behavior is found to be pleasurable. So there's a reason that that practicing or doing like practicing mind readading is not only helpful to us but also is really fun for us. Like those two things are tied together because we find it fun.

[00:11:13]We're more likely to do it. So we humans love things that challenge our ability to observe behavior, imagine what a person is thinking based on that behavior, and then predict what they'll do next. Th So think of games like charades or poker even where you're watching someone's moves and predicting what they're thinking or predicting what they'll do next. Or think of like sports um like football for example where one team will try to infer what play the other team will make by all sorts of clues and patterns. So these are all very focused and heightened situations where we're predicting behavior of other people. Storytellers also know and often in a very intuitive way. They're not actively thinking about this, but they intuitively know how to use theory of mind to capture our attention, to capture readers attention. So, for example, think of the common writing advice show don't tell. There is a reason that telling, so the advice is show don't tell. That means don't tell the reader that Jane is sad. Don't tell the reader that Jon is mad. Show them. show what behaviors Jane is exhibiting that prove she's sad or that we assume that lead us to assume that she's sad and there's so there's a reason so telling the telling side is seen as amateurish amateur-ish if you're telling instead of showing in your writing you're seen as an amateur that's because we readers don't want to be told what a character thinks it's boring to read a book where a writer just tells you Jane is sad and Jon is mad. We want to see events and relationships and behaviors so that we can infer what characters think and feel. Puzzling it out is the fun part for us as readers, even if we do it without really realizing what we're doing. And that is theory of mind. Show don't tell is us craving theory of mind. Craving using that capacity that our brains want to use. Meta representation is the second but very related cognitive ability that as sunshine defines it is our ability to both receive information and track where that information comes from. So it's like a source tag. You as a human generally most humans can do this without really thinking about it. you not only know something like you not only know a piece of information but you know who told you that piece of information or you know where that piece of information comes from. Um and Sunshine talks about how like certain pieces of pieces of information we don't we just know we don't need to track where it came from. Like I don't know who told me that Washington DC is the capital of the United States. That's something that's not something I need to track. Um, but there are other things in our lives where we do need to track where that information comes from because maybe we need to track whether it's trustworthy information, for example. So, I'll give you an example of how this has played out at my house and my son is here sick, homesick today. So, he but he has his headphones on. So, I don't know if he'll hear me telling this story or not, but this is how meta representation has played out at our house. So, our favorite local pizza place has a delicious fried cauliflower dish. And whenever we go, I we order it and I try to get my son to try it. I tell him the fried cauliflower is delicious. So, the piece of information received by my son is the fried cauliflower is delicious. That's the piece of information. But that information comes from a specific source, his mom. and his mom has a history of several things. His mom has a history of trying to get him to try new things that he's never tried before. Uh his mom has a history of trying to get him to eat vegetables, even if they're fried vegetables. Um, and so he receives this information, cauliflower is delicious, but he knows that the source of that information has very specific beliefs and strategic motivations and that they are counter to his beliefs and motivations. And so he distrusts this information about the cauliflower and does not eat the cauliflower. Several weeks ago, my brother and sister-in-law were in town and they took my son to that same pizza place, and they ordered the fried cauliflower. He didn't try it there at the restaurant, but they sent home some leftovers, which my husband reheated in the oven the next day, and lo and behold, my son said, "Hey, Aunt Kristen said that cauliflower is really delicious. Can I try a bite?" The information hasn't changed. The information is still the fried cauliflower is delicious, but the source has changed. And Aunt Kristen, a very cool aunt from Denver, doesn't, to my son's knowledge, have any ulterior motives. She doesn't have a history of trying to push him to do things he doesn't want to do. She doesn't have a history of trying to get him to eat his vegetables. She isn't responsible for his health and wellness. And so she has no particular motivation to make sure that he tries new things and eats his vegetables. And so if she says it's delicious, we have all the reason in the world to trust her. So that is me representation. And my son's brain, like most humans, has evolved to be able to identify where a piece of information comes from. and he makes decisions like we all do based on both the piece of information and also who gave him that piece of information. Meta representation is used to great effect in fiction all the time. So just think of mystery novels where there are a bunch of suspects and there's a detective and the suspects are telling the detective piece various pieces of information and you have to track you both you both you and the detective have to track that information but not just the information where the information comes from. And then as you learn about the trust trustworthiness about each suspect, you have to remember then where each piece of information came from in order to figure out what of that information is true and what is not. And that is the author playing with meta representation.

[00:18:11]So, as highly social animals, humans have developed these two related cognitive abilities over the existence, the entire existence of our species. And it turns out they are incredible adaptations for survival.

[00:18:28]They allow us to anticipate what other humans are thinking and predict the behavior of others, keep track of where we got certain information and understand what to do with that information and whether we can trust that information. So, how does this all apply to the remembered soldier?

[00:18:47]>> My god, you still remembered soldier. So we have Amand, our protagonist, who has completely lost his memory. And the information he has about himself, the only information he has about himself and his past comes from one source, Julenne. He has no history on her to know whether or not he can trust her.

[00:19:07]But he has only her word to reconstruct his identity. So he really has no choice but to trust her word so that he can rebuild himself and rebuild his life.

[00:19:18]And she is feeding him so much information about himself, a constant flood of information about himself and who he was before he lost his memory that he kind of loses track of the fact that everything he knows comes from her. He loses that meta representational source tag and eventually he starts to turn Julian's information into his identity. He he gets really good at developing photographs. He becomes a really good father to the two children. He starts to become this identity. We as readers are also trying to keep track of all of this information about Amand. I think my first reaction was like, oh, is this real? Is is is this the truth? Is she being truthful? But all the information builds up and we start to see things going well and we start to think, yes, this is real. This is this is the truth.

[00:20:18]But then da slips in little details here and there or big details here and there where both we as readers and Amand pause sometimes do more than pause and think, wait a minute, maybe this isn't real.

[00:20:37]There are like little clues here and there where we're like, "Wait, maybe this isn't the truth. What's this new piece of information sneaking in from outside of Julianne? Information that Julianne doesn't control? Where is this information coming from? Is it trustworthy?"

[00:20:54]And this goes back and forth and back and forth across the whole novel, like trusting Julianne's version, then doubting it, and then trusting it and doubting it. And it's both Amand and us as readers who are going back and forth with this like tracking the information that we're getting and where it's coming from and whether it's the truth or not based on what we know about the source and based on what we are continuing to learn about the various sources of information. So, as we're starting to track Julianne's behavior, this is where theory of mind comes in. He's watching her. He starts to watch her for clues about what she's thinking, about what she believes, and about what her motives are. And as he's watching her behavior, so are we as readers. We are watching her every move and trying to figure out what is going on, what is she getting at, what are her motives. And that's theory of mind. And our brains love it.

[00:21:56]We crave that kind of interaction with fiction. And it allows us to play and exercise these mental abilities. It's not just this novel that does it, but great novels, a lot of great novels are really good at playing with these cognitive abilities that our brains crave to play with and practice. There's a certain thrill of tracking the information that Julianne is giving Amand and observing her behaviors and trying to figure out whether she's trustworthy or not and predicting her intentions and predicting her next move.

[00:22:31]And our brains love this because we have evolved to love it according to Sunshine. I highly doubt that Anette Da was thinking of theory of mind and met representation and cognitive abilities as she was writing this novel, but she like the best fiction writers. She knows how to use what our brains crave to capture our attention and hold it. If you've read this novel, let me know what you think about all this in the comments below. I would love to hear from you. My name is Sarah. Thank you so much for joining me. I'll talk to you next time.