The Family

All these serious topics lately! I feel downright frivolous posting a book review.

But, maybe for normalacy’s sake, I’m going to go ahead with it.

Just finished Darwin and the Barnacle. Good book. Talks about all the classification work Darwin did before publishing Origin of the Species.

Well written, sort of a biography of Darwin and a biography of the idea at the same time. It starts with the idea, gives the cultural framework of the time, and brings Darwin into the mix at about the time he started looking at science, college years. Then follows him through the next 30, 40 years as he develops his theory and then builds a foundation for it.

You get to know him, sort of .. as a distinguished visitor to the house, but not quite a family friend. Which is fine, as you are visiting him to learn about the idea, not about his dietary preferences.

My only complaint is that it ends just as his barnacle work – the classification masterwork that he built his reputation, and personally tested his theories with – is concluded. He has decided himself, he dusts off the Origin manuscript, sets to begin editing and preparing a second draft … The End. At that point I’m rather wrapped up in the story, so it seemed like a bit of an unresolved cliffhanger.

But, then, I’ve never read any other biographies of him or the idea, so it is well and fully possible that that topic is well covered elsewhere, and the full (stated) intent of the book was to detail the barnacle work.

Well, so. There’s the last book I’ve read.

Darwin and the Barnacle at Amazon