Carl Zimmer. Parasite Rex (2000)

     Carl Zimmer. Parasite Rex (2000) Zimmer’s description of the lives and times of parasites will raise the grue in most readers. There are passages that could make some people sick. But eventually, we begin to agree with the parasitologists: these creatures are fascinating, with their exquisite adaptations to their habitats, and the beautifully sequenced metamorphoses of their life cycles; and the title does not exaggerate their importance. Zimmer’s final conclusion, that humans are parasites on Gaia, is sobering, especially when we consider that unlike the other, successful parasites, we have apparently not learned how to tame our voraciousness to just the right level to guarantee that our host, and therefore we, will survive in its present form. If we don’t learn how to do this, we may change our host so drastically that it can no longer support us.
     A book that should be read, but I suspect many, perhaps most, readers will come away with a conviction that parasites should be eradicated. This would be a dangerously wrong inference, as Zimmer shows very clearly that without parasites ecosystems would be very different, that there is a fine line between symbiosis and parasitism, and that very likely we would not have evolved: we appear to be a collaboration of symbionts. Evolution of ever more complex creatures may in fact be a response to parasites: every trick that a parasite develops is countered by a trick developed by its host. This attack and counter-attack system will almost inevitably result in increasing complexity.
     But not only is our complexity merely the effect of our ancestors’ attempts to evade parasites, there is some evidence that much of the “junk DNA” may be parasitic, too. It’s pretty well established that cells are symbiotic systems: the mitochondria look too much like bacteria to be anything else. Now it looks like much of our DNA may be viruses that have permanently joined us, their hosts.
     From the beginning of life, in other words, some life forms survived by attaching themselves to others and using their food, their bodily substance, and their reproductive machinery for their own interests. What’s more, this has now become the dominant mode: all animals and fungi live by eating other life forms. Even plants depend on other living things: the remains of dead animals supply essential nutrients to almost every plant. Very few plants can subsist on nothing but water and minerals. Most bacteria and all viruses need living hosts for at least part of their life cycle. Life lives by devouring life. Gaia exists by cycling matter through complex webs of interdependence, the whole system driven by energy derived from the sun and released by the breakdown of molecules deep in the oceans and the crust. Tennyson, with his nature red in tooth and claw didn’t know the half of it. *** (2003)

Oliver Sacks. The Island of the Colorblind (1997)

     Oliver Sacks. The Island of the Colorblind (1997) Sacks can write about anything and interest you. Perhaps that’s because he writes about things that interest him, and that’s a lot more than his metier of neurologist. Neurology in this book forms the focus, but it’s the digressions that bring the most delight. There’s Sack’s love of cycads, and ancient order that has proliferated and populated every habitat except the far north. His ability to give us at least an impression of what colour blindness feels like, his interest in and affection for everyone he meets and befriends, his notes on ecological and economic effects of colonialism, all these make for a book that gives great pleasure.
     The episodic structure of the narrative, and the smorgasbord of mini-essays make it easy to read and leave and return to again. Somehow, one never loses the thread: what causes total colourblindness (a genetic mutation that has become concentrated in a few Pacific islands, and appears sporadically elsewhere in the world); and what causes bodig, a kind of Parkinsonism which may be caused by long term ingestion of minute amounts of the toxins in cycad seeds, which are carefully washed, pounded, cooked, and strained to remove those toxins.
     Bodig may be an example of a genetic flaw that causes disease only with environmental trigger; the family histories of the disease indicate some genetic susceptibility is involved. The younger generation doesn’t come down with bodig, which clearly shows that some lifestyle change has occurred. But there isn’t enough data to solve the puzzle, and as the older generation dies of the disease, the data dies with them. The kind of research effort required to solve the puzzle costs a lot of money; and since there is unlikely to be any commercial need or use for the answers, the money won’t be allocated. Pity. It’s worth having answers even if they are useless. Besides, no one knows what use some information may have in future. It could well be that the biochemistry or physiology of bodig would provide clues to understanding or treating similar neurological conditions.
     A good book. **** (2003)

Adam Hall. Knight Sinister (1951)

     Adam Hall. Knight Sinister (1951) Supposedly a crime story. The style stuns with its preciosity, the characters lack interest, the puzzle fails to convince. I read this book amazed that such piffle could find a publisher. (2003)

Martin Gardner. Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? (2003)

     Martin Gardner. Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? (2003) Collection of occasional pieces for die-hard Gardner fans, drawn from The Skeptical Inquirer to The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Gardner as always writes lucidly, with an occasional, very rare, snort of derision. Most of the time, he merely reports what’s known, and lets the reader draw his own conclusions about the vagaries of human gullibility. He also reveals an odd affection for the Oz books, and has contributed to a fanzine published for such folk. This book was not worth what I paid for it, but was pleasant enough. ** (2003)

P G Wodehouse. The World of Jeeves (1931; repr. 1988)

     P G Wodehouse. The World of Jeeves (1931; repr. 1988) Thirty-four stories of the inimitable Jeeves and his efforts to get Bertie Wooster out of the scrapes his gormlessness constantly land him in. The narrator in all but one is of course Bertie himself, and he is not nearly as much of chump as he appears to be. True, he doesn’t foresee the consequences of his schemes, or confuses wishful thinking with planning, and Jeeves has to intervene to ensure the happy e., as Bertie would say. But Bertie’s narrative style, his skill at presenting the plot points in just the right order so that we see what will happen, his comments on life and its vicissitudes, all these bespeak a much more lively, if misdirected, intelligence than Aunts Agatha and Dahlia give him credit for. As Jeeves comments in the story he tells, Mr Wooster is unable to deal with the Unusual Situation; it paralyses him; it turns him into a goggle eyed rabbit.
     The lightness of touch misleads in another direction, I think. Many people believe that farce is not a serious form of literature, and by serious they mean one given to proffering great insights and moral guidance. I disagree. Farce depends for its effects on a well-defined moral world view. Without such a world view, the farcical elements would be merely puzzling, or even silly; consider the datedness of the sex farces of the 40s and 50s, for example. We laugh because the characters in farce violate the morality and etiquette of their time. Thus farce is an infallible guide to the expectations of the society in which it is set and for which it written. It provides us with a critique of both manners and morals.
     The world of Wooster did not exist in real life; it is abstracted and simplified in much the same way as the Art Deco posters of the time abstracted and simplified the visual world. But like those posters, it shows us an ideal existence that is worth striving for. Bertie, with all his faults, stands for decency, good manners, kindness, loyalty, modesty, humour, and the innocent pleasures of food, drink, and sports. Not a bad ideal, in my opinion. Besides, the stories are great fun. *** (2003)

M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (2000)

     M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (2000) Beaton is the author of the Hamish McBeth series, so I expected some wit and farce, but this is a perfunctory potboiler. The fairies of the title are mentioned a few times, but have no bearing on the plot, which involves the murder of a wannabe squire by his wife. Agatha has rented a cottage in the Norfolk village of Fryfam to get away from James Lacey, a cold fish of a man with whom she is desperately in love (or lust). Her friend Charles comes down to help her out, but she doesn’t recognise his good qualities compared to James. Nevertheless, the two of them solve the riddle, there is a brief moment of lethal danger, and everything ends more or less happily. The book is clearly part of a series whose connecting thread is Agatha’s love life, but that’s treated as superficially as the crime story. Mildly amusing, if you let your attention wander a bit. Not nearly as good as the Hamish books. ** (2003)

Stefan Zweig. The World of Yesterday (1943)

     Stefan Zweig. The World of Yesterday (1943) I picked this up at a yard sale, and have read the preface, chapter 1 and parts of chapter 2. Chapter 1 is an interesting survey of Viennese life around the turn of the century, when the “better classes” of the Hapsburg Empire (and indeed all of Europe) were enjoying the last few decades of a secure and pleasant life. That Zweig seems oblivious to the actual conditions of the working classes that supported this petit-bourgeois lifestyle (one that was also enjoyed by the aristocracy, actually) is symptomatic: he loves grand generalisations, which no doubt express his impressions accurately, but don’t tell us much about what was really happening.
     For what was happening was of course the working out of ideas that would cause revolutions and the overthrow of the old order. Europe sleepwalked into the First World War, and Zweig seems unable to accept the fact that the ideals that he espouses (centred around personal freedom) were largely irrelevant to these events. I’ve not read any of his other work – he seems to have had a small reputation as a historian of ideas and literature – and I probably won’t. I may read a few more pages of this work, but there are other books I want to read first.
     Zweig’s talent seems to consist mostly of making accepted platitudes sound profound, which was no doubt a comfort to his readers. His childhood reminiscences have some value as a record of the way life felt before the First World War, but the absence of concrete details unfortunately robs them of real interest. One has to have some prior knowledge in order to understand Zweig’s generalities, which is always a bad sign. * (2003)

James Churchward. The Lost Continent of Mu (1959)

     James Churchward. The Lost Continent of Mu (1959, but published earlier) Churchward is a crank. He believes that there was a continent in the Pacific Ocean that sank some 20,000 years ago, and he jackdaws facts from all over to support this thesis, as well as inventing all kinds of “explanations” to account for the phenomena for which he has no facts. Wonderfully silly stuff, but I fear (after a google on the title) that there are lots of people who believe it. A goldmine for writers of fantasy.
     Churchward also believes in reincarnation, the special creation of humanity (with a soul, of course, which is the only “real life” on Earth), planes of existence, and the superiority of the white race. Besides reincarnation, he also believes that all modern religions are corruptions of the original, pure religion of mankind by a scoundrelly caste of priests who want to enslave people. And so on.
     There is no clear line of argument, but much assertion of “incontrovertible” facts as conclusions. He reproduces what he claims are “glyphs” and “vignettes” from old clay tablets and stone sculptures. These, he says, are really a form of writing, and guess who knows how to read them? As I said, wonderfully silly. It belongs with the class of writings about Atlantis (which Churchward mentions in passing as a colony of Mu) and The Chariots of the Gods. I can see the attraction of such pseudo-archeology, but it's depressing to think that so many people feel the need to believe it. * (2003)

Edited 2026-05-26

Lillian O’Donnell. A Wreath for the Bride (1990)

     Lillian O’Donnell. A Wreath for the Bride (1990) A romance built around a mystery. Three women are killed shortly after or before their weddings, so their husbands are the prime suspects. But Gwenn Ramadge, going on nothing more than a vague hunch, connects the three murders and unmasks the murderer. Along the way she meets Her Man, a pleasant cop by name of Len Sackler. The style is typically romantic, with constant references to clothes and hair, and vague gestures in the direction of police procedural, supported by copious use of technical terms when they aren’t needed. The plot almost falls flat, some essential clues are deliberately withheld, and there are a few careless mistakes. I won’t be reading another by this writer. *½ (2003)

David Cecil. A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978)

     David Cecil. A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978) A charming introduction to Jane Austen’s life for anyone who has fallen under her spell. Cecil certainly has, for he finds practically no warts at all on the amiable Jane. He contends that Austen found her fulfilment as an artist, and if he feels he has to defend comedy generally and hers in particular against the charge of lack of seriousness, that merely reflects the lingering influence of Leavisite stupidity. Leavis explicitly renounced his chapel faith and upbringing, presenting himself as a modern man, but could never escape its suspicion of the imagination and its playfulness. He has had a pernicious effect on a whole generation of scholar-critics.
     The illustrations support the text, especially since many of them show watercolours and drawings made by the Austens, who seem to have been not only a very loving but also a very accomplished family. The maps date from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
     The Austen family sounds almost too good to be true; but then we have limited documents on which to base any judgments, as Cassandra destroyed a large part of her correspondence with Jane. Cecil, bless his adulatory heart, thinks the missing letters deal mostly with deeper and more personal feelings, the kind that the Austens (and their class generally) did not exhibit in public and rarely in private; but I think that Jane’s “realism” gave rise to rather harsher judgments of friends and relations than Cassandra was willing to leave as a memorial to her much-loved sister.
     Still, the portrait of Jane Austen that emerges has the ring of truth, largely because Cecil is careful to place her in her time and culture, a time and culture that he presents with admirable thoroughness heightened by an equally admirable conciseness. I enjoyed this book, and now want to read all Austen’s novels, something I have promised myself I would do in the past, but never with real conviction. Some serious printing errors mar the book a little. ***½ (2003)

Agatha Christie. Peril at End House (1932)

     Agatha Christie. Peril at End House (1932) Poirot is, for once, misled by the murderer, but in the end he sees things the right way round and Maggie Buckley’s killer is unmasked.
     Drugs, the frivolous life, elegant hotels, a long low red car, fireworks, and mysterious strangers all figure in this book, in which Christie drops heavy hints that she is about to finish off Poirot. He is supposedly retired, and Japp is near retirement. Hastings has returned from the Argentine, but is as dense and as easily misled by appearances as ever.
     A pleasant confection, even though we see the murderer from a long way off. The typical gathering of the suspects is handled better than in most of the Christies, although she as usual ignores proper police procedure throughout; of necessity, since otherwise Poirot would have nothing to do. This copy is a coverless Crime Club edition, fifth impression, from The New Popular Lending Library of Bertles Drug Store in Camrose, Alberta. I see by the date that I bought it in 1973, must have been in a yard sale. Have no idea where the cover went. **-½ (2003)

Emma Lathen, Emma Going for the Gold (1981)

     Emma Lathen, Emma Going for the Gold (1981) The setting is Lake Placid, the crime is murder. John Thatcher must investigate the problem of a half million dollar scam involving fake Eurochecks. It turns out the two crimes are related, and after an attempted second murder is barely averted, Thatcher gets to explain how the deeds were done, and how he finally solved the puzzle. Lathen is a good crime writer. “She” (it’s actually a twosome) creates characters just believable enough to draw one into their lives, the plotting is brisk and clear, and the red herrings are as carefully placed as the real clues. The addition of social comedy and light satire makes for pleasant reading. **½ (2003)