Life an unauthorised biography
Life: an Unauthorized Biography
May 17, 2020
Like Richard Fortey, one of my own first experiences of the full biography of life on Earth was Disney’s animation of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, in the film Fantasia. This book is a more accurate and complete version of the same. At the time he wrote this, Fortey was a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, and a frequent BBC guest. I had previously read his Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind (US title), and enjoyed it enough to seek out this earlier and more foundational book.
More than the story told by paleontology, this book is also the story of paleontology, with Fortey relating his personal experiences and perspectives on various episodes in the history of the field. Chapters are arranged chronologically, starting with the inception of life on Earth four billion years ago, moving through his own specialization during and around the Ordovician Period, up to just before the onset of recorded history. As you might expect, his writing is best when working in those fascinating undersea and early terrestrial worlds of the Cambrian through Permian Periods of the Paleozoic Era. Outside that area of his passion, the origins of life are better explained and understood from the perspective of molecular biology. And after those periods, he acknowledges the intense popular fascination with dinosaurs and early humans and turns more to stories of the paleontologists themselves – and he is someone to know them.
All together it is a thorough, if light, overview. One shortcoming is that the book is now 23 years old, and state-of-the-understanding has changed in a few areas. The other is his showy style of writing. I think he must see himself as an entertaining polymath, drawing frequent references to classical literature of the British educated class. I speak the American dialect of the same language, and do not share that background. I’m aware of the references, but they are just not the touchstone for me that they must be for his audience.
In summary, I appreciated the book, but I did not find it as fascinating as his book on fossil species that have survived with only small adaptation into modern times.
More than the story told by paleontology, this book is also the story of paleontology, with Fortey relating his personal experiences and perspectives on various episodes in the history of the field. Chapters are arranged chronologically, starting with the inception of life on Earth four billion years ago, moving through his own specialization during and around the Ordovician Period, up to just before the onset of recorded history. As you might expect, his writing is best when working in those fascinating undersea and early terrestrial worlds of the Cambrian through Permian Periods of the Paleozoic Era. Outside that area of his passion, the origins of life are better explained and understood from the perspective of molecular biology. And after those periods, he acknowledges the intense popular fascination with dinosaurs and early humans and turns more to stories of the paleontologists themselves – and he is someone to know them.
All together it is a thorough, if light, overview. One shortcoming is that the book is now 23 years old, and state-of-the-understanding has changed in a few areas. The other is his showy style of writing. I think he must see himself as an entertaining polymath, drawing frequent references to classical literature of the British educated class. I speak the American dialect of the same language, and do not share that background. I’m aware of the references, but they are just not the touchstone for me that they must be for his audience.
In summary, I appreciated the book, but I did not find it as fascinating as his book on fossil species that have survived with only small adaptation into modern times.
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